Slavery is Not a Word for Children

The White Language Confining Black History Month

This is one of the top three saddest pictures my soul has borne. He’s certainly not even 6 or 8 yet, and this picture is from the 20th century. It’s heartbreaking to look at. But now tell him while looking at his face right now that he shouldn’t complain, because “slavery is over.” Did you do it? Did it feel like you were telling him the truth? [Wiki picture or library of congress, I forget which decade it came from]

For Black History Month, I just wanted to drop a note on just a brief observation on the white labelling and framing of black American history. Sometimes after years of study it often seems to me at time that white people are supposed to look and choose, if forced to, on “heroes” of black history like Martin Luther King, Jr., or Fredrick Douglass. Maybe they are presented with a “new” overlooked black American who struggle to overcome (white oppression). So, I think instead, to see what is inside the parathesis better (white oppression) I’m choosing nameless black children to try to see this framework I feel this month is trapped in. These are the many forgotten and not discussed children, picking cotton from 1820-ish to 1960-ish.

It’s not the just the “heroes”, or champions of democracy fighting for civil rights that shape history or inspire pride, it’s the shaping and confining conditions they broke out of. The first this or the first that (black woman in space, inventor of peanut butter, black surveyor of the nation’s capital) is great to hear about I’ll personally read those stories this month. But becoming the first means there’s some key reasons this person keeps breaking out of the cage, that confinement, that white made mental box.