Remembering history, collectively

People have fought for freedom and civil rights in this country, and have won.  It is important to remember this struggle in our nation's history. The Civil Rights Movement changed not only the law, but people's perspectives of themselves and how they interacted with one another. It tackled issues such as fundamental freedoms, respect, social equality and dignity.

And today, civil rights are a reality and we all are equal by law. History is there to remind us about the ugly reality of our nations past, to objectively point out the mistakes and teach us how to be better today. People like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. paved the road that we continue to walk down. We cannot and will not forget these people. However, continuing to depict a nation that is separately black and white, intentionally or not, reinforces the segregation that many people fought and died to eliminate. 

So why do we have a Black History month? An Asian American Heritage Month? Women's History month? Are these not yet other types of separation? We are all Americans with a diversified history of collective failures and successes. We don't need more separation in this century of fragmentation, of iPods and cell phones where everybody is rocking passionately alone completely disconnected from each other already.

Recently, I attended an event celebrating Black History Month where Stan West presented the book he co-authored, "Suburban Promised Land," about the emerging black community in Oak Park from 1880 to 1980.  I asked him, "Don't you think that  continuing to talk about [historical segregation], we reinforce the racism today?" He said no. He said that we need to talk about it.

The goal is to one day teach our children to look at our collective humanity and the diversity that makes us all Americans. We don't need any more labels. If we stop separating ourselves, perhaps our children will eventually learn to do so too. It's not that we shouldn't remember our histories. But that history needs to be a collective American history from the tragedies of Native Americans through colonization, slavery, migration, and so on. We should be remembering American history, collectively, from the point of view of all those that make up this great nation.