Jegnas: A Deeper Look into Black History Month and DEI
Every four years, on inauguration day, The People sit by as the United States Marine Band plays “Hail to the Chief, welcoming the incoming president. Presidents enter office with promises to create peace and prosperity; the promise is the easy part. President Ronald Reagan's first campaign slogan was, “Let’s Make America Great Again.” Twenty-eight years later, President Donald Trump modified the slogan to “Make America Great Again” for his campaign.
Four years after President Trump’s first term, the slogan remained the same. The nation has been feverishly waiting 32 years for someone to “Make America Great Again.” Well, what period of American history do we consider great?
As Black History Month ends, since taking office, President Trump has signed 73 executive orders. The executive orders cover a wide range of topics including immigration, national security, government spending, and trade. There have been two executive orders addressing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing (14151), and Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (14173) a memorandum was issued on Feb. 14, 2025, which warned educational institutions to remove any race-based practices or risk losing federal funding.
Executive Orders 14151 and 14173 are examples of the erasure of history, and they spotlight the importance of higher education.
Executive Order 14151 ends federal funding to governmental programs and contracts categorized as “radical and wasteful.” The intended goal is to stop race-based practice and preferencing. Executive Order 14173 restores a merit-based system for employment rather than identity politics.
When Executive Order 14151 was enacted, the Air Force, according to an article from the Associated Press, “removed training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots who were vital in ferrying warplanes for the military — to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.” Due to public outrage, the Air Force restored the training videos.
The Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the Tuskegee Airmen, issued a statement regarding the decision. “The service and sacrifice of the Tuskegee Airmen and the WASPs, who were also removed from the Air Force’s training courses, are an essential part of American history and carried significant weight in the World War II veteran community,” the statement reads. “We believe the content of these courses does not promote one category of service member or citizen over another. They are simply a part of American military history that all service members should be made aware of.”
Executive Order 14173 rescinds Executive Order 11246, titled Equal Employment Opportunity; which was signed by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 during the Civil Rights Movement.
When we talk about the erasure of history, there’s omittance or the physical removal of history, i.e. the Tuskegee Airmen from the Air Force training videos; or, we can look at reconceptualization or the “deodorizing” of history.
The education system teaches, and reconceptualizes, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s beliefs and his “I Have A Dream speech,” but his 1967 NBC News interview isn't taught, in which he says.
“I must confess that that dream I had that day has at many points turned into a nightmare. Now I’m not one to lose hope, I keep on hoping. I still have faith in the future, but I’ve had to analyze many things over the last few years; and, I would say over the last few months I’ve gone through a lot of soul-searching and agonizing moments and I’ve come to see that we have many more difficult days ahead and some of the old optimism was a little superficial. Now it must be tempered with a solid realism, and I think the realistic fact is that we have a long, long way to go… When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, it loses its social perspective, and programs of social uplift suffer. This is just a fact of history.”
“Everybody knows the ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, and honestly, that’s not true. What is mostly repeated is the end of that speech, ‘the content of one’s character,’ and ‘little black children and white children can hold hands,’ but you completely ignored the rest of the speech. They, the ruling class, don’t want to deal with what he talked about, workers’ rights and a more equitable society. It’s there in the ‘I Have A Dream’ speech,” said Dr. Wilfred Doucet, a professor of English at Santa Monica College (SMC).
DEI practices aren’t a cure-all for racism, but it’s a step in the right direction. DEI practices promote equal opportunity while reducing workplace discrimination; while a diverse talent pool brings new perspectives that create innovation and promote creativity. Inclusivity is important because we can’t be an equitable society if we’re not all included.
The erasure of culture and history has existed for centuries and it allows for the continuance of a cycle of abuse and exploitation.
“Getting rid of certain things like Tuskegee Airmen, mystifies white supremacy under the guise of conspiracy theories so that people can always say, ‘well that’s not true, prove it.’ Well, how can you prove it, the history has been erased,” said PhD candidate Regis Peeples, another professor at SMC.
It’s hard to confront U.S. history, because it’s disheartening, and because you’ll realize we haven’t gotten far from slavery. Slavery is still here; it just looks like chain gangs in a for-profit prison system. “Now you’re slaves of the state, not of an individual person,” said Doucet.
