Movie should push viewers to dig into history

Several weeks ago, George Lucas released Red Tails, an action drama featuring an all-black cast. The movie tells the story of African-American pilots during World War II. The movie focuses on the major segregation that was happening in the army air force, which prohibited servicemen like the Tuskegee airmen from actually serving their country and doing what they were trained for.

Overall, the movie serves as a learning palette for a subject loosely taught in schools and often overlooked in history books. Of course, the two pages dedicated to black history in American history books are a great start, but not nearly enough when our history is limited to a 5-minute lesson. The history of great African-Americans is confined to merely what people tell us and how historians, not African-Americans themselves, wish to be remembered. In the same way, as Black History Month approaches, it dawns on me that most of Black History Month consists of the same practice, a quick highlight of typical African-American stories.

Every February, a slew of black cultural and historical references surfaces from the secret hiding places of America. Suddenly a focus shifts onto the "great" men and women of the African-American community: Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall and Marian Anderson. But, what about, Regina Benjamin, the first African-American female and the youngest person to be elected to the American Medical Association's board of trustees; Simmi Knox, the first African-American artist to paint an official presidential portrait of Bill Clinton; or Macon Bolling, the first African-American to pass the bar and practice law in the United States in 1845? These, too, are great women and men of our society and our past, but somehow they are overlooked as the generic depiction of the African-American hero is catapulted to the forefront.

We do not aim for depth in our learning or our entertainment; instead, we often choose to accept what historians or Hollywood deems as an appropriate portrayal of the past. This is an accusation that I myself am guilty of, but knowing this, we have to ask ourselves how we learn about the past and how this informs who we become. How many of us even knew what this movie was about? How many of us know of the 1945,1995, 2004 movie attempts to tell the same story? How many of us can even name one of the Tuskegee airmen?

So, now as Black History Month arrives and this movie continues to gain popularity, I am reminded that I must push myself to learn more. And by learn more, I do not mean that I should merely buy my ticket to Red Tails and accept writer John Ridley's script, because even this movie cannot fully depict all of the airmen's stories. In fact, critics have accused the movie of failing to focus on the true importance of these men. Nonetheless, perfect or not, it is a step in the right direction and a stand to Hollywood's inability to market these genres of movies and all African-American casts.

Now, the choice remains to support a great production, an all-black leading cast, and a success over the system. Because as director Anthony Hemmingway put it, "It's not a shock that the system or Hollywood didn't want to tell the story." But what could be a shock is the number of people who choose to defy the norms, not only by watching this movie and supporting this movement but also in truly learning the stories behind these forgotten names.