We Must Learn Our History

The term, “history repeats itself” has held true throughout the years; however, the real question is whether it “repeats itself” or if it is an ongoing issue. Jim Crow laws, segregation, and civil rights are all a part of the never-ending cycle that has been passed on generation, by generation. After all, this can be seen by the examples of Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP, the Groveland Boys, modern-day struggles, and firsthand experiences. After all, the struggles of finding equality in our society, no matter how much it seems like we “get along” with another race, or classification on people, doesn’t mean that there is an underlining of respect.

African Americans have endured many trials and tribulations over the centuries. Our people have suffered from war, violence, and anguish simply because of the color of our skin. Our history has been so blatantly missing from textbooks and the K-12th grade educational atmosphere. Our educational system continues to neglect the history of our African American ancestors and fail to provide them with the educational resources to inform them of our past and allow them to learn about the true origins of our culture. We have made many significant contributions to the world but those have also been highly ignored as well.

This change in racism is why both authors stress the need to understand the very specific brand of American racism as it changes throughout time. Looking backwards and forwards in time proves to be an integral method of displaying the concerns of history as it pertains to the future.

Have you ever been discriminated due to your race? Well, the article, “A talk to teachers,” written by James Baldwin (1993), addresses the idea on how the education system is lacking to educate children about black history, by directing to the society and past historical views. In brief, the author indicates that the world is a dangerous place in time, processing in revolutionary situations. The world is seen as bad faith and full of cruelty which has to be resolved within decades of human support. Human support involves the action of changing the society to the point that everyone has equal freedom (no matter what race or ethnicity). Black people were considered to be “black slaves” to white people and have lack of success/opportunities due

Over the course of this semester, I was introduced to many people, ideas, writings, and discussions that sparked my interest and enlightened me on African American history. However, I feel like this was just the beginning of my journey of learning the history of my people, as there is still so much out there to be brought to the surface. Prior to taking this course, I was always ignorant on the topic of African American history and simply made the connection to slavery. Additionally, I was unaware of other black activist, movements, and struggles that I had the chance to witness for the first time in this class. I came to a realization of how deprived of this information I was, because other historic events have been deemed more important. A quote that stuck with me throughout the course that was made by Arthur Schomburg was, “... African history and negro history, are the missing pages of world history”.

Americas history is what defines us and who we are as a country. We were built on hard work, sacrifice, wanting to be free and independent to be who we want to. Now a-days, we seem to have fallen away from this. Everything is given to us so easily on our computer and through technology that we have no need to work hard anymore. This is the downfall in humanity because as we keep going, life will continue to get easier and we won’t want to do anything. History is our hope so that we can learn from what we did in our past and how things were done then.For starters, we can see what mistakes we did and make sure we don’t do them again. If we continue to the same thing over and over again, there’s no way for our society to improve from this. Our

In today’s society, many have come to believe what they have been instructed over the years, whether it is fiction of facts. Living in a world, where only certain race can be seen as superior to others. Schomburg was a pioneer beyond his times. In the article “The Negro Digs up His Past”. The beginning of this essay revealed a powerful statement, “The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future” (Arthur Schomburg). It is very clear, Schomburg realized the importance of being knowledgeable on your true history. “History must restore what slavery took away, for it is the social damage of slavery that the present generations must repair and offset”. Therefore, I acquiesce with such statement, it is up to the present generation to fight, and to aspire on restoring what was taken away. As we acquired more intelligence, today’s generation must continue on indoctrinating one another on our true history. However, let’s not forget, slavery was not the onset of the Negro history; when in fact, slavery interrupted the Negro history. Meanwhile, long ago, before slavery, Africans ruled the world, built nations, mastering in architectural ideas, philosophies, etc. Nonetheless, it is crucial for the Negro to dig up his past, for from it; today’s Africans shall conceive their true potential, and their ancestor’s greatest achievements. Just as Schomburg found his motivation after being told “Negroes has no history. On the other hand, he then stated “The Negro thinking

“Racism still occupies the throne of our nation,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pronounced just before his assassination. Almost fifty years later, we are still faced with the same unchanged threat that makes the words of Dr. King true. As individuals, communities, and a proud nation we have made an everlasting fingerprint for the children of our future, yet we lack the strength of acknowledgment to alter the course of racial discrimination and conquer prejudice. Has the formation of structural discrimination rooted itself too deeply into our subconscious that hope for rehabilitation seems unattainable? As a nation, we voted a man with a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya as the first multiracial President of the United States. Racism has not been eradicated because of the racial background of President Barrack Obama and we have not accomplished victory because of his African decent because prejudice has been too deeply fixed within our society. Social circumstance and the insinuation of race continue to change over time, precisely because race has become a social construct that serves political ends. The prior and present leaders of our nation organize, generate, and endorse the laws and public policy that ensure racism continues to maintain itself against people of color. Our historically racist foundation, the rising effects of structural discrimination, and the view of modernized racism all actively participate in shaping our structural

