Mercy Muroki: Black History Month makes me feel like a footnote, like an afterthought

Happy November 1st, everyone. Also known as, the day where virtue-signalling corporations and public institutions can put their Black History Month memorabilia back in the stock cupboard for another 11 months.

Black people have had 31 days in October for dedicated events, exhibitions, and exposure, bosses have got a month of patting themselves on the back and we can all go back to the perpetual nothingness of arguing about race and diversity that characterises the other 11 months of the year. Now, on a serious note.

I, of course, am unreservedly in favour of teaching the many interesting contributions people of African heritage have made to Western society, to science in particular. It's not all about Edison and Newton – of course I want to hear about the amazing things black people have achieved.Like the black person who invented CCTV, or the microphone, or the three light traffic system, the gas mask, the blood bank, and the first Dr to perform open heart surgery.

But what is 'black history' anyway - how can an entire ethnicity's history be condensed into a month? I can't shake the fact that it all just feels very tokenistic if you ask me. In the words of Morgan Freeman, who once said in an interview he finds black history month ridiculous: 'which month is exactly white history month?' Oh yeah, that's right - there is no such thing as white history - because that would be ridicilous.

Asked by the interviewer 'well how are we meant to get rid of racism then?' in the absence of a dedicated month to celebrate black people, Morgan Freeman replied 'just stop talking about it. I'll stop calling you a white man, and you stop calling me a black man'. Now, of course, this is somewhat of an oversimplification - I'll concede.

But the Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch attempted to make a similar point in an interview yesterday, and got criticism. She said: 'Black History Month has become racism history month, which is what it shouldn't be'.

It has essentially become a month where we teach about the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, the slave trade, as if that's all what being black entails. Black History Month makes me feel like a footnote, like an afterthought.

If I go on to do great things – or if any of my children go on to do great things, things that change the course of human history... which if I have it my way, they will - I really hope our achievements will not be relegated for a month.Black History Month is over and it's sad to say, I'm kind of relieved.