By George Alexander

It’s March already. Wow. But that means that February, Black History Month, is over. I don’t know whether to shout or cry.

I know unequivocally that Black History Month is important. I’ve even written about its critical nature. Yet, I still seem to have a rather conflicted relationship with this February celebration.

My most recent gripe with our shortest month has less to do with how the mainstream views and treats African-American history than how we ourselves sometimes treat that history. This year, all was going well on the Black History Month front. I was actually enjoying for the most part the interstitials on cable and network TV of “Moments in Black History.” Quaint, trite but celebratory. I’ve come to expect them as routine. It’s like reruns of Seinfeld: There’re just there. People like them.

But what began to annoy me was when I noticed that some of my amazing Facebook friends—most of whom are black in my social media ghetto (that’s another story)—made daily postings in tribute to notable African Americans. What aggravated me was not their seemingly sincere desire to pay homage to black heroes and sheroes, but how they—some young, some not so young, some definitely gifted—had been hood winked into believing that people like Mary McCloud Bethune, who founded Bethune Cookman College, or singer James Brown are only worth acknowledging during February. At least that’s how it felt to me.

I long to see such postings throughout the year. It’s as if we have allowed ourselves to make a novelty of our history. It’s somehow cool to wave your red, black and green flag during Black History Month but retreat back to your dugout for another year. It makes black history seem a bit like Carnival: fun, but not to be taken too seriously.

I get it when television broadcast and cable networks run Black History Month specials. They are, after all, businesses looking to capitalize on a market opportunity. That’s their job. More black power to them. That sad part is that one black senior executive at a cable network confessed to me that they’ve found that February seems to be the only time when folks really pay attention to black history. That’s the tragedy for me.

We’ve allowed market forces to dictate when and how we celebrate our own history. When black folks generally succumb to a passive and perhaps unconscious relegation of our history into a narrow shoebox, I think it’s time to take a minute to reflect.

First off, it’s not that it’s not worthwhile to recognize our people, but we of all people should know better. We realize that our history is not just a once-a-year caravan. It should be as day-to-day as our DNA.

I say we start celebrating Black History every day. If there’s ever a good time to feed your mind a little Black History every single day of the week, it’s now. During a recession. With the U.S. Dept. of Labor telling us that the black unemployment rate is at 15.8 percent, it’s a perfect time to remember our ancestors who withstood horrors we will never know. Who endured economic and physical hardship unimaginable.

It’s a great time to remember the intestinal fortitude of people like civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and anti-lynching activist/journalist Ida B. Wells, not to mention the nameless, faceless people who gave of their lives so that we can enjoy the many freedoms we have today. Recalling the journeys of these great men and women will help undergird us in not only these troubled times, but for the rest of our lives. Once a year just won’t cut it.

George Alexander is the author of Why We Make Movies and Queens: Portraits of Black Women and Their Fabulous Hair. He also wrote the VH1 series Black in the 80s.