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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhite Americans Fail to Address Their Family Histories
There is a conversation about race that white families are just not having. This is mine.
I am a historian of race and labor in the American South. I study slavery and its aftermaths for working people—particularly African Americans—and the ways in which those in power—usually wealthy whites—exploited and abused them.
As part of a personal project, I recently began going through my family’s historical papers. I had initially asked for the papers when, at a recent holiday party, one of my friends told me that his great-great-grandfather had been on Sherman’s march. Mine, I replied, had died in 1865 fighting Sherman. In the awkward silence that followed, I conceded, “they had it coming.” I meant it. You cannot exploit and abuse millions of people for profit without consequences.
That conversation reminded me of the ominous-looking box that held miscellaneous documents from my family’s past. Having advised other families to donate their historical collections to archives, it seemed only right that I should find an appropriate home for my own. With permission from my father, I started cataloging our papers with the goal of eventually donating it to an archive in Georgia.
https://activisthistory.com/2018/02/09/white-americans-fail-to-address-their-family-histories/
( Democrats should run away from CRT? Why? Who would benefit? )
A Lesson on Critical Race Theory
by Janel George
In September 2020, President Trump issued an executive order excluding from federal contracts any diversity and inclusion training interpreted as containing “Divisive Concepts,” “Race or Sex Stereotyping,” and “Race or Sex Scapegoating.” Among the content considered “divisive” is Critical Race Theory (CRT). In response, the African American Policy Forum, led by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, launched the #TruthBeTold campaign to expose the harm that the order poses. Reports indicate that over 300 diversity and inclusion trainings have been canceled as a result of the order. And over 120 civil rights organizations and allies signed a letter condemning the executive order. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the National Urban League (NUL), and the National Fair Housing Alliance filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the executive order violates the guarantees of free speech, equal protection, and due process. So, exactly what is CRT, why is it under attack, and what does it mean for the civil rights lawyer?
CRT is not a diversity and inclusion “training” but a practice of interrogating the role of race and racism in society that emerged in the legal academy and spread to other fields of scholarship. Crenshaw—who coined the term “CRT”—notes that CRT is not a noun, but a verb. It cannot be confined to a static and narrow definition but is considered to be an evolving and malleable practice. It critiques how the social construction of race and institutionalized racism perpetuate a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tiers. CRT also recognizes that race intersects with other identities, including sexuality, gender identity, and others. CRT recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past. Instead, it acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/
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EYESORE 9001
(29,465 posts)We shared a brief laugh but avoided any awkward conversation.
Mopar151
(10,345 posts)I've met several of mine....
DENVERPOPS
(13,003 posts)When Sinese? (Lt. Dan) said to Forest and Bubba, "are you two brothers" ??????????
csziggy
(34,189 posts)One particular one was a Baptist minister very responsible for the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention. He left his ministry in South Carolina when the church made the decision to not allow church officials to own slaves and moved to Alabama.
Also, in relation to Sherman's March - one of my husband's ancestors marched with Sherman. We 'joke' that his ancestor helped destroy many of the records of my ancestors in South Carolina as they marched through. So many of the churches and court houses were burned that there is a lot of missing information about that branch of my family.
I've also found records on Ancestry of people who seem to be descended from slaves owned by parts of my family, though I have not directly communicated with them to verify.
It's hard to reconcile slave ownership with the realities of today.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)
DeeNice
(579 posts)rather than "owned slaves." I haven't conclusively documented the genealogy but I'm pretty sure it's going there. Yes, hard to reconcile is an understatement. As well as the fact that it really wasn't all that long ago.
csziggy
(34,189 posts)I will have to start using it.
I learned to type by transcribing old wills and deeds for my mother while she was researching her family tree. I distinctly remember the first one I came on when the will dictated who would get which people to hold and how the children of those people were to be disposed of. It was horrific.
