Black Futures Month

What if Black History Month was Black Futures Month? ⬇️

How might it shift our focus from the myth that anti-Black racism is a thing of the past (it's not) and towards striving fiercely for a future where all Black people are free?

The Movement for Black Lives has reimagined #BlackHistoryMonth as #BlackFuturesMonth and I absolutely love it. Why?

Because:

• Non-Black people like me seem to be most comfortable celebrating Blackness only when we're looking at the past.

• The language of "history" encourages us to talk about past injustice. To talk about "historically-oppressed" communities. Or past inequality.

• But that injustice never ended! It's ongoing. For example - enslavement didn't end in the USA in 1865. It's still legal in many places, like prisons).

Of course history matters. Of course we must learn from and pay attention to the past!

But why is the mainstream seemingly here for Blackness in the past, while staying screamingly silent about anti-Black racism and oppression right here and now?

(For example, White moderates love quoting MLK because they think he's an example of "civil" and "peaceful" protest - not realising that MLK was a radical who railed against exactly this kind of respectability politics).

I'm not saying we shouldn't celebrate and commemorate great figures from the past. But once again - why are we uniquely comfortable celebrating *historical* Black activists?

Is it because they're in the past, where they can't bother us any more with their inconvenient demands for justice?

This quote from Kevin Gotkin sums it all up for me. Kevin writes:

"The verbs that awareness/history/acceptance months produce - we “honor,” we “highlight, we “reflect on” - seem vague and empty compared to the material, bodily harm that ableism creates. The time of life is being stolen from BIPOC disabled people under the cover of our complacency."

We still have so much to learn from historical figures like MLK or Olaudah Equiano, obviously.

But can we depend less on those soft, backward-looking words like:

• reflect

• commemorate

• honour

And lean in closer to the action?

So that we see the past primarily as:

• proof that the next wave of change is possible,

• a spark that fires us up to agitate for justice now,

• inspiration to tear down racism right here and now?

Would a focus on Black Futures make it harder to hide behind lists like “10 Inspiring Black Historical Figures You Should Know About”?

And more likely to focus on...

• paying Black experts to help us tackle racialised pay inequality,

• citing more Black experts,

• dismantling unjust hiring, pay and promotion structures?

Check out The Movement for Black Lives to learn more. #BlackFuturesMonth is just one of their many amazing campaigns!