<< Black history month promotes discrimination. It needs to go away.
Native Americans should not get one more cent from the U.S. government.
I am not racist. I have two close relatives who have black ancestors. I am part Apache. >>
While my first instinct is to agree with you about Black History Month, I recently watched an episode of a PBS special called "Eyes on the Prize" in my history class, about the Civil Rights Movement. It's humbling to see the absolute CRAP that blacks had to go through just to be allowed to vote, use public accomodations, and get access to equal schooling. They were (and are, in some places) seen as non-human. It's chilling the complete lack of humanity that was shown to them, as they were attacked with fire hoses and dogs, and beaten unconscious while NON-VIOLENTLY protesting. This has nothing directly to do with Black History Month, but blacks had to endure many many beatings not 50 years ago just to be able to eat at the same lunch counter as whites, and to not have to give up their seats on a bus so a white person could sit down, or to go to the same school as whites. We've come a LONG way, but we still have a aways to go. Part of me wants to agree with you; that singling out one race for praise is ludicrous and will only create tension. But on the other hand, with curriculums being what they are in a lot of places, black achievements and their recognition need a helping hand in order for people not to be completely ignorant of them.
[On an aside tangent, WTF is up with the out of control appreciation days, or national toilet week, etc.? God damn, that crap is annoying.]
The Indians are a bit different. You make the analogy of Italy not making reparations for what the Romans did (I assume you meant the Romans); the Italian government is not the Roman government. The Roman government was overthrown long ago. The US government, however, is still alive and kicking. And the US government sent Indians to reservations and promised to provide food and provisions for them, as they were robbed of their traditional hunter/gathering lifestyle. And the government was most certainly not exactly honest in their providing for the Indians. Sending too few supplies, sending rotten meat, little to no health care, banishing them to sh!tty ass land that no one else wanted; all that's a part of the Indian experience. The US gov't had an obligation to the Indians, signed CONTRACTS with the Indians for these things, and did not provide them as they should have. They made treaties with Indians to preserve fishing rights which were broken almost immediately by white fishers.
The US government tried to mandate the obliteration of an entire cultural way of life in its dealings with the Indians. They tried to force Indians to follow the "American" way of life, denying them the rights of citizens if they did not accept US government terms for how they lived on the crap land they WERE given. And, in final answer to your "grievance", in 1946, Congress established the Indian Claims Commission for the very purpose of compensating Indians for land that was stolen from them.