February is ripe with holidays that provide opportunities for sarcasm (Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day), yet another commemorative holiday often draws critical commentary as the groundhog peeks its head out: Black History Month.
   To begin, the time to think of America as a nation existing squarely amidst the black/white binary is over. An “us v. them” mentality has never been constructive and oversimplifies the complexities of race and race relations.
    The reason Black History Month exists is not to incite some sort of race war or to dredge up feelings of guilt for any particular party (remember, the black/white binary need not apply in the present unless we choose to see the world through that false lens).
   Instead, Black History Month retells again and again a story that reveals some of the deepest disgusts and explosive triumphs of human spirit. Black History Month celebrates the blood, sweat, tears and lives that many Americans of all races and ethnicities gave to fight for the most basic kernel of human life: human equality. All people deserve equal rights, and 50 years ago bold, courageous Americans fought a peace-seeking war against pervasive, devastating injustice.
       African-Americans gained complete legal, social and economic equality in the 1960s after hundreds of years (approximately 200 years in the U.S. alone) of prejudice, racism and psychologically, emotionally and  physically destructive enslavement. Any U.S. citizen who questions Black History Month should first consider that the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom celebrated its 50th anniversary in August 2013. Fifty years of legal equality stands minutely next to 200 years of racism in America (not to speak of hundreds and hundreds of years of slavery under Europeans  before America’s formation in the 18th century.)
    Black History Month also draws attention to the current plight of racial minority groups in the U.S. — specifically African-Americans — and not only the past struggles these groups experienced. To believe American society exists in a post-racial, colorblind world is to look at the world with blinders on. Colorblindness assumes that all races and ethnicities begin at the same starting line in the U.S. and that race truly holds no weight. Yet, the system of American government, politics, society and economics does not exclude race’s importance. The institutions and structures that create America in 2014 do not intrinsically give all U.S. citizens the same opportunities. Statistics on the current racial wage gap, racially-determined real estate value and the location of nearly all municipal garbage dumps in minority neighborhoods run rampant, just to name a few.
    Americans — who live in one of the most affluent countries on Earth — should not put their foot down over the supposed fairness or unfairness of a month celebrating and commemorating the history of intelligent, influential and deeply sacrificial men and women like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and W.E.B. DuBouis. Nor should Americans bare their teeth over a month celebrating a particular racial group, no matter one’s own race.
    What matters is that we love those who served our nation in the past and present. What matters is that we shut down focuses on differences. What matters is that we look our heritage in the face and tell it that, yes, we understand where we’ve been — the places both disgusting and proud — and we look to where we go in the future. We look with clear-eyed, full-hearted clarity on the present state of race relations in the U.S. We have a responsibility to look at both Black History Month and the current state of America without unfair, inaccurate preconceptions.
   Here’s to compassion before anger. Here’s to selflessness before selfishness. Here’s to apology before guilt and grace before guilt. And here’s to love for our fellow humans before all else, regardless of race, history or the month.