Last Wednesday’s welcoming coffee hour at San Diego State launched the annual campus celebration of Black History Month, with upcoming activities packed through the beginning of March.SDSU’s Black History Month activities are “pretty much the same” as those held on other college and university campuses across the country, said Shirley Weber, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Africana studies department. The purpose is to raise awareness about African-Americans, featuring celebrations of music, dance and culture along with informative and challenging forums on special topics of interest to blacks held on campus and around the city. An important event will be the screening of a film about rape of black women.As important as Black History Month celebrations are, Weber said she doesn’t necessarily view the month as an immediate opportunity for solving issues faced by blacks today.Weber is happy to note that she receives many calls from individuals, organizations and governmental agencies wanting to join in on Black History Month celebrations because of their black employees and general interest. Jacqueline Bacon, a white female who writes about black history, will organize the event at a local Presbyterian church.But she doesn’t necessarily view the month as an immediate opportunity for solving issues faced by blacks today.”I think movements do much more than a month of celebration would do, like the civil rights movement, or the black power movement,” Weber said. “There, the purpose is to identify and make changes. Black History Month doesn’t necessarily do that – other than it’s a time for reflection and celebration, sometimes a commitment to study more. It’s commemorative and celebratory; it’s not movement-oriented.”There is plenty of excitement and anticipation especially in the black community as the presidential primary election is upon us. Barack Obama has the potential to become the Democratic candidate and the potential to win the presidential election.”This is something that 20 years ago most of us would never have thought could happen,” Weber said.Adisa Alkebulan, Ph.D., assistant professor of Africana studies, reflects on more sobering thoughts about Black History Month.”I think that this past year has been one of the most racially charged we have in our recent memory because of Jena, La., and the rise in presence of nooses around the country,” Alkebulan said. “These things demonstrate that African-Americans are still in a peculiar place in U.S. society.”Blacks are the targets of approximately 70 percent of hate crimes committed in California.He added that they desire living in safe, “economically vibrant communities,” just like everybody else.”They don’t want a great deal more or different from other people,” Alkebulan said.But even to this day, African-Americans feel pain in their struggle to be able to enjoy life here just like others. They need recognition and the reality of equal opportunity, for starters.Weber said they have a long way to go in every area, such as overcoming significant education gaps reflecting lower achievement levels than desired. Too often black children experience racist attitudes in school, and teachers who have lower expectations of them.”Now, we see an increase in black professionals, the black middle class, and yet, we see a tremendous number falling within almost the caste-like system of poverty from generation to generation,” Weber said.She lamented that black youth become aware early on of the existence of racism; their parents tell them that they will need to be twice as good as others to get a decent job.”That’s unfair,” Weber said. “Because the person who’s half as good as you gets the job still. And why should you have to be twice as good, or a superstar in an environment of non-stars?” Weber was an elected official on the San Diego Unified School District board for eight years, serving until 1996. She also served as president of the National Council for Black Studies. Her international outreach includes the running the Africana studies department’s South Africa program and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration in West Africa.Besides teaching and chairing the Africana studies department, Weber has spent much time mentoring black youth in San Diego. She constantly strives to teach black high schoolers in San Diego how to be “superhuman beings,” to avoid “being killed by others’ negative attitudes.” She credits her father with her inspiration to mentor and her drive to pursue education through doctoral studies. Weber’s father was a sharecropper in Arkansas, who felt the pinch of Jim Crow laws (discrimination laws that came into play after the Civil War Reconstruction) and was not allowed to attend school beyond the sixth grade.So what would make this a better place for black Americans?”I think if black people got reparations – because inherent in the concept of reparations is recognition of injustice, a recognition of labors never rewarded, and a recognition that the system has caused intergenerational crippling, through Jim Crow and racism, of African-Americans,” Weber said.Choosing some Black History Month events to attend at SDSU will nourish your awareness of diversity and give you an opportunity to voice questions and offer suggestions in response to issues raised.