We Need to Get Rid of Black History Month
Kendrick Lamar is so cool! He did the Red/White/Blue theme at the sportsball show
“I dont want Black History month. I don't want White History Month. I dont want Women, Hispanic, or Asian history month. This is American history. American history is Black history” — Morgan Freeman
I’m late! Very late. Sorry. I left a note at the bottom. Anyway, let’s talk about why February is one of the worst times to be Black in America.
We get 28 days.
The shortest month of the year. That’s all Black people are worth, huh?
When Dr. Carter G. Woodson created Negro History Week in 1926, he envisioned a world where such designations would one day be obsolete — he didn’t think 100 years later we’d still be treating Blacks like we’re any different. Like we’re still segregated negro outcasts from the 20th century.
That’s literally how I feel during this month, like a “negro.”
Funny that Google and Apple are dropping Black History Month… even if their reasons are highly suspect:
New administration accuses Google to be a monopoly & split them up
Google drops Pride Month and Black History Month out of the calendar
Changes Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America in Google Maps
LMFAO
Black History Month is a relic and proof we’re behind the times.
Can and should we drop this annual exercise?
Kendrick Lamar Shows Why Black Americans Are Still Dead Last
Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly isn’t just an album; it’s a masterpiece.
When it dropped, I was 18 and told everyone on my college campus it was his magnum opus. Most didn’t see it, clinging to his radio hits from Good Kid, Maad City, but nothing from that catalog touches the depth, complexity, or soul of To Pimp a Butterfly.
It unpacks why Black communities rank at the bottom of every socioeconomic measure, why those struggles are distinct, and how that pain mirrors a butterfly stuck in its cocoon—hence “pimping a butterfly.”
That Superbowl performance wasn’t that. Pure garbage.
It symbolized how, half a century after Negro Week, progress for Black communities unraveled with the cultural wave of hip-hop.
100% serious question: has there ever been another large ethnic group that has so fully accepted crime as one of their major cultural pillars as African-Americans have? Crip walking, gang violence, this perennial antagonistic relationship against America. Is the CIA behind this!? Answer me! Even gypsies get offended if you assume they're part of some criminal organization, but Black Americans publicly represent that they are gang affiliated in mass media.
I can't think of another group like that in all of recorded history.
Am I supposed to be proud of that? That some of the wealthiest and most powerful Black Americans have no issue promoting a negative destructive culture, even if Kendrick is supposed to be one of the “good” ones.
Maybe some of you will think I’m a prude. Not with it. I don’t care. What I think is that Black people are stuck in the 90s culturally.
A SB performance like that after Rodney King or Million Man March would have legitimately shaken me to the core.
Today, it’s just retreading what conscious hip-hop artists of that time have already done, like A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, and Public Enemy.
Hip-hop is dead! Or can someone please kill it?
I grew up on hip-hop, but today, in 2025, it is fundamentally a culture of anti-intellectualism and anti-society building. It’s not even interesting anymore! This is why, musically speaking, I respect Kanye West for trying to push the boundaries of what the genre could be. Or, what Black people should think about (outside of being full-blown Nazis lol)
What if Kendrick rapped about this instead:
The Israel genocide of Palestinian people and flown several Palestinian flags (ironic that someone ran on the field with one)
Why Blacks and Hispanics are aborting babies at higher rates than any other races in America
Why do Black people not own their own record labels (& even if they do must partner outside to distribute them)
What Kendrick raps about now gives the illusion of bravery.
I have a Lovecraftian cosmic fear that when I’m 50 years old (27 now) the black community will be complaining and rapping about the same things they are now, that they were in the 90s. I’d love to be wrong.
Teach Everything as American History
I’m sure I’m going to lose a lot of subscribers from this one.
But Black History Month is detrimental to both Black and White people. Every February kids learn the same Black history as they learned last year.
It’s the same half-a-dozen people:
Martin Luther King Jr.
Rosa Parks
Jackie Robinson
Harriet Tubman
George Washington Carver
You only hear about “the good ones.”
You don’t hear about Malcolm X, who once said “I went to Africa in 1959 and didn’t see any jungle or mud huts — and I didn’t see them until I got back to Harlem in New York City.”
Or Black FBI agent Julia Brown who believed many of MLK’s teachings didn’t help Black people become self-sufficient, or Marcus Garvey, Angela Davis, Patrice Lumumba, or even any of the black-conscious 90s hip-hop artists like Ice Cube or De La Soul.
Black History Month isn’t education. It’s propaganda.
You can hate Kanye West all you want, but he made a good point saying it pisses him off when kids search “Black Panther” and they get a product owned by a White super company.
We obsess over Wakanda, a fictionalized country to sell toys.
It’s all so Orwellian in a strange way.
Cancel Black History Month
Black History Month is proof there still is a racism problem in America.
But not in the way you’d expect.
The racism problem is in the education, epistemology, and self-congratulating philosophy exhibited by every school, Silicon Valley tech company, media outlet, coffee shop, and liberal dilettante.
Why limit Black history to a month?
Why, when we explore the past, it’s through the lens of 90s-fueled Black hatred, which was more legitimate then, but is long passé.
Even if you think someone like George Floyd didn’t die from the fentanyl in his system and from police officer Dereck Chauvin it’s not even comparable to the Rodney King case. Another example of this is Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died after a violent encounter with five Black police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2023. This isn’t a White vs. Black issue.
We have Black people who win Oscars like Denzel Washington, who write best-selling books like Isabel Wilkerson and John McWhorter, who dominate the entertainment world like Dave Chappelle.
We should celebrate black success 365 days a year. Both present and historic.
As American linguist John McWhorter said of Black History Month:
“All of this is why a month dedicated to Black history now feels like a month dedicated to seatbelts. Both are now part of the fabric of American life, with Black history almost as insistent upon any wakeful person’s attention as the pinging sound in a car when you don’t buckle up.”
Read Black history, watch Black films, and listen to Black music.
The question is not whether Black history matters — clearly, it does. The real inquiry: why do Americans need incessant reminders of this fact?
I’m late again!! So, so late. Sorry. I’ll be posting a finance/crypto roundup every Friday covering some of the most important stories I wrote from the week. First one coming in two days. Until then.
I don't know what to say except I love how you write what you say.
I'm white, old, and female. After doing a deep dive into the halftime, what people were saying, learning about the subliminal messages, and reading a little bit of history all I can say is that it's a culture thing that I'm not a participant, which makes me totally unqualified to comment about much of anything on the matter.
I'm writing my own article on that halftime from my own perspective and what was shared that night during the party I attended. I'll probably catch shit for it and may lose subscribers myself, but since it's the platform I share my views and write on, that's the way it goes.
Great piece, Isaiah! We need to have 'Real' history classes. Let's discuss all the horrible things that have been done in the name of America and our achievements. There's no need to sugarcoat it; people are smarter than our leaders like to think. Give folks the truth and let them form their own opinions.