First established in 1976, the month of February is supposed to be a month for America to rejoice and take pride in the rich cultural background that African Americans bring to the United States.

The whole idea behind Black History Month was to try and correct the lack of educational material that was provided on African American History and to finally recognize the racial prejudice in America and to cultivate black self-esteem following centuries of harsh times.

Sadly, Black History Month has done none of the things it was supposed to do.

Sure, it may have extended the text on black history from one paragraph to three and it may have provided some inkling of self-awareness in the black community, but at the end of February the question of whether Black History Month really benefits anybody still remains.

For me, all that Black History Month does is trivialize and run a foul of black history. It’s already bad enough that black history as a whole is pretty much ignored for all the other eleven months of the year, but then to present a watered down version of a history that is rife with so much knowledge is downright disrespectful.

There is more to black history than Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. There is more to black history than the civil rights era. There is more to black history than a couple of celebrity commercials on B.E.T and trying to couple the history of an entire people with Valentines Day.

Now, it would be different if the month actually did what it’s original founders thought it to do. It would be different if the month of February did in fact teach the youth of America about African American History in a way that would reverberate throughout the rest of the year.

It would be different if in the month of February, the history flowing through the veins of African Americans would be treated as an actual history and not exploited and marketed as a cheap ploy to introduce a new marketing campaign.

It would be nice if the façade were real.

But alas, Black History has become nothing more than a shallow meaningless ritual; a throw away month where America can pretend to care about the history and the struggles of the African American people.

I can handle the fact that America in large part doesn’t really care as much about black history as it would like to make it seem, but I can’t handle people putting up a dishonest interest into something that deserves an honest effort, and I can’t handle the aura of fake sympathy that surrounds each February. I’m tired of being made to feel like people are doing me a favor by putting up with the immense burden that is my culture.

The bottom line for me is America shouldn’t have to set aside a month for just one ethnicity. If Latinos, Asians, Indians, and everyone else doesn’t have their own month then why do we? There are plenty of great cultures in America that deserve their time to shine just as much as us African Americans.

And another thing, why do we African Americans even need a month to “cultivate black self-esteem?” If we black people need a month stamped with our name on it to truly feel pride in our culture then we’ve totally missed the point of everything our forefathers lived, fought, bled, and died for all those years ago.

As Kanye West once said “I make black history everyday, I don’t need a month.”