Why Black History Is Important

RIHANNA HARRIS, PECI STUDENT

Black history is important not just for myself, but to each and everyone one of us. I think that it is important to teach children multicultural history. Canada is known for being a beautiful, diverse, and multicultural country. We as a country and a community need to do better with teaching and having conversations about the wonderful multicultural country we live in. I’m a proud Canadian and I want to have the opportunity to learn about the history of this country.

The history that we are taught should not be a one-sided, watered down and edited version. With someone deciding what we, the next generation of students, are able to learn. Someone is deciding for us and denying us the opportunity. It should be, and needs to be, more inclusive.

I’ve been advocating for Black history to be mandatory in our local schools. Black history is important for many reasons; it teaches us that no matter what obstacles that you face, no matter what people try to force you to be, no matter what ‘chains’ are placed around your ankles, it is possible to overcome and rise above it. To break free from low expectations that society may have. Black history teaches us about the positive contributions and accomplishments that people of color have made to this country, to this country’s growth and development. The importance of this history and its role in making Canada what it is today. Black history is important because it is not just for the comfort of people of colour, it has the ability to enable levels of understanding and compassion.

People of colour are generally looked at differently. I think a big part of this has to do with the fact that we are only taught the negative aspects of Black history. So if being only taught this negativity, it enables the thinking to be negative and the negative treatment. I believe that since we are only taught about negative historical events about Black people it affects how we, as a community and country treat each other. That children and adults who were taught about slavery get a negative mindset this creates this type of thinking, “This is how they were treated and we were taught this, so what’s the sense of changing the way we think and our perspectives on how we treat each other?’’

I’ll tell you why you should stop and reasons why it’s important to come together as a community to do better and to make change. When people look different, it’s not a horrible thing—they’re still people. We are all beautiful people wrapped up with our uniqueness and individuality. This makes the world a more beautiful place, a place to be proud of, a place to look around us and see the wonders in it. We need to come together as proud Canadians who live in this beautiful country, a country where anything is possible and make a change for the future that is positive and bright. For yourself, your children, your children’s children and generations to come.

Rihanna Harris is a Grade Six student at PECI. She will be interviewing a number of people about the significance of Black History Month on Mondays through the month of February on the Grapevine on County radio 99.3, at noon and repeated after the 6 p.m. news.