Dr Glenvile Ash­by

By the time this ar­ti­cle goes to press, the T&T Con­sulate in New York will be on the verge of its first Black His­to­ry Month cel­e­bra­tion (as far I can re­call). Ad­mit­ted­ly, it was quick­ly or­gan­ised, with the pro­gramme evolv­ing from what I call "ster­ile" to one that tru­ly re­flects our inim­itable cul­ture and mile­stones, re­plete with drum­ming, dance, pan, po­et­ry read­ings, and an ex­hib­it high­light­ing the achieve­ments of our sons and daugh­ters, at home and abroad.

Ad­mit­ted­ly, the Caribbean di­as­po­ra has been slow to recog­nise this spe­cial month de­spite dai­ly me­dia vi­gnettes fea­tur­ing out­stand­ing blacks, past and present. It is a "cel­e­bra­tion" that is al­so heav­i­ly pro­mot­ed through­out New York pub­lic and char­tered schools. This dis­con­nect I at­tribute to the "al­most" ex­clu­sive­ly African Amer­i­can he­roes that are ho­n­oured each year. This is un­der­stand­able. Af­ter all, Black His­to­ry Month, as we know it, is the brain­child of Har­vard schol­ar and his­to­ri­an Dr Carter Wood­son, who, in 1926, cel­e­brat­ed Ne­gro His­to­ry Week in Feb­ru­ary, a month so cho­sen be­cause it marked the birth­days of Abra­ham Lin­coln and Fred­er­ick Dou­glas, whom he con­sid­ered in­stru­men­tal in the man­u­mis­sion of Amer­i­can slaves.

(Dr Wood­son is al­so known for es­tab­lish­ing the As­so­ci­a­tion for the Study of Ne­gro Life and His­to­ry, and the Jour­nal of Ne­gro His­to­ry.) So root­ed is the jour­ney of the black Amer­i­can that the Caribbean di­as­po­ra (as a whole) has not been ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pa­tive and vo­cal of its pres­ence, and its own transat­lantic con­tri­bu­tion. In ad­di­tion to the very "Amer­i­can" con­sti­tu­tion of Black His­to­ry Month, we should look no fur­ther than the peren­ni­al sub­ject of im­mi­gra­tion to bet­ter ex­plain our dis­en­gage­ment. Un­doubt­ed­ly, thou­sands of un­doc­u­ment­ed T&T na­tion­als are rel­e­gat­ed to an "ob­scure" and self-cen­tred ex­is­tence in the US with lit­tle ex­tracur­ric­u­lar in­ter­est.

Equal­ly per­ti­nent is that many, de­spite hold­ing dual cit­i­zen­ship and there­fore be­ing "Amer­i­cans," still view them­selves as sole­ly "Trinida­di­ans." The ques­tion of iden­ti­ty is an area with which the black com­mu­ni­ty, in par­tic­u­lar, has long grap­pled, with­out pro­duc­ing a clear­ly de­fined and agree­able an­swer. How­ev­er, pe­ri­ods of dis­place­ment, cul­tur­al dis­so­nance, ef­face­ment, and forced as­sim­i­la­tion have al­ways worked against a "one-peo­ple" con­cept, not on­ly among the black di­as­po­ra.

Fur­ther, this "de-fang­ing" or up­root­ing of core African val­ues-for ex­am­ple the rev­er­ence of el­ders, the sanc­ti­ty of the fam­i­ly units, and the ubiq­ui­ty of the an­ces­tors in all of life's en­deav­ours-has de­val­ued the sense of self and com­mu­ni­ty. Black His­to­ry Month, since its in­cep­tion, has at­tempt­ed to ad­dress this alien­ation and en­gen­der pos­i­tiv­i­ty and ho­mo­gene­ity, a tem­plate of sorts for once dis­en­fran­chised peo­ples every­where.

Ac­com­plish­ments across the board, in­clud­ing the lit­tle known in­ven­tions by black Amer­i­cans-George Wash­ing­ton Carv­er (bot-any), Otis Boykins (elec­tron­ics), Dr Pa­tri­cia Bath (oph­thal­mol­o­gy), Gar­rett Mor­gan (the gas mask and the traf­fic sig­nal), and a host of oth­ers-spell the in­ge­nu­ity of a peo­ple de­spite in­cred­i­ble odds. It is the same for Caribbean peo­ples. In so many ways, the black Ame-ri­can ex­pe­ri­ence, though unique, can­not re­al­ly be di­vorced from our own jour­ney in the Caribbean. It be­hooves us to build on this com­mon­al­i­ty. That is why the de­ci­sion by the con­sulate is sig­nif­i­cant on many fronts.