Since then I have found quite a few other wills of my ancestors with the same sorts of provisions, as well as deeds for people - most of those were in South Carolina.
genxlib
(6,092 posts)My wife does a lot of genealogy and discovered slave owners among my ancestors.
I was not surprised that they would own slaves. I was surprised they could afford to.
She also discovered that several died in the Civil War on behalf of the South. I was somewhat happy to note that they died of dysentery in a POW camp. Seemed fair to me.
Most don't want to know the real history and a few even long to bring it back.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)
shanti
(21,785 posts)has really done a number on many, many white people. Suddenly, they're not as lily white as they had thought.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)
vlyons
(10,252 posts)My grandmother was born in 1881 in Kentucky. She came to Texas when she was 5 in a covered wagon. I remember as a little preschool girk sitting at her dressing and playing with her costume jewelry. On her dresser were photographs of some old black guys. She told me, pointing at the pictures, "that's your cousin So-n-So, and that's your cousin So-n-So," and she would laugh. My parents were horrified. They told me, "No No! You're not any kin to them. Those were slaves freed after the civil war, and then adopted by the family.
Yeah riiiiiight!
My Dad, who was a Dallas cop, was so deeply racist that whenever a black person appeared on TV, he would change the channel. I could tell more stories like those. Suffice it to say that I went to segregated by law public schools in Dallas. It wasn't until I went to college in 1965 at U Tex in Austin that there were black students -- mostly foreign students from Nigeria. My freshman year, there were 20,000 students enrolled, of which 600 were black.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)at college.
Dial H For Hero
(2,971 posts)
Alexander Of Assyria
(7,839 posts)Without a DNA trace. Probably not same thing with white folk. Not really same reasons to know.
Sympthsical
(10,867 posts)They immigrated into the Midwest, where they only allowed themselves to socialize with and marry into other immigrant Catholic potato people. My mother did an extensive ancestry research some years ago, and it's just potato people all the way down (or as Jack Donaghy noted on 30 Rock - "We come from a long line of whiskey testers and goblins." )
I'd like to thank them for my absolute inability to deal with the sun in any form.
They managed white flight from South Side Chicago and all became firmly suburban folk, where they remain to this day. Like, seriously. All of them. It's odd.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)I feel seen.
meadowlander
(5,099 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 8, 2021, 06:22 PM - Edit history (1)
All of my immediate ancestors came to North America post-1860 so I'm reasonably certain they didn't participate in African chattel slavery in North America. Most of them went to Canada first and then drifted down (probably illegally) in the late 19th Century.
But I have Vikings on one side and Roman slave owners on the other. One of my Canadian ancestors was in the British Navy sailing around colonizing the East Indies before he jumped ship off the coast of Newfoundland.
By the time you get back to the 13th Century you have more direct ancestors than there have ever been human beings. If you're a Celt or have Mediterranean roots you probably have cannibal ancestors. If you're Eastern European you're probably related at least in part of Ghengis Khan or one of the other nomadic warlords.
I don't see why people get hung up on admitting this. I don't rape or pillage or eat people or steal their shit and subjugate them even though my ancestors did. And the fact that they are my ancestors doesn't make me hesitant or take it personally to admit it when the facts make it clear that they did horrible shit.
Sympthsical
(10,867 posts)You go back far enough, you're going to find something. Hell, sometimes you don't even have to go back that far. I have no illusions that a self-contained white immigrant community wasn't festooned with major league racists. During the Civil War, the Irish in New York rioted over the draft and saw emancipated slaves as competition for labor. They had to bring out the bishop to chill them out.
It's not admitting it. It's the attempted suffusion of guilt into the present day descendants that makes people roll their eyes. "Address Your History." Ok, I did, at least as far as America goes that I know of. Couldn't tell you what they got up to over yonder. Probably something. Everyone's ancestors got up to something. And I do mean everyone's ancestors - not just white people.
