This year, Lakewood High School is hosting another Black History Month celebration, with different activities scheduled each week for students to participate in. So far, there has been an Open mic to celebrate black voices, a daily fun fact about an influential African American, and every Thursday, students have been encouraged to wear a shirt in support of Black History Month.
Today is “Melanin Monday,” where students are encouraged to wear all shades of brown. When I first saw this event on the calendar, I thought, “Who is even going to do this? That’s such a boring idea.”
Black History Month should celebrate the contributions African Americans have made to society and should demonstrate our resilience as a community that was and still is oppressed by American culture. “Melanin Monday” does not represent these values.
The events on the calendar are the opposite of what Black History Month stands for. Wearing a brown shirt undermines the idea of what Black History Month should look like. It should represent black leadership and black courage.
For starters, I feel like most of the ideas on the calendar for Black History Month are vague. I don’t understand how wearing a brown shirt or wearing designer shoes is going to showcase black excellence. Especially since the objectives for the activities themselves are vague. For example, on Thursday’s students are tasked with wearing a shirt in support of Black History Month. How is a black history shirt designed? And how is wearing a shirt teaching the accomplishments of African Americans?
To me, Melanin Monday is such a bare-minimum and boring idea for us, a primarily black school, to do. What’s the point of wearing a brown shirt to represent melanin? I AM melanin. This is not representative of black history or our culture. Since most of the people at school are African American, it would be ideal to make an event that is more engaging and fun for students. For instance, there are a couple of days that are engaging, like the Live Kahoot last Friday, where all the students had to answer questions relating to black icons, or the music arts and media day, where students dress as black leaders.
Rather than staying in the little, closed-minded ideas of wearing clothes that are supposed to represent melanin and black history, we should do more engaging activities to teach all students how important Black History is. Buying shirts or sneakers doesn’t teach anything about black history and just demotes the month to another commercial holiday.
If I’m being honest, I don’t think that anyone is going to participate in it anyway because it’s not an interesting idea. Showing black excellence should be done through actions and not meaningless purchases. At least for Music Arts and media day, students are tasked with dressing up as a black figure, which encourages them to do more research about the person.
During this month, we should be appreciating all the black students in all aspects. For instance, there should be days on the calendar that could celebrate black excellence within our OWN school, like highlights on student athletes or academic overachievers at our school.
This school has set the bar too low for what black excellence is; It isn’t wearing a brown shirt or “fresh kicks.” It’s supposed to celebrate what Black people CAN do despite all the hardships we’ve been through. This month is really important, especially to our school, because it lets our students- even students who aren’t black- know that they can do anything if they put their minds to it, as many black figures have done before.
