My Thoughts On Black History Month

If you came here, you’re probably curious, and I appreciate that curiosity. I’m most likely not some stranger whose internet presence you stumbled upon. You know me as a human who loves to have fun and joke around but also who loves to push you to work hard (to the point where you’re cussing me out, and stairs become your greatest obstacle). 

You also may know that, as a person, I keep a lot of my life private. As people get to know me better, I start to let them in. There’s a barrier that is up that I will only begin to let down once I understand that there is mutual respect. If I care enough about you to share something, then I hope you will care enough about me to listen and respect me.

Don’t worry, I talk about this in therapy.

This is a huge reason why I started this newsletter. I was hoping to reach people in a format that goes into depth and allows for nuance. I am able to share things from my life or lessons I’ve learned with less chance of misconception and misinterpretation. 

I have a different experience with life than you do. Neither of us has the same experience as the next person. We cannot replicate our lives; we do not experience the same things. One could look at a sunrise and find it the most beautiful and hopeful thing, another could see it as a reminder that they are spending another day trapped in a place they do not want to be in. A third person might have never even seen a sunrise or have any idea of what they are missing. 

This is why I wanted to share my thoughts on Black History Month. I wanted to share how I view this “sunrise.”

As a child, I was told to work harder because others would be looking for any angle to discredit me, “never give them a reason to say you aren’t good enough.”

While visiting my family in the South, I was playing with my cousins in an open field when we were shot at by a grown man. 

My grandmother raised hell when my step-father (a White man) originally started dating my mother. Nana had seen the troubles that came with interracial couples, and she did not want that for her daughter. This wasn’t just in the South. When I was older, we returned home to NYC after a trip with our building’s super (a close friend of my dad’s) and his family, only to have the vacation end on a sour note as the super made a comment about how my parents’ mixed marriage wasn’t okay.

Even just recently, if you follow me on Instagram, you may have caught my stories, a reaction to a situation I experienced while visiting the bar at my hotel in California. As I sat down next to a guy, he said, 

“I didn’t know they let y’all sit with us. You know that’s about to change.” 

My reaction?

“Yes, they let handsome men sit with y’all. I appreciate you finding me attractive. It sucks you haven’t built a life yet where you can escape me.” 

Inside, I was boiling. It didn’t matter the years of hard work and sacrifice I’d put in to get to that specific hotel for that specific weekend. It didn’t matter the books I’d read, the lessons I’d learned. Who I was as a person certainly had no bearing in this situation.

All that mattered at that moment was my appearance and the judgment that came because of that.

But that was the only time I allowed it to let it get to me. 

Of course, my comment pissed the guy off, and you could tell he was getting heated. Would he hit me? While I was scoping out a way out if needed, another man on the other side of the bar chimed in to tell the first guy to leave. 

And that was it. A moment of negativity had come and gone. But what struck me was that it had been years since someone had said something openly discriminatory like that, straight to my face. 

There have always been well-intentioned comments that are more like back-handed compliments. 

For many audiences, I am considered “a safe Black man” because I am palatable. I have been told I don’t dress, act, or talk “Black.” While sometimes these comments are made to me as a compliment, it comes off to me as an insult. There are many stereotypes that people of color face, one being that they are not intelligent when they act or speak a certain way. 

When I’m told that someone doesn’t associate me with being “Black,” I feel more frustrated than anything. Frustration because it shows that the person hasn’t looked outside of one line of thought, typically a stereotype. That they assumed I would be dumb or wouldn’t speak clearly. That I fit in a very specific box. Frustration that there is no willingness to understand the unique identity of a person. Frustration that this feels like a path away from love. 

I realize now the magnitude of the relationship my father had with my brother, sister, and me. He never made me feel like our family, a white man with three Black kids, wasn’t meant to be and that it was abnormal. He never made me feel unloved. Immensely protective of us, if we ever had a situation where our family garnered looks or comments afterward, he’d remind us that

“Sometimes people can only see color, but that’s not what actual love is.”

If you did the February Challenge, then you KNOW what love is. You know the feeling, you know the connection you feel to others, you know the butterfly effect it can have. You know that it comes from a feeling of openness and being ready to connect with others. 

There is a reason I chose this challenge for this month: because I wanted you to see how easy it could be to showcase love in a variety of ways to a variety of people, groups, and things. No two instances are the same. No two interactions are the same. You don’t show love the same way to different people, no matter how similar they are.

I used to feel insulted by just having one month dedicated to celebrating Black history. Like oh, you give us the shortest month during the worst time of the year, and all we get for this is some branded content from companies? Of course, there was more strategy behind that. 

According to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Black History Month was originally created by Dr. Carter G. Woodson as “Negro History Week” coinciding with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12) and Frederick Douglass (Feb. 14) as the Black community already celebrated President Lincoln. As there were already celebrations, Dr. Woodson felt that it was easier to ask the community to spread their study of Black history as opposed to creating something new, hopefully ensuring its success.

Now, I’m sure some of you might be thinking, “But Adrian, we can’t possibly have a full month for every type of culture, every type of person. That’s impossible to keep up with. It’s also not fair that not everyone gets the same time.”

You’re absolutely right; it’s not possible to keep up with. But what is possible is for us to look for ways to integrate learning, understanding, and openness into our lives. A celebratory period is just a start for what we can do. We cannot get rid of Black History Month until we don’t need a month, an initiative, or a gotcha to take that initiative on our own to integrate different types of people into our lives, to understand we are all unique but are more similar than we realize, and to not base everything on something we’re told.

You wouldn’t focus on training one specific muscle group, why would you refrain from trying to work and strengthen other muscle groups? If you only focus on one area, there is a massive imbalance that leads to problems.

My experience as a Black man is extremely different from every other Black man out there. 

I view Black History Month as a springboard to greater learning. These months, weeks, and days kick-start interest. While learning about Black history, you’re going to learn about other cultures and people. It’s the same way that you can’t learn about American History without discussing Black history, Women’s history, Indigenous American history, and many, many, many other groups of people. Our histories and experiences intertwine.

What is so wrong with trying to understand a fellow human? How will you be a worse person because you now understand part of the unique makeup of the people you interact with?

I’m sure all of you have a situation like the one I had in California, where someone has judged you by grouping you into a category based on an assumption. It could be on purpose or as a comment meant to be harmless. It sucks, doesn’t it? You feel disconnected from that person because they didn’t take the time to care about you. They knew better about you and didn’t need to waste time with context.

But when you lead with love, you’re in a space where you want things to work. Love provides harmony. There is space for forgiving, for learning, for correcting mistakes, for brushing things off, for teaching, for so much more. You know exactly what that means to you and how it shows up. For me, love is a safe space where anything is possible, and anything can happen. 

So my thoughts on Black History Month?

Until we can look at each other and not fall prey to assumptions, until we integrate each other’s history into our daily lives, and until people aren’t restricted from spaces due to reasons that have no bearing and representation mirrors the population, we need Black History Month. Until love is at the basis of every interaction, we need Black History Month.

Thank you for taking time to read this. I appreciate you clicked and made it all the way to the end. I’m so lucky that you’ve joined me on this journey. ❤️