All anyone can do is make the present day better.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)My great grandparents were slaves, they survived, somehow. It is nothing short of a miracle in some respects.
I like how you explain it too. To me, looking at our past is not about feeling bad, but understanding the links to what was an atrocity so we do not repeat it in a systemic manner.
Scrivener7
(58,432 posts)ditch with a filthy stream running down the middle, with armed soldiers ringing the top of the ditch walls to prevent any escapes. Thousands of men were in the ditch at any one time. No food, no shelter, no sanitation. My great great grandfather lasted an astonishingly long time before he died of dysentery, as far as longevity there went: almost four months.
Another died on the prison ship Virginia. That was rumored to be worse than Andersonville.
My family members may have done wrong things over the generations, but I am proud to say they were on the right side of slavery and some paid dearly.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Scrivener7
(58,432 posts)
Demsrule86
(71,499 posts)One died in a Northern prison and one died after being incarcerated in a Southern prison...one fought for the South and one for the North...they were small farmers and owned no slaves. I don't know much else.
Dan
(4,992 posts)I’d like to other a perspective on this family history.
Maybe, people don’t want to know if their ancestors crossed the color line.
Maybe, like the grandmother telling her grandchild, they don’t want to know their cousins.
Maybe, some of them don’t want to know, at some point in the pass - some of their ancestors “passed”.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Demsrule86
(71,499 posts)Dad was two and we know very little about that side...I suppose I could probe my Mother's side...but honestly, I have no interest. It is my opinion that too many live in the past and not the present...I live in the moment and look to the future...we can change things in the future...the past is the past.
Demsrule86
(71,499 posts)now. It is a mistake.
scrabblequeen40
(335 posts)It was brought to us, and we don't have the luxury of making it go away simply by ignoring it. It's a mistake to ignore it, if that is what you suggest.
No one cares about green energy or infrastructure or international affairs, if they feel the scarce privilege of being white is being ripped away from them by a mob of lefties.
Just saying... this is what whites care about. Maybe not you, but it's what will help the GQP win elections.
AZProgressive
(29,857 posts)CRT isn’t the only thing and you can’t say Republicans are against free speech?
Lancero
(3,260 posts)Everyone would rather kick the can down the road another generation, because it's never the right time.
Demsrule86
(71,499 posts)and all I can say is...the results were surprising...and make all of us wonder if Mom might have stepped out a bit. He is having them done again to see if there are errors. But honestly, what does it matter at this point...Mom and Dad are gone. I love my brother and nothing would change that.
Dan
(4,992 posts)And I am sure that there are many like you 
.
But I am equally sure that there are many that are so in love with their white skin, that some revelations about ‘mixing’ and ‘passing’ in their family tree - would be more than they could stand, and bring about all levels of denial, combined with some ‘self hate’.
But that is my opinion.
Kaleva
(40,224 posts)Despite living in the US for decades, she never did learn English and my mom, grandmother or someone else would have to translate when I talked with her.
One story I remember is when she was still living in Finland, she and all the other people had to flee into the woods when Russian troops arrived (Finland was part of the Russian Empire at the time). The troops were there to ransack the village, taking what they could and burning the village down when they left.
Another story was about a great-grandfather whom I never met but this story was told to me by an aunt. When he was a boy living in Finland, his father died and his mother, unable or not wanting to care for her kids, sold him and his siblings to other families. My great-grandfather lived in a barn with the animals and was never allowed in the house. After he worked enough years, he was granted his freedom and doing other jobs, made enough to pay for passage to the US. Here, he became a successful businessman and paid for all of his siblings to come to the US but, according to my aunt, he never said a word about his mother.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Thank you for sharing that and btw, the name Kaleva is beautiful.
Kaleva
(40,224 posts)sarisataka
(22,245 posts)In the late 1890s. They were fleeing religious persecution from Germans and Russians who occupied their county.