“I think that’s the point of Black History Month, and that’s exactly the reason they want to get rid of it. Black History Month gives people an excuse to participate in that understanding of, this is what was happening, this is what people did against it. Now let’s think; about a hundred years later, is it still a problem,” said Peeples.
When history is erased, events like the Igbo Slave Revolt of 1803, the Black Wall Street Massacre, and the Stonewall Riots are forgotten, and people never truly learn the pain and sacrifice it took to get to where we’re at now. It’s important because people died believing it might lead to a better life for the collective, and that can’t be understated.
“The erasing and replacing of Black history signifies a continued contempt and disdain for historical truth. If those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it, what happens to a nation of people whose history is erased and replaced. The nation is obliterated, falsehood prevails, and a narrative arises that does not truthfully reflect the civilization of mankind,” said Dr. Linda Moore, a Los Angeles Unified School District Principal.
When colonizers invade, they burn libraries, museums, and schools, because it erases people from history and leaves no evidence. “Like the police database of all those harmful things those police officers have done. You can’t really prove that police brutality and racism have an intersection if there’s no evidence,” said Peeples.
Erasure doesn’t only happen in conservative states. “There was such a thriving Black community right here in Santa Monica, and when the 10 Freeway was put, through eminent domain, it went through the Black and Brown neighborhoods. Which then dispersed Black families, and disrupted the history and contributions of prominent Black folk who owned property in the city of Santa Monica,” said Sherri Bradford, Program Leader for the Black Collegian Program Umoja Community.
DEI ensures history like that isn’t lost. When Black history is lost, everyone suffers, and even more so for women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Their contributions and efforts become worthless to us and by extension them as people. “Black women are the cornerstone of the Black community because we serve as the portal of our nation. Not only did we take care of our children, but during enslavement we were accountable to every family. Aunt Jemina ran the house and everyone in it. Her voice was law despite being told she was subservient. Black women strength is demonstrated at home, work and social services. Black women receive and deliver to cultures. Most attacks on the Black family are effective when the Black woman is impacted,” said Dr. Moore.
“Black History Month, I think a part of it, especially when we’re talking about Dr. King, is that they get to write these people’s stories, even in a month that’s about them and their humanity is still not even accurate. It’s a part of hypnotizing certain communities into not asking certain question(s),” said Peeples.
Gil Scott-Heron said, “The revolution will not be televised,” meaning there will be a switch of consciousness, a feeling that something is wrong, and then you march the streets, and that’s a way to fight the power. “The history of organizing, the history of collective action. This is one of the reasons why power has found it so important to curate that history, and to make it about the individuals. We miss the level of organizing that was going on. The full grassroots community effort that it took,” said Doucet.
Anti-violence protest is practiced not because change happens by appealing to the consciousness of the government - as Kwame Ture said, “the United States has none,” - but because violence, as Dr. King believed, “would make it too easy for the police to kill or beat you in the streets,” said Peeples.
DEI removal is the erasure of history, and if history is going to be omitted or reconceptualized then the spread of oral history is paramount. In a country where 1940s-esquese book banning and burnings are becoming normalized “you keep telling the story,” said Doucet.
Another form of protest, a passive one, is economic boycotts. We learn about the Montgomery Bus Boycott but not that it took over a year, and especially not that it did great economic damage to the city.
The biggest form of protest there is, is education. Education in itself is a revolutionary act. The recent attacks on education prove that.
As history is erased, it’s important to realize that, as said by Doucet, “they can’t erase Black history because we tell our history,” DEI rollbacks are another example of epistemic violence in American history, with the intended goal of destroying the self-worth and image of every marginalized community, without realizing progress is beneficial to us all. So, this Black History Month, we celebrate those who are known, our Dr. King-s and Jackie Robinson-s. We commemorate those who refused to be forgotten, our Ella Baker-s, Audre Lorde-s, Malcolm X-s, Bayard Rustin-s, and James Baldwin-s, and lastly we thank those who pave the path today for future generations, our Jotaka Eaddy-s and Nikole Hannah-Jones; those who still fight the fight worth having.