Why do we need to talk about Black history?

As a minister, I have performed marital counseling services for many couples. Although the details for each couple are unique, invariably the issues boil down to the same thing. One person did or said something that caused the other pain. The person committing the act either 1). doesn’t remember; 2). denies it ever happened; or 3). remembers a more sanitized version of the event and blames his/her partner for “taking it the wrong way.” In a sense, that is exactly what we are doing as a nation. We try to pretend it never happened, or we push a sanitized version of our history in our schools. My first lesson about slavery in school was via a third grade history book that depicted a smiling white man sitting on a smiling horse, looking down at a Black man, a Black woman and a Black child — all smiling — apparently overjoyed to be picking cotton. Slavery was taught to us as an alternative employment arrangement rather than what it was — a brutal, dehumanizing, immoral system. Unfortunately, in some parts of our country, slavery is still taught that way. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King has been boiled down to his “I Have a Dream” speech, and we point to the election of Barack Obama as our nation’s first Black president as proof that we’re post-racial in this country. However, those who do not learn from their history are doomed to repeat it. While I don’t think we will be moving back into a system of mass slavery anytime soon, we don’t seem to be able to move past a certain point in our country’s race relations. One of the main reasons for this is our unwillingness, as a nation, to face the reality of our history.

In some ways, we’ve actually moved backwards. In some places in this country, curriculum that does not align with the traditional Anglo version of American history has been labeled as critical race theory and tossed out. Most people decrying critical race theory don’t even really know what that theory entails. Books have been banned in some school libraries. There are even reports of some teachers being fired for facilitating thoughtful discussion of racial issues in their senior high school classrooms. Those who talk about the racist third stanza of our national anthem are ostracized. As a nation, we just don’t want to hear it. But the discussion isn’t going away. It may not be in my lifetime but, at some point, there will have to be a reckoning with our history — all of it — the good, the bad and the ugly. Teaching true American history does not mean we talk about lynchings to kindergartners. Neither does teaching true American history mean that we paint all whites as bad and all Blacks as good. The history we’re living right now, with five Black officers murdering an unarmed Black man in Memphis, is an example of that. But it does mean that we will start to be real with facing our authentic history. Only by doing so can we move forward as a nation.

So, in the meantime, we raise the black, green and red flag for the month of February, and continue to talk about the history and the contributions of African Americans, although we know most of the population will not listen. For those who are listening, one gem in the San Mateo community is the Domini Hoskins Black History Museum. The museum will be open at 880 Jefferson Ave. in Redwood City from Feb. 3-28, noon to 5 p.m. They are closed on Mondays. For more information visit hoskinsblackhistorymuseum.org. My dream is that one day, the history of all of us will be included in American history and that these special discussions will no longer be needed.

The Rev. Lorrie Owens is the president of the NAACP San Mateo branch.