I have this feeling that the "X months" we have, as well the other periods of special recognition, serves a primary purpose of just setting people off.

For real, the ONLY people who really have a strong reaction to things like Black History Month are racists. The ONLY people who really care that there's a "Gay Pride Month" are the frothing homophobes. For everyone else, particularly the people whom those days or months celebrate, it's just Tuesday. Or some such normal day where nothing changes and they still have to constantly look over their shoulder.

If all it does is make some backwards, broken asshole lose his mind and rage about how "unfair" it is that nobody is giving them their special day, then it's a victory. If all these recognition periods do is remind us all that there is a sizable segment of our population who hate you personally then it's actually doing good on the long-term, because we can use it as a barometer. We can use these days and months to gauge how much more work we have to do squashing nazis and purging hate groups, and how much protection our friends and neighbors still need simply for existing outside the "white CIS straight male American" spectrum.