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"Papa don't take no mess!"

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Every February is officially known as Black History Month, in case you forgot.

It is of my opinion that there shouldn’t be just one month appointed to celebrate culture - it should be an everyday thing.

As a Mexican American, I was raised with cultural awareness all around me, thanks to my parents. My hometown is McFarland, so you can pretty much get the picture of what my life was like was growing up.

But McFarland wasn’t known for black culture. I had one black friend when I was about 7 years old. He was a member of the only black family in town, and I can only imagine what it was like for his family growing up in a town that was 99.9 percent Latino.

After he and his family moved, my only real contact with any inkling of African-American culture was whatever was on TV and radio. Soul, jazz, and Afro-Latin music was always big in our house growing up.

My mom would play her favorites - James Brown’s “Night Train” and “Al Green’s Greatest Hits” endlessly, my dad has always been into jazz music - Duke Ellington, Willie Bobo, and Mongo Santamaria, to name a few. Of course, what would life be like without Soul Train every Saturday thanks to my sisters?

When I entered college and took a black history class with Jesse Bradford at BC my eyes were opened to a beautiful culture I seemed to know very little about. Not to mention during the early ’90s hip-hop music was going through a “conscious” era and rap groups like Public Enemy and movie directors like Spike Lee were commanding attention.

Sure, it scared a lot of people away who didn’t understand the real message, but not me .. .I got it. I’m no authority on black history, but I can tell you that most people don’t realize how much the culture has become a permanent part of the American fabric.

So much of our style, fashion, music, rhythm, the way we talk … the “roots” are clear.

Before the month ends, make sure to take a moment and do some history searching of your own and raise your own consciousness.

Happy Black History Month!

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