I invite Nebraska’s congressional delegation to join me in celebrating Black History Month.

Surely U.S. Sens. Pete Ricketts and Deb Fischer and U.S. Reps. Don Bacon, Adrian Smith and Mike Flood remember Black History Month. Surely they find it an appropriate marking of the historic and long-standing positive impact of our Black brothers and sisters to this story we call America.

Sadly, the annual observance seems to have fallen out of favor, certainly in the new White House but also in official Washington — where our delegation works — doing the bidding and business of Nebraskans and our American cousins. All of them.

Having heard no push back from our delegation on Black History Month’s federal demise, we can only assume the quintet is good with the president 86-ing the idea — that we no longer need to set aside a time to pay special attention to a portion of our history that illuminates the enormous contributions of Black Americans nor to study the generational and embedded distemper of the discrimination they have faced while doing so.

Black History Is American History

Just a cursory reading and understanding of our country’s story reveals Black history is American history, its triumphs and its tragedies, its soaring heights and its lowest lows. That’s why we especially need to teach our history. All of it.

Come to think of it, the Nebraska Legislature might also get in on the act, proclaiming its support not simply for Black History Month but for the other special remembrances we mark each year that have been hewed from the federal government via executive orders signed, ironically, in a building built by Black Americans. Among the other special days and months no longer deemed important are Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, Pride Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Inexplicably, the president signed a Black History Month proclamation after ordering the federal government to wipe away any semblance of DEI programs. Go figure.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is the trendiest boogeyman on the block, the newly-minted fall guy who, if you believe the true believers, is the root of our social ills, taking over from wokeism, which had a good run.

Some among Nebraska’s starting five in Washington have shared withering anti-DEI sentiments or said little to nothing, a silent nod to consent in a state once known for independent thinkers among its political class.

The argument goes that we must purge the twin terrors of DEI and wokeness from our lives so that society can be “colorblind” and “merit-based.”

When, however, without any evidence we blame deadly wildfires and a horrific mid-air collision of a commercial jetliner and a military helicopter on DEI, that’s not colorblindness. That’s color coding.

And, when, again without facts, data or even a modicum of proof, we assume individuals are less qualified because of their race, gender, sexuality, age, culture, language, religion or even their opinion, that’s not merit. That’s bigotry.

While Nebraska’s elected voices in Washington celebrate Black History Month — or maybe contemplate a vacation on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, oddly on the cartographic chopping block — they really should look into some other nasty Beltway phenomena that affects Nebraskans.

Doge-ing Questions About Accountability

To wit: How can a single, unelected, unnominated and unconfirmed individual “run” a make-believe federal office (DOGE), and, with the help of computer programmers just out of short pants, have opened the nation’s trillion-dollar checkbook in the Department of the Treasury?

They have also accessed accounts of the General Services Administration that oversees the thousands of federal buildings in the county and the systems of the Department of Education, the Small Business Administration and the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the comings, goings and employment-related lives of three million federal workers.

As has been widely reported, apparently none of the above falls within existing law.

Most troubling, however, is the breaching of systems at the U.S. Agency for International Development, an office with a direct link to the State Department, a connection that opens the nation’s intelligence systems to compromise.

Nebraska’s congressional delegation indeed may want to keep celebrating Black History Month, MLK Jr. Day, Juneteenth, Pride Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day and others scheduled for the DEI axe. Let’s hope they do and even raise a voice or a vote to that end.

But for those who represent us in Washington, the bigger, more serious question is just who is running our federal democracy, and are they doing it within the confines of the Constitution and the law? That’s the question the five should be asking. Because we are.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/02/10/time-to-be-asking-serious-questions/

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