De Ja Vu

(Original Post Date: March 2015)

Recently, I watched The History Channel's The Men Who Built America. Although the documentary is very informative about the accomplishments of those men it profiled. The programs title is disingenuous. As the truth of the matter is America was not built by the likes of Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller, etc... America was built by extraordinary yet unsung men, many of whom were enslaved, indentured or exploited. This isn't the first time that the History Channel has had an opportunity provide a balanced view of history but failed to met the mark.

Below is an assessment I penned of another The History Channel program which aired a few years ago which ignored a large swath of humanity.

"Sadly, after years of being impressed by the quality of The History Channel’s programming I must say that I am appalled by Mankind: The Story of US. First, there is the issue of the title. There is no civilization: small or large, ancient or modern, strong or weak that was not built in large part by women. It is no wonder that women are still fighting for equality in today’s world when the language used to name such a groundbreaking program excludes women. It is as if woman and their contributions to the development of civilization were are a mere footnote to that of men’s. And, after watching the program I would not have been convinced otherwise as women, their lives, roles and perspectives were relatively invisible.

This brings me to the second missing persons report; missing in this program are the  people of Africa, Asia, India, North and South America, Australia. In my estimation during the 720 minutes of programming: Asians received an hour or so of coverage, Africans were received approximately 45 minutes, Native Americans received approximately 30 minutes and India received less than 20 minutes. I don’t recall Australia being having any meaningful coverage. This is absolutely unacceptable! This program focuses on the rise of European civilization (makes me wonder, who is this us?) and again the rest of us appear as footnotes. Over emphasizing the development of civilization in Europe does a disservice to “US” all. Have we not learned the lessons of the past? Creating an environment where one group thinks that its contributions on this planet far outweighs those of all others (especially when this premise is not even close to accurate) contributes to every –ism known. The lack of cross racial, sexual, religious, etc… understanding and mutual respect on earth today can be traced right back to this exclusively, white- male dominated view of the history. For this slanted view of history creates animosity against and among the underrepresented groups. Dr. John Henrik Clarke said it best, “History, …., is a clock that people use to tell their political time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. History tells a people where they have been and what they have been.” (1997).

After watching, Mankind: The Story of US if I had not learned otherwise I would have been led to believe that they European male had the most time of the clock and the most land on the map. It is my hope that in the future The History Channel will be more balanced in the amount of coverage of each group. Let everyone’s story be told by the clock and be seen on the map so that they may see themselves and know, “where they are and what they are. Most importantly, ... where they still must go and what they still must be” (Clarke, 1997). "

I guess the folks at The History Channel didn't consider or research the merit of my words as I did send an email regarding this issue. But hopefully the rest of us will because its important that we don't continue to tell only a fraction of out story. After all the clock is ticking.

Reference

Clark, John Henrick,. Why Africana History, THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine :1997.