Black accomplishments 101: I never realized that black folks had invented so many useful things that we take for granted today.

Ever since high school, we have all been made aware of black accomplishments with each occasion of black history month in February. There was Harriet Tubman’s railroad and Rosa Parks’s bus seat, but most memorable of all, was George Washington Carver who invented the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which was a mainstay of kid’s lunches until nervous white mothers had it banned from schools. Apart from those recollections, I have not given much thought to the cultural legacy of blacks, except for their music, dance, and comedy. However, around the time of George Floyd, I started to hear common...