BlackMan Time

If you’re based in the UK and you haven’t yet noticed this month is designated Black History Month. It is a time for observation of all things Black, particularly celebrating the inglorious history, progress and development of black culture, whatever that really means.

There are some who would much rather abolish the commemoration of this event altogether. They argue using the term ‘Black’ or referring to people by their skin colour is either defamatory or ghettoise people of African descent.

Some use alternative adjectives to describe British-based black people. These include African, Afrikan, Black British, African British, Black Briton, Afro Saxon, Afro Caribbean, Black Caribbean and so forth.

I have heard of attempts to change the name of the celebration from Black History Month to Cultural Heritage Month to accommodate Asian, Chinese, Jewish and other cultures. This overlooks the fact that these other cultures already have their own designated celebrations. From this I suspect they simply want to totally eradicate the name.

I even hear some Asians (from India, Pakistan, etc.) have started calling themselves ‘black’ in order to get access to local authority and community grants to launch Black History projects. But are Asian people black? Were they (or their ancestors) the ones stolen from the African mainland and brought to the Caribbean? The answer is, of course, no.

There is always someone not comfortable with people of African descent celebrating what is called Black History Month so they seek to benefit from it or to diminish and/or descredit its importance if they cannot profiteer from it.

Left up to them they would erase any memory of the Black Holocaust that is the African transhipment slavery; that we should somehow ‘move along’ and forget about Western involvement in the trading and trafficking of human cargo that happened 400 years ago. At worst they want to push the idea that Black people are now so assimilated into British society that any links or ties to Africa is artificial, a fantasy or misguided.

The reality is whether we have a designated Black History Month celebration or not Black people in the UK are a testament that our legacy is filled with an unpleasant chapter of history that no amount of white washing can eradicate.

Just how much more white washing can an African take before he is actually assimilated?