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[Shambling Zombie]

Us Australians do plenty of celebrating about being Australian. It's something we're quite good at, actually.

As for fried echidna like early settlers or eating honey ants... no thank you. I'll stick with my pasta for now. 

[Max White]

Just to clarify, I am in no way against celebrating other cultures. I love NAIDOC week! And chinees new years is comming up, so I'm planning on heading down to Dixon street and have some red bean buns. But where is the celebration for being white? I'm very proud of being white, and wonder why my heritage is unworthy of cultural festivals.

[Shambling Zombie]

In my opinion, we definately celebrate our heritage. The Union Jack on our flag, Australia day, cricket, ect. It's all over the place, really.

[Phmcw]

Ok, cite me three preeminent empire from Africa. Cite me three men who impacted considerably the development of science and are coming from Africa. bonus point if at leas one of hem is not Muslim. Could you make me a brief summary of the colonization? Who did the Boers fight against in the well known war of the Boers? Bonus point : how did all that impact WWI?

If you can't answer, you need one more black history month.

[Solifuge]

...where is the celebration for being white? I'm very proud of being white, and wonder why my heritage is unworthy of cultural festivals.

Mostly because there's no such thing as "White" culture, unless you mean the predominant culture which inundates most every European-derived society... in which case I'd ask why you feel it necessary to celebrate. It's about as necessary as celebrating snowfall in Siberia.

Think for a moment about what Black History Month represents. The government provides a month dedicated to celebrating what it is to be "Black", as an enduring form of apology, for what was little less than erasure, subjugation, and dehumanizing of thousands upon thousands of people and their cultures. It is a way of trying to mend the destruction of countless families and lineages, and more than a century of cruel and inhumane treatment. The government has nothing to apologize to "White" people for. Demanding government sponsorship of a cultural celebration for "White" culture is akin to a young child gazing enviously at the neighbor's shiny new Tricycle, and demanding that their parents give them one as well.

As someone who has gone to FinnFest at least twice, done the Heikki Lunta, and eaten my share of nisu, squeaky cheese, and *shudders* creamed herring, I can tell you that cultural celebrations are all over the place. You don't need a government-sponsored month to celebrate any culture.

[Megaman]

I just realized. Black history month is using a politically incorrect term for African Americans, no?

[Tilla]

I just realized. Black history month is using a politically incorrect term for African Americans, no?

African American is not accurate at all, for a variety of reasons. Primarily: They are not necessarily African, and they are not necessarily American.

I can't really think of a term that DOES work honestly.

[Max White]

...where is the celebration for being white? I'm very proud of being white, and wonder why my heritage is unworthy of cultural festivals.

Mostly because there's no such thing as "White" culture, unless you mean the predominant culture which inundates most every European-derived society... in which case I'd ask why you feel it necessary to celebrate. It's about as necessary as celebrating snowfall in Siberia.

Think for a moment about what Black History Month represents. The government provides a month dedicated to celebrating what it is to be "Black", as an enduring form of apology, for what was little less than erasure, subjugation, and dehumanizing of thousands upon thousands of people and their cultures. It is a way of trying to mend the destruction of countless families and lineages, and more than a century of cruel and inhumane treatment. The government has nothing to apologize to "White" people for. Demanding government sponsorship of a cultural celebration for "White" culture is akin to a young child gazing enviously at the neighbor's shiny new Tricycle, and demanding that their parents give them one as well.

As someone who has gone to FinnFest at least twice, done the Heikki Lunta, and eaten my share of nisu, squeaky cheese, and *shudders* creamed herring, I can tell you that cultural celebrations are all over the place. You don't need a government-sponsored month to celebrate any culture.

Ah, I see. It's not about being proud of anything, it is about saying 'Yea, we were jerks to a degree that rivals some pretty nasty dictators, so now for 30 days a year we are going to give speeches about moving on'. Well so glad we cleared that up! I honestly was under the impression that this had to do with a little more then redemption through shiney gifts of tricycles for past oppression. How silly of me.

[Retro]

I just realized. Black history month is using a politically incorrect term for African Americans, no?

African American is not accurate at all, for a variety of reasons. Primarily: They are not necessarily African, and they are not necessarily American.

I can't really think of a term that DOES work honestly.

Yeah, the term 'african-american' bothers me a hell of a lot more than 'black,' honestly. Everyone I know just goes with 'black' or 'white' (or other ethnicities not being currently discussed) because trying to force 'X-Nationality American' for every separate ethnicity is trying to force PC-ness so badly that it actually becomes inaccurate in a lot of circumstances. The entire effort strikes me as more offense, moreso that it's by far the more popular 'PC' terminology these days.

[Phmcw]

Wow, while looking up the boer war, I learned that the British used concentration camp.
(disturbing pic below.)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I didn't know that.

Really history of Africa and "African" culture need to get taught, I don't really know why one would want to oppose that.

It's not a black nationalistic pride month, it's a black history month.

[Grimlocke]

What I realy dont understand is this whole concept of 'white culture' or 'white pride' (or their differentelly colored counterparts for that matter). Skin color is not directelly related to culture, and something I cant realy be proud, ashamed or anything of. Like how its hard to be proud of density of your hair or the distance between your eyes.

Its like how I often hear Europe being adress as a county rather than a continent with a whole bunch of countries on it. French, Brittish and Italians may all have the same color, but they have their own distinct culture, language and countries. They wont allways appreciate being thrown onto one heap.

What I think you should realy do is throw out all those black, white, yellow, purple and whatnot months and replace that with 'learn some culture and history' months. Rather than filtering it according to skin color, religeon or sexual preference, which allways will have racist and other unpleasant associations due to its unfortunate history.

[Phmcw]

I agree with you, but you could talk about European history (ie the history of all European countries) and of white poeple's history . A month of history in America or in most European country would most likely be a month of white history as we most likely would see history of the roman empire, middle age and renaissance, as well as a bit of modern history with emphasis on the two world war.

Thus a month oh black, asian and middle oriental history make sense to me.

But maybe the whole "month of something" concept is faulty in itself.

Oh yes, one last thing any racism is stupid, and being proud of the culture of your race or country is stupid too.
You can only be proud of what you, yourself, have done.

[Grimlocke]

What im trying to say is not that its impossible to study history and culture based on skin color, but that its just a plain bad idea. By splitting up something acording to certain properties you give significance to those properties, and the last thing you need is to make an even bigger deal out of skin color.

Agreed on the 'month of bla' concept being flawed by the way. Its not like the issues they adress suddenly go away for the other 11 months, or that the culures they try to teach become any less interesting for the rest of the year.

I think there is a certain sense of being proud of what your ancestors did, though its a very different sort of pride than the sort you get after achieving something neat yourself. I personally quite like reading about my countries history, full of follies as it might be its nice to read how they did do plenty worthwhile, or at least interesting stuff.

[Urist is dead tome]

It's not a black nationalistic pride month, it's a black history month.

The problem is no one celebrates African heritage around here. It's now about black celebrities.

Boer means farmer in Dutch. The Boers were the Dutch settlers who fought the British. Not the British.

[Phmcw]

Yes, and then the British won, and ... well as the picture show, they took drastic measure against obesity.