Wingus Dingus
(9,173 posts)in the late 1800's and first decades of the 1900's. Mostly Catholic and some Ashkenazi Jewish. They had nothing to do with anything that went on in America, or England, before they arrived. No slaveholders, no Civil War fighters, no killers of Native Americans--just working-class immigrants, settled in areas of similar Catholic immigrants, farming and working in factories, minding their own business, and making their way in the US during the 20th century. My grandparents on my mom's side never even owned a car, they used public transportation all their lives, or walked. They worked and raised children and had very little, all their lives--just a small house and a little garden. I reject the attempt to lump all Americans of European descent into culpability for atrocities they weren't present for, or for discriminatory practices, systems and institutions they didn't build or support.
Demsrule86
(71,499 posts)tomorrow.
plimsoll
(1,690 posts)That may be because some of the most prejudiced people in my family are from the more recent immigrant families. Regardless, what I believe we have to acknowledge is that those immigrant ancestors came to a US that had systemic racism and non-English bigotry cooked into the system. How many people changed their names to obscure the non-English origin? How many people silently stood by while open bigotry was practiced around them? How many joined in because that was the road to acceptance in prejudiced society. I'm not going to blame them because that was the price of survival, but I'm not going to pretend that they didn't participate because they didn't build the system. Silence was and is ascent.
Wingus Dingus
(9,173 posts)racial blame and guilt--merely for immigrating and living here--is dumb and unproductive. I wasn't taught racial prejudice, not by my parents or by my grandparents. They didn't have any particular beef with any group of people. Their names are the same as from the Old Country--they weren't ashamed of themselves, and they didn't allow anyone to change their names. So, that's not my heritage, and I won't claim it.
Dan
(4,992 posts)Your key to the American Dream - regardless of whether or not it was used - was the color of your skin.
No one says that all Whites or their ancestors participated in the two greatest sins that define America, that being Genocide and Slavery. But no one can deny that privileges or ‘crimes again’ that came with the skin color.
The American Dream, the institutions of this nation, the opportunities and ‘rights’ were granted and bestowed based on that. Their was a time that it seemed like the opportunities for all might have been within our reach, but Trump showed us that is not to be. Trump, the GOP, the SCOTUS are telling us that if they have their way, we will once again have ‘Separate and Unequal’ as the rule of the land.
And, for even those with White skin, we see that opportunities are also limited - because of family connection, who you know - so in some ways, the plantation has gotten bigger and the pain shared.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Wingus Dingus
(9,173 posts)I'm not denying that. My Polish ancestors must have benefitted from it, perhaps less so for my Italian/darker-skinned ancestors, they looked foreign.
But beyond that, they had few advantages and many challenges in life, not a one of them had it easy. All of my great-grandparents and grandparents lived and died as struggling farmers and small business owners and working class people, with little to show beyond having raised decent, productive American children. I bristle against the reduction of them, and their lives and experiences as immigrants and Americans, to being either perpetrators of black or Native American racial injustice, or merely beneficiaries of a physical characteristic they couldn't help. Mostly they were consumed with their own problems and challenges and dreams, and I think that's fine.
This is the weakness of wokeness, IMO, and why too much of it hurts Democrats. I don't like using the term "woke", but seriously, asking people to examine their white ancestors through a negative blame-laden lens of today's attitudes, and "addressing" it--whatever the fuck that means--is just stupid.
Dan
(4,992 posts)I spoke to history and if that acknowledgement of history offends - then there is little I can say.
Your great-grandparents and grandparents sound like and may have been very good people. People that we classify as the salt of the earth - and bless them, we need more of them.
But imagine your ancestors with their small farm or business - and someone decides one day that they have too much, and through legal and illegal means take possession of their assets. Decide that somewhere or somehow what they did was illegal, the legal case being judged and adjudicated by the people in power that decided that they had too much. That your ancestors had no remedy by law, custom, culture or tradition because the powers that be had decided on their ‘rightness’ and their ‘wrongness’.
