…The contributions of famous black Americans, from Frederick Douglass to Oprah Winfrey, are widely known. Martin Luther King Jr. has his own federal holiday. The president of the United States is black. If tens of millions of white people voted for Barack Hussein Obama, the lesson has been learned, right? As if. Despite the election of Obama, African-Americans still live in a culture that is overreliant on stereotype and slow to explore the complexity of racialized issues such as the ghetto or Haiti. So you can complain about Black History Month all you want. But there’s still work to be done…

…For Black History Month to once again seem culturally relevant, part of its time must be spent asking why there are still so many negative portrayals of black people in our culture—we can’t just spend all 28 days talking about the nice ones. And rather than wasting time bemoaning the existence of Black History Month, why don’t we use it to proselytize for the issues that need to be more fully covered and understood the other 337 days of the year—such as failing inner-city public schools, institutionalized poverty, health-care disparities, and job discrimination?

I couldn’t have said it better.  Furthermore, we certainly don’t live a so-called “post-racial” America.  African Americans still have to deal with stereotypes, even from folks you would think would know better (Sen. Harry Reid and Chris Matthews come to mind).   The growing “tea party” movement looks very akin to KKK rallies of the past.  For some reason, their use of “socialist” to describe President Obama and his recently departed green job czar Van Jones seem to be a cover for the N-word.

Pressing current issues that affect our community which Kelley brings up are certainly deserving of better attention.  Regarding health disparities, the recent election of Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown has now compromised making sure quality health care is accessible to all, especially communities of color, and we need to be paying attention to this.  Also, on the jobs front, while the economic downturn has created the double digit unemployment rate that affects all Americans, blacks, and specifically black men, are twice as likely to not have a job.

We still need to have Black History Month to not only give props to our foreparents and recognize the accomplishments they made, but to also continue the fight for issues still happening today.