00:00You know, Black History Month doesn't mean much to me. I don't understand Black History Month.
00:09But I suppose I'm glad we have it. Mostly for schools or else maybe we would never ever focus
00:18on Black History. Maybe. Is that why it is? What am I supposed to do with Black History Month?
00:24Teach about Black History? I teach about Black History all the time. The hell is Black History Month?
00:29I don't know. Be more Black? I can't be more Black than I am. I can't be more Black in February.
00:36Like, February I'm going to be more Black because that's my month to be Black.
00:40Either we celebrate our history or we don't. And we don't choose a month to do that. We shouldn't.
00:46And so, I'm probably not saying all the right things about Black History Month.
00:50I should be grateful that we've been given a month. But by whom?
00:57Who has the right to give us a month where we focus on it? Oh, it's so ridiculous.
01:04So, I don't teach anything differently in Black History Month.
01:09I went into my daughter's school. At the time she was going to a private school.
01:14It was not necessarily as diverse as I wanted to be. And I did slave narratives during Black History Month for the children.
01:22We are obliged to pass on our history. And our history isn't only history in relation to slavery.
01:27It's not only in relation to black American culture. We exist all over the diaspora.
01:33We come from the Caribbean. We come from Africa. I come from a country that I didn't know what it was like to be a minority.
01:40And so, that shapes us. Those of us who have had that experience in a particular way.
01:46And it is what I would wish for all black people. To have a sense of ourselves, not in relation to white people.
01:56Just in relation to ourselves. It allows us to just be.
02:02Who we are as black people is not one thing. It's a vast history that we have been birthed from.
02:11So.
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