Another Black History Month ended on Monday, and as Samantha Bee points out, it wasn’t exactly a great one. Her reasons: Chris Rock got to host the Oscars, but actors and actresses of color weren’t recognized; Melissa Harris-Perry lost her MSNBC show; and President Barack Obama was told that he won’t be allowed to perform a presidential duty and name a Supreme Court successor to the late Antonin Scalia, who, among many things, voted to eliminate the Voting Rights Act and said that black students are not a good fit for competitive colleges.
Watch: Samantha Bee explains how white people ruined Black History Month
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
Yup, not a great Black History Month. But as Bee’s writer Ashley Black pointed out, all of them have been lacking.
“White people ruined Black History Month,” she said.
What followed was a montage of white pundits talking about Black Lives Matter and protests against police brutality and explaining that Martin Luther King Jr. would be against them.
“You know what’s not cool? Using Martin Luther King as a cudgel to beat black people with,” Black continued. “Apparently Black History Month doesn’t teach people anything. And here’s how you know: 28 days in, the presidential frontrunner still doesn’t know what the KKK is.”
Black was referring to Donald Trump’s wishy-washy denunciation of grand wizard David Duke and the KKK.
As a solution to this pretty garbage Black History Month, Black offered up an alternative: Black NOW Month.
“It’s when you stand up for black people who are alive now in real life, and not just in your imagination of the ‘60s,” she said.
