Last Thursday, the man who has referred to the Black community off and on as “The Blacks,” stripped away the word that gets a certain segment of White people as pressed as a silk tie: Black. February 2017 will now be known as “National African-American History Month,” thanks to President Donald Trump.
No one asked for this. There was no petition, and it wasn’t one of the many signs held at marches around the nation since the inauguration.
Trump’s decision to change the name was completely unnecessary but somehow became the first issue speaking directly to Black Americans that #45 wanted to tackle. Why? Well, as innocuous as it may seem, it gave a famously egotistical businessman a chance to throw his weight around, while simultaneously reminding Black people that a he’s in charge. It’s the equivalent of getting a new boss who does passive aggressive shit to remind you of your “place” at the lower rung.
However, a deeper look into Trump’s proclamation reeks of his anti-immigrant stance and highlights his use of the “divide and conquer” method to govern the Black community. In 2015, The Pew Research Center found that a record 3.8 million foreign-born Black people — mainly from Africa and the Caribbean — were now living in the United States. It’s believed that 16.5 percent of the U.S. Black population will be foreign-born by 2060.
Trump’s new proclamation — again, something that no one was clamoring for — plays like a blatant attempt to drive a bigger wedge between African-Americans and foreign-born blacks. Though it’s rarely spoken of outside of the community, there already lies a disconnect between the different nationalities, cultures, ethnicities. This is more prevalent in melting pot U.S. cities like New York and Miami, where African-Americans tend to look down on black immigrants while black immigrants — many of whom migrate to the United States for a better life — view African-Americans as “lazy” and “entitled.”
It really shouldn’t matter because Black History Month ought to celebrate the achievements and accomplishments of Black people. Period. Steve Biko was South African. Marcus Garvey was Jamaican. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is Liberian. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is Nigerian. Toussaint Louverture was Haitian. Black History also isn’t just about Black leaders, scientists, writers, etc, either. February also means celebrating Black entertainers like Hattie McDaniels, Doug Williams, Grace Jones, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Opraaaaaah!
On another level, the change also speaks to the fear that a particular segment of America has of Blackness.
Black love. Black power. Black pride. Black Lives Matter. In the context of the Black experience, the word “Black” is loaded and mega-powerful. So powerful that’s it’s often been construed as aggressive. If this seems like a stretch to you, you’re probably not in the black community — which has seen its men, women, and children beaten and murdered simply because of this irrational fear of Black existence.
In 1968, Olympic track and field athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists in the air in the now iconic imagery of the Black Power salute. Despite winning both a gold and bronze medal for the United States, the men weren’t celebrated when they arrived home from the Summer Olympics. Instead, they were demonized by the media — with The New York Times calling the peaceful protest of a raised fist “angrier, nastier and uglier.” Carlos and Smith were suspended from the national team as a result of their protest. White people were also so pissed that the men dared to, as Carlos stated in an HBO documentary, “bring attention to the inequality in our country,” that they sent the Olympians death threats.
This happened in November 1968, just a few months after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated by escaped prisoner — and possible patsy — James Earl Ray. It was a time when Black people were being hosed down, brutally beaten and killed by police for marching for equality.
Make no mistake: Black people are still being punished. The means are just different. When one of the most influential women on Earth, Oprah, endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008, it was a huge deal. The mogul had “betrayed” her die-hard fanbase by passing over Hillary Clinton. Ratings for O’s daytime talk show began to dip as fans scolded her for being a “traitor.”
“I cannot believe that women all over this country are not up in arms over Oprah’s backing of Obama,” wrote austaz68 on Oprah.com, in a message thread titled “Oprah is a Traitor!!!” “For the first time in history we actually have a host at putting a woman in the white house and Oprah backs the black MAN. She’s choosing her race over her gender – hypocrisy at it’s finest!! Oprah – you should be ashamed of yourself!!!!!”
The mogul transitioned from talk show host to network owner, launching the Oprah Winfrey Network three years after President Obama’s win. At the outset, OWN struggled at launch and failed to capture Oprah’s old audience. It was only able to flourish and become a success when the network began airing programs targeted at Black women.
When Beyonce and her crew of afro-sporting bad ass ladies performed at the 2015 Super Bowl Halftime show, the entertainer was labeled anti-police for raising her fist in the air and paying homage to the Black Panthers — an organization founded in 1960 to protect Black people from police brutality. There were plenty of real-live 2015 White people who couldn’t stand seeing a fierce and fearless Black woman use the Super Bowl to sing about loving her Black features while also condemning police brutality against her community.
Blue Lives Matter proposed a boycott and advised police officers to refuse to provide security for the singer’s Formation tour. Former New York City mayor and now Trump cyber security advisor Rudy Giuliani called Beyonce’s performance “offensive” for referring to Black Lives Matter, a phrase coined when George Zimmerman walked away scot-free for murdering unarmed Black teenager Trayvon Martin.
Every February, there are people foaming at the mouth about Black History Month being racist, wondering why there isn’t a White History Month, and insisting that we shouldn’t have 28 days to celebrate Black achievements. These are the sorts of people who can tell us Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 but have no idea who Frederick Douglass is. That Buzz Aldrin went to the moon, but know nothing about Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson. Can tell us all about Hillary Clinton but are clueless on Shirley Chisholm.
So often, it seems that Black Existence is frightening. Black Joy is offensive. Black Excellence is intolerable. Nothing proves those facts better than Donald Trump winning the presidential election. On the night of Trump’s historic win, when all the political pundits refused to acknowledge the driving force behind his victory, CNN’s Van Jones spoke out.
We’ve talked about everything but race tonight. We’ve talked about income, we’ve talked about class, we’ve talked about region, we haven’t talked about race. This was a whitelash. This was a whitelash against a changing country, it was a whitelash against a black president, in part. And that’s the part where the pain comes.
And Donald Trump has a responsibility tonight to come out and reassure people that he is going to be the president of all the people who he insulted, and offended, and brushed aside. Yeah, when you say you want to take your country back, you’ve got a lot of people who feel we’re not represented well either. But we don’t want to feel that someone’s been elected by throwing away some of us to appeal more deeply to others. So this is a deeply painful moment tonight; I know it’s not just about race. There’s more going on than that, but race is here too, we got to talk about this.
Black people are aware of what a Trump presidency means and have been aware since that devastating night last November. It’s no surprise that hate crimes done in the name of Trump have reportedly increased. The KKK had a scheduled rally in North Carolina planned last December to celebrate Trump’s victory but it was canceled when hundreds of protesters marched and said, “Nah.” Instead, a caravan of 30 cars flying Confederate, KKK and Donald Trump flags rode through the city, like a bunch of cowards.
Schools across the country also reported an uptick in racially charged incidents — with stories of white students calling Black classmates “cotton pickers” and other slurs in celebration of Trump’s win. It is not a coincidence that the Confederate Flag is once again flying high in South Carolina.
Still, despite Trump’s effort to appease his rabid base by eliminating the very word that sparks fear and anger in their hearts, Black History Month will remain Black History Month. Black Excellence will continue to be highlighted, and Black Pride will still be showcased and celebrated. We have been told for centuries that every single thing about us was wrong, from the afro-hair on our heads to the soles of our feet.
The days of being apologetic for our existence are behind us. We will celebrate our achievements, we will celebrate our Black features that make White people uncomfortable. Yes, we are Black, and yes we are proud of our Blackness. Deal with it or don’t. It really doesn’t matter because we know, oh to well, how to remain unbothered by schemes meant to steal our Black Joy.
