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This year, the Education Department's February Black History Month is particularly galling. For me, the backbreaking straw was the poem that a public school teacher gave to eight year-olds. The poem, "Lord, Why Did You Make Me Black?" was written by a black American. It talked about the fact of a person's skin colour from the perspective of someone who needed to strengthen his or her personal values regarding the colour of their God-ordained epidermis.

The poem was aimed at black Americans. Black Americans are a minority group living in the midst of white majority America. In the past, black Americans have been severely disadvantaged simply because they were black. Indeed, even in 2008, even with Barack Obama running for the Presidency, many black Americans still consider that they are disproportionately disadvantaged.

 With that poem, I re-realized, as I seem to do every February, that our public school educators - the whole shebang of Education Department administrators down to classroom teachers - repeats the whole 'black history' exercise, in the same way, every year. Every year, the whole shebang talks and teaches about the black American experience. Every year, the whole shebang gabbles on about Dr Martin Luther King Jr. and his "dream".

 Dr King was a fine black leader. But he wasn't the only one, and he was late! On 28 August 1963, Dr King stood before Abe Lincoln's statue, and spoke of his dream. However, by that August date, much had already happened in the rest of this globe's black and non-white worlds.

  In 1896, sixty-seven years before Dr King dreamed, Emperor Menelik ll's Ethiopian army defeated an Italian Army and chased the Italians out of Ethiopia.

 In 1955 - eight years before the 'dream' - the Asian peoples of Vietnam had defeated a French Army at Dien Bien Phu, and were chasing the last French troops out of Vietnam.

  In 1956 - seven years before the 'dream' - the Egyptian leader Gamal Adbel Nasser grabbed the Suez Canal from France and Britain. In the diplomatic imbroglio that followed, France and Britain lost out, and the peoples of Egypt became the owners and managers of that waterway.

  In 1957 - six years before the 'dream' - led by Kwame Nkrumah, the West African colony of Gold Coast became the newly independent country of Ghana. The first African colony to go independent.

  In 1958 - five years before the 'dream' - in a referendum, the peoples of the French African colony of Guinea opted for independence from France.   

 In 1959 - four years before the 'dream' - the all-black all-Bermudian 'Progressive Group' led black Bermudians in a Theatre Boycott that began the end of legal segregation in Bermuda.

In 1960 - three years before the 'dream' - in Bermuda, legal segregation ended and black Bermudians started appearing in places that had previously been the exclusive domain of whites.

In 1961 - two years before - the scholarly Julius Nyerere took Tanganyika to independence.

In 1962 - one year before - led by the dueling duo of Manley and 'Busta', Jamaica became an independent country. Further south, Eric Williams took Trinidad to independence.

There are many other things that happened before Dr King stood, spoke, and dreamed - in late 1963 - of achieving things that other black people and other black leaders had already accomplished.

Since Dr King's 1963 dream day, blacks have seen Nelson Mandela walk out of his South African prison and walk into the Presidency of that country; seen Kofi Annan become Secretary-General of the United Nations; seen Canada appoint a black Governor-General; seen black bobsledders appear in the previously all-white Winter Olympics; seen many other changes.

But when Bermuda's public system educators have their 'black history' month, it always degenerates into a look at the history of eternal underdog black Americans. Why no wider look? Despite having the benefit of college and university educations, are Bermuda's educators incapable of seeing past America? Is the black American experience the only black experience they know of? Can't they see that they are putting an unnecessary and heavy American racial cross on the backs of our Bermudian school children?

I despair. But I, too, dream. "I dream that one day Bermuda's educators will see past the hills and ills of America. I dream that one day, they will see the wider world of all black peoples who have struggled and won their battles against racism and other social and economic repressions. I dream that one day, our educators will recognize those Bermudians who have struggled. I have a dream."[[In-content Ad]]

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