An important history lesson

Black History Month is coming to a close, and looking back I suppose everyone had a different way of acknowledging it. For columnist Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online, it meant revisiting that old conservative bugaboo, the Ivy League. In his G-File column (not to be confused with G-Unit, which is apparently something different), Goldberg lit into Brown University for offering too many race-related courses and then offered a diatribe on how Black History Month just props up the self-esteem of a certain ethnic group and has no business existing, thank you very much.

For VH1, it meant airing three episodes in a series called "Race-O-Rama," entitled (and forgive me if I mangle the vernacular) "Dude, Where's my Ghetto Pass," "In Race we Lust" and "Blackaphobia," which featured Penn professor Michael Eric Dyson. The brains behind the project are the five members of Ego Trip, who recently released "Ego Trip's Big Book of Racism." The blurb for it on VH1's Web site states the following: "'This book in no way endorses a belief in racism. We just hate everybody.' So proclaim the folks behind this often funny, often offensive and appropriately bitter book. Buy it Here!"

It's safe to say that both of these approaches leave a little to be desired. For me, Black History Month serves a very clear purpose because in-depth examinations of race have never been more important. It was easy to tell sides when one group burned crosses. We now live in a far more insidious era of race relations, one that is overshadowed by the ominously disarming claim that, hey, racism doesn't exist anymore. Why would you need Black History Month when racism isn't even a question? For a country caught up in the thrall of wide-eyed, big-government conservatism, painting a rosy picture has never been easier, and this is no exception.

Crap like "Race-O-Rama" may be entertaining, but it largely misses the point. Even if it is true that black actresses on their way up in Hollywood "sell out" by starring alongside white actors to reach a larger audience, so what? How about a black commentator who "sells out" in supporting a Bush administration education initiative that, in spite of its catchy name, might be leaving countless kids behind? Personally, I found Halle Berry's make-out session with Fred Durst in the video for "Behind Blue Eyes" almost as offensive as the fact that he was covering the song in the first place (in a "why not me?" kind of way). But as shockingly bad as Halle Berry's taste in men is, it hardly threatens our society.

The same cannot be said for those who hold extremist views. Groups like the Conservative Citizens' Council (formerly the White Citizens' Council) and the Century Foundation adopt a far more subversive strategy for pursuing their goals than their predecessors did. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Dennis Roddy: "Employing the dispassionate language of sociological and genetic studies, and under the veneer of academic inquiry, an assortment of highly educated people now push the theory that everything from unwed motherhood in Atlanta to economic collapse in Gambia can be explained by the genetic code imprinted on the races."

That prominent legislators such as Trent Lott and Bob Barr addressed the CCC and claimed to discover their rather evident agenda only after public criticism forced them to apologize suggests that groups like these may not be as fringe as we would like to believe.

It goes without saying that we grew up in a more tolerant age than our parents did. Personally, I would rather live in a time when social conventions forced racists to adopt more covert practices. But they're still out there. As are more down-to-earth issues of race: Do you cross the street at night when you see a black man in his 20s? Do you flinch ever so slightly when a loud group of black kids gets on the train? Does that make you a bad person?

Black History Month can't answer these questions, of course. But the casualness with which many are ready to dismiss the necessity of such an admittedly empty political gesture is troubling. We are not so far removed from the struggle for civil rights, or for that matter, the Rodney King riots. That we can easily forget a Stacey Koon, for example, suggests not the banishment of reprehensible and racially motivated actions from our society, but rather a very short public memory. And when it comes to race, a short memory is a luxury that we cannot afford.

Eliot Sherman is a senior English major from Philadelphia and former editorial page editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. Diary of a Madman normally appears on Tuesdays.

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