"Black History Month" is, IMO, completely counterproductive in Canada. We didn't import quite as many Africans as the Americans did and subsequently most people here who could reasonably be described as "black" are either carribean or very recently arrived in Canada, and feel little kinship with the history related by "black history month".
My brother tells us that any brown kid in his school gets press-ganged for activities during "black history month" which seems to me to be just another kind of racism (I mean really, there's no shared history, just colour.) Most black canadian artists interviewed by the papers for the month politely point out that these are not their stories, but they have plenty to tell if you're interested.
If we're going to declare months to make sure the marginalized are recognised, maybe it would work better if we did so by issue rather than by colour or culture? Slavery history month, genocide history month, refugee history month, &c? Get to the point, rather than assume there's a connection between culture, colour and history?
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zvi
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-19 12:19 am (UTC)My brother tells us that any brown kid in his school gets press-ganged for activities during "black history month" which seems to me to be just another kind of racism (I mean really, there's no shared history, just colour.) Most black canadian artists interviewed by the papers for the month politely point out that these are not their stories, but they have plenty to tell if you're interested.
If we're going to declare months to make sure the marginalized are recognised, maybe it would work better if we did so by issue rather than by colour or culture? Slavery history month, genocide history month, refugee history month, &c? Get to the point, rather than assume there's a connection between culture, colour and history?