Black History month

It's the 2nd snow day right on the heels of Christmas break. I'm in my sewing room, which is actually my youngest child's bedroom, converted to a sewing room after she left town for grad school. In spite of the fact that we have cable tv, we can't find the hook up in the sewing room, so I'm left with local channels and a few other random channels. While it has been great fun watching the ooooooold shows, like Dennis the Menace, I Dream of Jeannie, & Bachelor Father, I started surfing the other 6 channels to see what else was available.  I landed on Bounce TV. Are you familiar with that channel? I wasn't. I had never even heard of the channel. Not too surprising though, because Bounce TV is a channel targeted toward African Americans. I'm neither African American, nor do I work in a community that includes very many African Americans. But I was drawn to the channel.

I watched a few movies. Some were familiar faces, like Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, others were unknown to me, but great actors nonetheless. Some of the shows were heartbreaking, others inspirational, others historical. I saw some things that I thought might just be stereotypical ideas from a white person's perspective, but seemed to be portrayed as real. Even the commercials are different. Some of the medical commercials I am assuming were different because of diseases that tend to be genetic and more common in the Black race.

It's coming up on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and in February, Black History Month. Even though I teach in a Spanish Immersion program, I see my multi-lingual and cross cultural experiences as just the beginning of understanding the many other cultures that live right here in America. I actually start celebrating Black History Month in January, as it otherwise tends to get crowded out by Valentine's Day, Presidents' Day, and 100th Day of School celebrations in February. There are only so many special celebrations you can focus on and still get the Common Core State Standards completed!

There are so many African South or Central Americans as well! And, as far as I know, many of these people are citizens of Latin American countries due to the history of the slave trade, just like in the United States! Many of them have their own culture within the Latin culture as well; though it's different from the African American culture in the U.S. because of the Latin influence. I want all of my students, regardless of their race, to see this broader version of the black man's history.

I want to encourage my colleagues in Immersion education to not forget to teach about the black culture this year. Here are just a few sites to check out:

Inventors & inventions:  http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/black.shtml
Congressmen:  http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Black-Americans-in-Congress/
Artists:  http://www.artcyclopedia.com/nationalities/African-American.html
Musicians: http://musiced.about.com/od/blackhistorymonth/a/blackhistory.htm
Civil Rights Leaders: http://myblackhistory.net/Civil_Rights.htm
Athletes: http://myblackhistory.net/Athletes.htm
Blacks in Latin American: http://aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/blacks-latin-america-brief-history

The list goes on. I am very thankful for all the Black people who have contributed so much to our country, and others. May we all continue to use our first cross-cultural experiences as a springboard to learning about many others!

~Sheryl René