Trump's Black History Month

They forgot that they were colorblind.

Hi all,

For years, decades even, conservatives have railed against Black History Month. Many objected in a manner similar to Charlie Kirk who said, “I don't think there should be a Black History Month. I don't like entire months dedicated to a race.” They quoted Martin Luther King on character ad nauseam and posted the below meme of Morgan Freeman all over social media:

Then on February 1, 2025, they forgot that they were colorblind when President Trump sent out a Proclamation on Black History Month. They cheered. They celebrated. They saw black.

They were understandably excited that Trump recognized Thomas Sowell in such a public way.

However, race is not partisan. One party does not do race better than the other party. Race is poison and those who demanded character for so long now saw race.

They rationalized their hypocrisy away, saying they were doing Black History Month correctly by recognizing unsung black heroes or that Trump could not drop Black History Month because of his assault on DEI policies — that would be a bridge too far. In any case, now that they have the power, they have slipped into the trap of justifying their use of poison.

This behavior is not new and there are many past examples, personal and public. On the personal level, I’ve been hired by conservatives who tell me all the right things about character before hiring me and then feature me as a black for diversity virtue. Perhaps the most famous public example was when Justice Sandra O’Connor surrendered her colorblind principle on an affirmative action case and said the nation needed 25 more years of racial preferences before we could think of dismantling it. What a tragic cesspool of racial division she left us.

Whether Trump and his fellow conservatives realize it or not, recognizing Thomas Sowell in this manner comes off as “this is our good black.” How is this any different than what the Democrats do with their own favored blacks? More importantly, when are we going to stop being anybody’s “black?”

We don’t need black history month to recognize Thomas Sowell. He’s an American first and foremost, a man who deserves credit and accolades for his work. (Here, I argue that he deserves the Medal of Freedom.) He didn’t achieve his lifetime of work to get stuck in a race box by a white man and to recognize him in this manner goes against the very essence of his work.

We are Americans, not sub-Americans or hyphenated Americans. We don’t need anything before American. Why do whites only get that privilege without question?

We are American history as well as present and future.

Today, Trump held his Black History Month celebration at the White House. There were many good people there. I know some of them.

However, we’ve been celebrating Black History Month for so long that it is only fair to ask what it has produced? Has it led to ideas that reduced crime? Has it led to better teaching methods that better schools? Has it increased math and reading scores? Has it led to better pathways out of poverty? Has it closed the gaps in SAT scores? Has it led to more merit-based diversity? And on.

It has achieved none of this. All this money and all this symbolism has achieved nothing of substance. Blacks are near or at the bottom of every socioeconomic and education and crime category. But let’s do the very same symbolism and empty virtue signaling that we despise from the party of identity politics.

Carter G. Woodson, the father of Negro History Week, wrote: “If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself.”

The same man also wrote: “If you teach the Negro that he has accomplished as much good as any other race he will aspire to equality and justice without regard to race. Such an effort would upset the program of the oppressor in Africa and America.”

The America of the 1930s in which Woodson wrote those words was a harshly segregated one where folks like my own grandfather, born to ex-slaves, could only rise to the level of a truck driver despite possessing the brilliance of an Ivy League professor. While my grandfather never allowed himself to be stigmatized as racially inferior, there were many blacks who did, and Woodson sought to liberate them with examples of black achievement.

Never would he have imagined that his Negro History Week would morph into a corporatized, politicized Black History Month, corrupted by noblesse oblige from privileged whites and blacks invested in upholding their virtue and power.

We no longer live under that oppression today.

The tragedy of today’s America, Black History Month being only one symptom, is that so many of us have fallen into the trap of seeking our own inferiority. For those of us who refuse this path, Black History Month has no meaning because we have “upset the program of the oppressor” by seeking to become fully realized Americans.

My best,

Eli