Earlier this year, I found myself feeling bad for white people. It was February, and of course, that’s the one whole month that Black people get to celebrate our achievements, our history, and our accomplishments. Indigenous people get an entire month too: November. Hispanic people also get a full thirty days to celebrate their heritage, from Sept. 15-Oct. 15. But white people? Where is the month set aside for white folks to celebrate their heritage and history? I mean ok, sure, students in the public school system in the U.S. are taught about white explorers, white chemists, white mathematicians, white playwrights, white colonists, white artists, white politicians, white physicists, white cosmonauts, white inventors, and more (throughout the entire year), but where is the one month for honoring the history of white people in the United States? There is no month set aside for that! Not wanting white folks to feel like their history wasn’t being honored, I dug around and came up with a list of subjects that might be taught in a White History Month (since I knew that public schools already teach about the achievements, exploits, and inventions of white folks, I thought it would be a good idea to find lesser known historical examples that deserve recognition). As I completed it, I recognized that it still really wasn’t fair to white people. After all, Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Native American Heritage Month have been recognized for 40 years, 28 years, and 26 years respectively. Thinking it might be a good idea to double up on White History Month to try and make up for the decades white folks have been deprived of a month set aside just for them, I decided to dig around for more examples of white history. And thus we have White History Month part 2 (I even gave white folks a specific month all their own):
- 1935 Social Security Act
- Healthcare racism
- Richard Baumhammers
- Ota Benga
- X–Ray Weapon
- Acid in swimming pools
- Homan square
- Manifest Destiny
- Zoot Suit Riots
- Larry Wayne Shoemake
- Williams Brothers
- 1924 Immigration Act
- 2014 SCOTUS ruling on Voting Rights Act
- Benjamin Nathaniel Smith
- Komagata Maru Incident
- G.I. Bill
- Sean Michael Gillespie
- Anti-Chinese hysteria
- Dog whistle politics
- Wounded Knee Massacre
- Knights of the Forest
- Grandfather Clauses
- Model Minority
- MLK, Jr. assassination
- The Last Plantation
- Alien Land Laws
- 1907 Bellingham Riots
- Poll Taxes
- 1906 Atlanta Race Riots
- Interstate highway system racism
- Black Kids as gator bait
For those folks brimming with resentment over the lack of a White History Month, I hope this helps soothe your anger. If not, let me know, and I’ll do my best to come up with 31 more examples of white history worth acknowledging.
I adore all of this so freakin’ much.
Well, there is apparently now a Confederate History Month – I suppose that counts?
No love for the Trail of Tears? The Civil War and the Confederacy as a concept? The trans-Atlantic slave trade? Any number of cultural and/or literal genocides of the Amerind population. The Texas war of “independence” which is, as far as I know, the only actual example of immigrants coming in and taking over. It was also about slavery, incidentally, much like the US civil war. The Mexican-American war. The deportation of US born citizens of Mexican ancestry in the 1920s. Then there’s recent history. Sandra Bland. Ferguson. Really, there are just too many choices.
Residential schools. How did I forget them?
Dianne:
You must have missed my first White History Month.
So I did. Not to mention many, many worthy events that you included in that month. My apologies.
You could solely do a month of white empires (European and US) invasions of predominantly non-white nations and continents (the farcical and fallacious claim that “they can’t govern themselves”) and not have enough days for them all.
Maybe a whole calendar year is what’s needed: one month each of colonialism, slavery (both physical and financial), anti-democracy policies and invasions, religious oppression, cultural imperialism, economic bullying and terrorism, crimes against humanity, environmental poisoning (from Bhopal to Mexico to the Antarctic), etc. It wouldn’t be hard to find enough stuff. The problem would be sorting and deciding what to leave out.