The Celebration America Loves to Forget

The Forgettable Celebration

…but they should learn to embrace.

Yayyyyyyyy, it’s February. The shortest, coldest, most miserably inconvenient month of the year—set aside to celebrate Black history. How thoughtful of you. In the words of Martin Luther King in the Boondocks, “Is this what I got all those ass whippins for?” Because nothing says “We value your contributions” like cramming centuries of erased history into 28 (sometimes 29, if we’re lucky) days.

And let’s not forget who we have to thank for this: the legendary Carter G. Woodson, a scholar so brilliant that even he probably knew this was going to be a long, uphill battle against America’s world-class talent for historical amnesia. Back in 1926, Woodson started Negro History Week because—brace yourself—nobody was bothering to teach Black people about Black people. (Shocking, right?) He figured, hey, if America won’t tell our story, we’ll do it ourselves. It took another 50 years for it to morph into Black History Month—because America is all about incremental progress!

But here’s the fun part: somewhere between 1926 and today, society has collectively decided that Black history is a niche topic. Optional. A once-a-year corporate branding opportunity, where your favorite companies slap MLK quotes on their Twitter accounts while still underpaying Black employees and avoiding diversity in leadership.

And then, of course, came the MAGA years, where the very idea of acknowledging Black history became a threat to American greatness. Oh yes, folks—under Trump and his band of historical revisionists, the mere mention of systemic racism or oppression was suddenly un-American. Remember when he proposed “Patriotic Education” as an alternative to all that woke, fact-based learning? Because, you know, why should kids learn that America built its economy on the backs of enslaved Africans when they could just watch a flag-waving montage of George Washington heroically chopping down cherry trees? Oh, wait a minute, he’s still at it.

These same people—who love to yell about “preserving history” when it comes to Confederate statues—are suddenly allergic to actual history when it involves Black people. They think Black History Month is “divisive.” (Translation: It makes them uncomfortable to acknowledge the country’s greatest crime and the fact that its effects never actually ended.) They insist we should celebrate all Americans, because, apparently, equal opportunity oppression was a thing?

And just when you thought things couldn’t get more embarrassingly predictable, here comes Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon to remind us that even the U.S. military—an institution that has relied on Black service members in every major conflict—can’t be bothered to acknowledge their contributions anymore. That’s right. Hegseth, Fox News’ favorite combat cosplayer, openly cheered the Pentagon’s decision to not celebrate Black History Month, because finally, a government agency has stopped “catering to wokeness” (aka, acknowledging reality).

Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. Turns out, the White House also sent out secret memos warning government agencies not to celebrate Black History Month too loudly. That’s right—quietly observe if you must, but for the love of God, don’t make a thing of it. No speeches, no high-profile events, and definitely no mention of, say, the Tuskegee Airmen, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, or the Buffalo Soldiers. Because nothing says “land of the free” like a government afraid of history.

The most impressive part? It worked. Today, most African Americans don’t even know their own history—because, let’s face it, America has dominated the narrative for so long that even we started believing it. We know George Washington’s dental history (not wooden teeth, by the way—enslaved people’s teeth, fun fact!), but we don’t know about Robert Smalls, the enslaved man who stole a Confederate ship and became a U.S. congressman. We can name a dozen Founding Fathers but struggle to recall the brilliant minds of the Harlem Renaissance who shaped modern culture.

But hey—at least we get the same five Black figures on repeat every February: MLK, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X (but only the sanitized version), and maybe Frederick Douglass (because Trump apparently thought he was still alive).

Meanwhile, school boards are out here banning books faster than TikTok trends, and states like Florida are making sure kids don’t learn about anything more complicated than George Washington doing trust falls with his troops. The result? A society where the history of Black struggle, Black triumph, and Black genius is reduced to an annual McDonald’s commercial with a gospel choir.

So what’s next? At this rate, by 2050, Black History Month will be nothing more than a “celebration of diversity” featuring Kamala Harris deepfakes and AI-generated Malcolm X speeches that end with “And that’s why capitalism is great!”

Look: If you don’t want Black History Month, fine. But you don’t get to pretend that we’re already included in the history books when those same books barely acknowledge that we were here in the first place. You don’t get to claim that “all Americans” should be celebrated when Black Americans have spent centuries fighting just to be recognized as fully human.

You don’t like Black History Month? Then do us all a favor and stop pretending that America ever cared about Black history to begin with.

4 × one =