Thus reads an instagram post by Ijeoma Oluo.

Initially, I disagreed with this view for the following reasons. History isn’t for anyone. It simply is. I can agree with taking care not to traumatize students (hence, the use of trigger warnings and giving students the opportunity to opt out of certain materials). But to only present positive images and/or to hold positive images as the standard for “black” or any kind of history, is detrimental to the acquisition of knowledge. Also, such a standard would introduce another form of bias into the teaching of the past (which is oddly akin to the move by conservatives to ban the teaching of AP African American history/studies of the effects of racism/”CRT,” since these topics fail to present a positive image of the USA).

However, on reflection, I realized I had misconstrued the point raised in the quote from Ijeoma Oluo. It was not about presenting only positive images, it had to do with “white teachers” presenting violence done to black people to black students as black history. What I think this means is that black history is about centering black agency, rather than black subjection (i.e., white supremacy). White supremacy, in its most extreme form as lynching, is not history for black people; it is the history of white people. This is an epistemologically interesting position. It suggests the only proper historical knowledge of an ethnic/racial group is the history made by and for the group (hence, the “celebration” of “black history month”). Moreover, it suggests that external forces which (always) impinge on the group (e.g., racism/xenophobia) should be bracketed as “not for us” and as “for/about them.” I suppose there are good reasons for taking this view of history, but for me it is a weird abstraction of the history of race from the history of racism (and racialism).

Cui bono?