How to Celebrate Black Music Month?
Celebrating Black Music Month — or African-American Music Appreciation Month for those of you who aren’t into the whole brevity thing — brings with it a passel of contradictions. On the one hand, there are surely many a well meaning folk out there who aren’t even aware such a month exists in the first place!
Neither MTV nor VH1 have recognized the celebration this year — even on their websites. Neither, for that matter, has Rolling Stone or Spin. XXL, Vibe, AllHipHop.com and other outlets for “urban music” have stepped up and recognized, often with some quite insightful contributions, but in light of the broader ignorance, it almost comes off as ghetto-ized. Roughly three weeks into what should be a nationwide celebration, most of the mainstream has made nary a peep.
Black Music Month, however, isn’t anything new. According to its entry on Wikipedia (whose full length reaches a grand total of one four sentences):
African-American Music Appreciation Month is a celebration for African American Music every year in the month of June in the United States. It was originally started as Black Music Month by President Jimmy Carter, who on June 7, 1979, decreed that June would be the month of black music. Since then, presidents have announced to Americans to celebrate Black Music Month. For each year of his term, President Barack Obama has announced the observance under a new title, African-American Music Appreciation Month.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/06/how-to-celebrate-black-music-month/
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