Many famous individuals of color in our history have hoped to one day live in a nation without the feeling of a segregation between different ethnicities. Unfortunately, these hopes have still not come to fruition in our society today. The United States is still rocked by the idea that one pigment of color is superior to another. This discrimination is caused by a lack of education in our generation and an aversion to difference that has been passed down from our ancestors. Rick Wormeli in “Let’s Talk About Racism in Schools” argues “The violence among U.S. residents of different colors, cultures, religions, and political groups has heated to new levels. Social media may have exacerbated the divisive rhetoric and fanned the flames of hatred more than in past decades, but the intense distrust and contempt, and the inability to resolve these feelings in a civil manner, didn’t start with social media. They are the new normal for many.” (citation). The movie Crash, accurately depicts these problems that we have seen with racism in our country for the past hundred years and more abundantly today. In this essay, I will be discussing how the movie crash helps reveal the fact that racism is multicultural, how racism affects the crime rates in our younger generations, and how the nation can begin to heal from racism.

The only time some African Americans hear about African American history is inside school, and usually the African American race are not the ones being adulated. Learning about African American history is important because a lot of the issues we faced in the past are repeating. In the past, black people could not drink from the same fountain, use the same bathroom, or sit in the same seats. For many years, black people were not worthy of the lifestyle that was offered to others. They were considered less than human and so they were involved in intense labor and experienced sexual racism. Some people use the Pathological Approach to explain these hardships and how these issues could have contributed to instability and disruption in African American families. The SWAAG program will educate our males about the past. We will enhance their knowledge by teaching them quotes written and said by African Americans, titles of books written by African Americans, and the biographies of

Racism and race are topics that regularly occupy our social media and news feeds. Even though, race is a social and abstract concept, it affects a wide variety of individuals in profound ways. After viewing the films on the Greensboro Massacre, my heart felt full of sorrow and dismay. A quote by former president Lyndon B. Johnson recurred through my mind “Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact”. Racism and race are tightly intertwined concepts, rooted in misconceptions regarding biology and genetic factors. The United States is a color-coded society; moreover, our society prefers to classify individuals and put people into a box that gives them a label. Thus, the labels that are enforced upon us assist in reinforcing racism and racist ideologies. Due to all aspects of American life being shaped to some degree by race, racism will always exist. Racism will not end until we acknowledge ethnic and racial identities, dismantle the

In this paper, I will be outlining the costs and benefits of social and technological fixes, and then I will be assessing the use of social and technological fixes of air pollution through the use of automobiles.

Society cannot leave out part of what made our country the way it is today, for that would be unacceptable. Embracing what has happened in the past since it is necessary. It is critical for our country’s success in the long

The population of the United States of America has been one of mixed race since its very beginning. Boatload upon boatload of enslaved Africans provided a labor force which would fuel the American South’s economy for many years, until national abolition and the subsequent civil rights movement created a primarily biracial population of blacks and whites. The US has come a long way since those days, and today every child born into the US is taught from an early age the evils of racism and the shameful actions committed by slave-owning US citizens in the past. From textbooks to televisions, the modern USA seemingly works tirelessly to teach its population that discrimination by race is wrong and that all races are equal. This has led to a great national complacence among whites, and a widespread belief that the US has mostly eradicated racial prejudices. But it is not so, and despite a population almost entirely composed of people who would not consider themselves racists, racism still pervades in the US. In many cases modern racism occurs at the hands of whites who almost absolutely are completely unaware of their discriminatory actions. In the films “Frozen River” and “The Visitor” racism was touched on repeatedly and played an evident part in the messages they were trying to portray.

Our nation’s history plays an important role in American society, it sets forth the foundation on which our morals and values are based on as Americans. If we truly are one united nation under God, and our morals and values are based on what history tells us, why is it then that there is so much disparity among the American people. One reason is that our history textbooks and what we are taught by educational leaders only emphasize American Exceptionalism. The history of our nation is not fully disclosed, it omits the nasty and ugly parts. It is time that the U.S. let their skeletons out of the closet, the truth needs to be told no matter how ugly or nasty it is. The period in history known as the Nadir of Race relations, 1890 through the1960’s between whites and blacks is a prime example of American Exceptionalism.