In Honor of Black History Month

It has always saddened me that when I was a child in the 60's and 70's our school social studies defined Australian history beginning with white settlement, as the official stance was that the Great South Land was uninhabited.

Fortunately, things have changed in Australia and elsewhere.The ultimate insult is to be ignored I think.

Some history is known of the first peoples in Australia, but ask most folk and they would not be able to name 6 tribes of the very many that existed prior to "Settlement".

 

History requires a written language

"History" requires written records. What we have is a "white and black history month."

 

My point is that black history began when white people taught black people to read and write.

 

When is White History Month? Where is the National Association of Advancement of White People? How about some scholarships availible for whites only?

 

So in your view, Bill, history depends on literacy? What about oral history? And as for "white" people teaching literacy to others, I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that the people who "invented" writing were probably the Sumerians, and I don't think their skins were white.

But perhaps you were just thinking of some white-skinned people (Americans) teaching some black-skinned people (slaves and their descendants) how to read and write English. That still wouldn't mean that the black-skinned people had no history prior to that - of course they did!

 

Did not expect to have it here in our Little Blue Rhody :smilewinkgrin:

 

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorded_history

Recorded history is the period in history of the world after prehistory. It has been written down using language, or recorded using other means of communication. It starts around the 4th millennium BC, with the invention of writing.

>But perhaps you were just thinking of some white-skinned people (Americans) teaching some black-skinned people (slaves and their descendants) how to read and write English. That still wouldn't mean that the black-skinned people had no history prior to that - of course they did!

Many black Africans spoke and wrote Arabic but these were the slavers who sold slaves to white people. The village tribal people who were captured and sold were pre-historical.

 

OK, now I understand (I think!) - you were not referring to "history" in the sense: "the past events of a period in time or in the life or development of a people, an institution, or a place". You meant (it seems) "the history of a people written by themselves." Is that what this thread is restricted to?

 

March through January.

 

It's ignorant to suggest blacks are and have always been on the same playing field. White people have always had the advantage in this country's sordid history of race relations. It doesn't take a liberal to understand this. There are millions of scholarships that are for whites only. The titles just don't reflect that fact.

 

You know exactly what I mean. Whites have way more opportunities to receive scholarships than blacks.