Were you taught much about black history in school?

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stingjam

The one thing i know is that if it was determined that blacks were to be REPAID what was stolen from them (as evidenced by history) with just REASONABLE amounts of interest due, then entire economies would collapse.

This is the only reason why blacks have not been repaid: it would cost so much and be so complicated that it is described as a 'ridiculous idea promoted by eccentric madmen'.

How would you feel to know that you live in a country that has had a high level of development (lands, roads, education, commerce), primarily because for a long time, it plundered and enslaved people.

If drug dealers had to forfeit the assets of ill-gotten gains, why not slave traders and slave masters?

The people today, in thier pathetically short lives, cannot be held individually responsible for slavery that occured decades ago, but the countries and institutions SHOULD be held responsible. Remember that the debts of many poorer countries will not be repaid for another 50 years. The concept of national or instutional debts being carried from one generation to the other is not new.

Why should Britain (for example) not be asked to repay sums earned through slavery over a 30 year payment period? Why not use it as a means to provide free education to countries that got the crappy end of the stick?

Why not try to work out a repayment, rather than lending 'the developing world' money that was stolen from them in the first place?

Franck

I realized that in the Caribbean Islands, we dont know much about our neighbours. I mean the Haitian student generally dont know anything about whats going on in Jamaica, Cuba, or Trinidad, whereas our histories are so similar. Moreover in my school all they taught me about my history was that my ancestors came to America as slaves. But what about before we came to America? What were they?

Mamapie2u

Cornflakes: I am a middle-age white woman who started elementary in the US in the later 1950s. The world was a completely different place back then where one generation handed down the philosophies they were taught and observed from the prior generations to the next generation. I, myself, see the mistreatment blacks endured at that time and, as a white woman, I am very ashamed of it. However, please understand in the current way of thinking, that the people that mistreated Blacks at that time should be the ones who are judged for their actions NOT their future generations, such as I.

More than anything else, this is what really infuriates me. It is the fact that although I detest how the Blacks were treated then, the current generation of Whites are the ones who are being told that we OWE the Blacks for something we had NO part in.

At the present time in our city council meetings, if the word "Black" "Dark" or another such synonym that could remotely be stretched far enough to resemble a word that would reference a Black person (i.e., "it is a DARK situation...") our kind councilmen will throw a fit and say that the Whites, ONCE AGAIN, are trying to discriminate against the Black person.

In many ways I really feel White people want to make amends for the mistreatment Blacks felt years ago but when we are bombarded with "You OWE us"....and the stupidity of trying to link our every word and our every action to some kind of discrimination against the Black race, it just digs a deeper hole for ever finding a resolution to the problem. How can this kind of problem be solved when it doesn't matter how much progress is made to bring a peaceful ending, when in the Black person's eye, the White race will NEVER do enough to satisfy the mistreatment we had NOTHING to do with at that time?

That, my dear, is why we will never see the Blacks and Whites get along until the playing ground is fair on both sides.

Ace

I actually think we learned too much about black history in school. I didn't go to school in Jamaica, but in the places I did go to school, it seemed like they were trying to constantly inform us evenly on black and/or white history(I have lived in places where black people were and were not a minority) so that they wouldn't sound racist or something like that. It drives me crazy. They preach to us about how equal everyone is, but then turn around and split history between black and white. History is history, no matter the skin color or race, etc. I wish the madness would just stop!

To answer your question, though, yes, I was taught a lot about every culture and race. My classes weren't at all like you described yours. It wasn't centered on the white race, and as far as I know, the "black" history I learned was real, and if people are still in a mind set of mental slavery after all these years, I can't imagine that changing very soon, especially if people continue to put so much emphasis on race (like splitting history up by race!).

I know that is not the answer you wanted to hear, but there you go.

Don, son of Shakka

I was taught about black history by Rastafarians in Warrika hills, the rasta men and women were then considered as Black-heart people who smoke weed and drink blood, far, far, faaarrr away from the truth. It was and is the rastafarians who stir up the black consciousness, in Jamaican, teaching repatriation, black royalty, self-reliance and healthy eating.
Rasta embraces Africa the mother land where life started, religiously. I was taught to address the female as queens and princesses and that I was a princes and should act accordingly
I was suspended from numerous history, spanish and religious classes, back in high school because I dare to ask about my history, my language and my beliefs.
One morning in school devotion, because I wasn't paying much attention( as it was my history teacher who was conducting the devotion) she called me up to sing a gospel song (wrong move) I sang with passion, Bob Marley's, Old pirates yes they rob I sold I to the merchant ships,(Redemption song) well the whole school joined in, I got a thunderous applause we got off the first verse before I was shoved from the podium and given a dust bin to keep the corridors clean. Well it was too late I was already a rebel and a hero. I was never asked publicly to do anything in that school again.
Still is a black rebel.

Dave"Thumbs Dwn"Dodson

yea a couple days every February in elementary, than in middle school we occasionally talk about it in history, than in high school you could take a whole course on it

kim

i was taught allllooott about black history. since i was in elementary and alll the way up to high school.

abe a

i was not taught much of black either and we should see more things about black.

Mike

i go to an all black school so yea.

womanly222

yeah i was taught so much about slavery and black history, definetely a lot for me at the schools i went to

Edward D

I think you're being a little silly.

I learned about George Washington Carver - a great African American inventor - no white person tried to take his inventions.

And there is no white, black, yellow, or brown history. There is simply history. And emphasis in history is based on events that changed the world. Since black people had been kept out of power, they did not have that opportunity to change things. So history makes less mention of them.

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