Black History Month 2025

No, this is not about my Black History Month reading for the year (I'll be lucky if I start that by May).

This is about that brief period of time where information on the Tuskegee Airmen and the WASPS was going to be removed from the Air Force boot camp curriculum.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/air-force-tuskegee-airmen-dei-compliance-trump-rcna189365 

The brevity of the removal seems to be due to an immediate outcry. It's good that can happen, but frustrating how much it is likely to need to happen. 

Some of the details are unclear, but I don't think that Trump specifically ordered the removal of the material; he's not that kind of a details man.

I think it is more that now that we have an administration that says DEI is bad that someone was eager to remove it.

People have been saying "Don't obey in advance" (one of the lessons from Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny), and there have certainly been issues with people giving in when persistence would at least have a chance of doing some good. 

It is important to know that there are also people rushing to exert their own authority in ways petty and cruel.

We don't have to go along with it.

We should be working specifically against it.

So, for this Black History Month, I will be posting about Black history daily. 

Since February is only 28 days, I am starting today. That will be 31 posts, equaling the number of posts I am going to do for Women's History Month in March.

I understand that this is -- at best -- a very minor form of resistance.

Something else I understand is that white supremacy is the most affirmative of actions, not only pushing down others but leaving even the beneficiaries rather unhappy and insecure, not to mention mediocre.

(I could spend a lot of time on this topic, but that isn't the point today.)

There have been contributions from everyone else all along. Trying to hide that history damages everyone. 

This is one small contribution. 

Another will be this petty reminder that the Aunt Jemima story that political correctness is burying the story of a successful Black woman is a lie, trying to vilify attempts to be less awful.

Let's not fall for that.