When the an­thems of the US and T&T are sung, and the first mu­si­cal sal­vo is heard, be it pan or drums, an­oth­er ed­u­ca­tion­al ef­fort to bridge com­mu­ni­ties would have be­gun-and a new phase and an un­chart­ed ter­ri­to­ry ven­tured. No­tably, the in­au­gur­al cel­e­bra­tion of Black His­to­ry Month by the T&T di­as­po­ra al­so car­ries a strong moral com­po­nent. It pro­motes a sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and grat­i­tude, of which some ig­nore or are dis­mis­sive.

It is hard­ly con­testable that every eth­nic com­mu­ni­ty in the US is great­ly in­debt­ed to black Amer­i­ca. The wind­fall of the 1960s civ­il rights strug­gle (in which Caribbean na­tion­als were in­volved) has been a vic­to­ry for every­one. Every eth­nic­i­ty. Maybe dou­bly so for us in the Caribbean di­as­po­ra who swal­lowed that bit­ter his­tor­i­cal pill (along with US blacks).

Now, af­ter life­times of strug­gle, our ac­com­plish­ments are in­ex­tri­ca­bly linked to the spir­it and man­date of Black His­to­ry Month. Com­ment­ing on the idea of dis­tinct and dis­parate cul­tur­al units, "the Ma­hat­ma" once said: "No cul­ture can live if it at­tempts to be ex­clu­sive." This is a tru­ism that can­not be overem­pha­sised. I am par­tic­u­lar­ly heart­ened by the lead­ers in the In­do-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ty who pledged their at­ten­dance-with fam­i­ly and friends in tow. Ac­knowl­edge­ment of each oth­er in na­tion build­ing is re­al­ly the first step to­ward a pro­gres­sive so­ci­ety-and an un­fail­ing les­son for our youths.

Im­mea­sur­able is the rel­e­vance of black his­to­ry, es­pe­cial­ly now with many of our prog­e­ny in the throes of ex­is­ten­tial abeyance in a dis­tant land. Re­gret­tably, too many of our youths are in­car­cer­at­ed. The sta­tis­tics just can­not be swept un­der the rug. Nel­son Man­dela once in­toned: "There can be no keen­er rev­e­la­tion of a so­ci­ety's soul than the way it treats its chil­dren." He stressed "liv­ing up to the ideals of hu­man­ism" and coun­selled against "in­dif­fer­ence, cyn­i­cism or self­ish­ness" to­ward fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

Cul­ture has al­ways added mean­ing and served as the rud­der, the cen­tre pole in peo­ples' lives. And no rich­er cul­tur­al and re­li­gious ex­pres­sion ex­ists than in the Carib-bean. We have to ex­plore ways of ef­fec­tive­ly in­te­grat­ing cul­ture and tra­di­tions in­to pol­i­cy de­ci­sions at all lev­els of gov­er­nance. The con­tri­bu­tion of our artists, so­cial thinkers, politi­cians and writ­ers abounds. But it is a sur­feit of da­ta still un­col­lect­ed and analysed-with­in a re­gion­al and glob­al con­text-and made eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble to our peo­ple and in­sti­tu­tions. This is a vi­tal un­der­tak­ing with gen­er­a­tional im­pli­ca­tions. Maybe the vis­i­bil­i­ty and stature of the con­sulate can be in­stru­men­tal to­ward this end.

The con­sulate's de­ci­sion to cel­e­brate Black His­to­ry Month has shat­tered the old lens and re­framed the dis­cus­sion of our role with­in a much broad­er so­cial con­struct. It is bold, in­sight­ful and long over­due. Oth­er Caribbean and African con­sulates, if they have not, should fol­low suit. We, col­lec­tive­ly, have much to cel­e­brate. I can on­ly en­vi­sion a Feb­ru­ary when na­tion­al­ly tele­vised snip­pets on his­to­ry's movers and shak­ers will in­clude blacks of all climes. This would be the supreme achieve­ment.

• Dr Glenville Ash­by is a cor­re­spon­dent for the Guardian and a mem­ber of the As­so­ci­a­tion for Transper­son­al Psy­chol­o­gy