Now, imagine if everything that your ancestors wanted for their descendants was taken away and left their children with nothing except broken dreams. Imagine them being told that they were failures for failing to provide for their offsprings. Imagine them telling their children to rise above via education and discovering that Jim Crow only provided the bare minimum of an education - and even if they were able to overcome that, being too smart or uppity could get them lynched. And now, discovering that the perpetrators of this ‘evil under the cover of rightness’ were the people that made the laws, administered the laws, and enforced the laws. And, even when the rightness of their cause was known by all, it was more important to be silent or accommodate the system than doing the right thing.
You may not agree, but maybe you can understand - why some of todays problems were created with actions of the past.
And, the situation was even worse for the Native Americans…
AncientAndy
(73 posts)Heard that before. It’s cold comfort to people who are struggling.
Wingus Dingus
(9,173 posts)persists today particularly for African Americans and Native Americans. It's worthy of continued study and examination. But this post specifically calls on American white people to examine their ancestry to address... what? Their ancestors' blame in building, perpetrating, and profiting from the injustice? For what purpose? Dead people are dead. They might have done things that brought you pride, or shame...maybe they were heroes, or villains, or just regular people who were products of their time and culture. Or maybe you'll never know.
There is no link between whatever my fresh-off-the-boat great-grandparents thought and believed in the early 1900's, and my politics, actions and beliefs today, beyond my continued (loose) adherence to Catholic teachings. I don't feel ashamed of them, I don't judge them, I didn't know them, beyond some basic facts and family stories, and a photo of my great-grandfather holding me as an infant on his lap not long before he passed away. I have no idea what he thought about Black people, or Asians, or Native Americans, or Protestants, or Jews, and it doesn't matter now.
Maybe it’s as simple and complex as that.
Wingus Dingus
(9,173 posts)and the present unfairness and inequality against African Americans and other racial groups. That's a point to agree on.
JustAnotherGen
(37,604 posts)I don't really care about slavery. I seriously don't. That said - I descend from Enslaved Americans (earliest footprint is a Sale of body from VA to Alabama - disruptive slave sent down the river). I also descend from Natives, French, German Protestants and Jews, and Scots/Irish.
My father lived and died as a very dark skinned black man - one of 10 children born and raised in the deep south. His mother was mixed like me - and found the blackest man she could find in 1918 to take the stain of whiteness (blue eyes, straight here) away from her children. My mom is German, French, Scots/Irish.
My experience is solely that of a black woman - as I've never been called a slur by a black American - only by white Americans.
That said -
My issue is the New Deal. January 1, 1933 to the 'on paper' banning of Red Lining in 1968. In that 35 years my father's family were high earners. The owned their own farms, business, liquor making, bars, etc. etc. Fed up with separate but unequal - my Grand Daddy built his children a modern school - that was actually better than the white folks in that town in Alabama. He was one of the highest property tax payers in the state for decades -
But his children - were not allowed to go to white STATE aka Public Universities.
The highways he paid for - well he could drive down them - but where would he stay?
The GI Bill his taxes went for - his oldest son in law was NOT allowed to participate because he was black.
His son, my dad was already a decorated Military Officer and Green Beret in 1964 when he was home on leave - during the 1964 election. It was too dangerous for the stand up straight patriot to vote in Alabama that year.
Those are just 4 things.
I'm like you - who cares about all of those dead people? I don't want to pay reparations for slavery either.
But you know what? My dad's four oldest siblings are STILL alive.
I'm the youngest of 33 grandchildren - and many of my cousins were VERY much alive in the 1950's and 1960's.
Those folks aren't dead.
I'd like a 35 year 5% tax break if you, your parent, or grandparent was on the Census in 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960 or 1970 as Negro/Black. You get to claim it for 35 years - and it either sunsets out or you die.
See here's my thing -
It's not my fault your family immigrated and were poor.
The chose to immigrate.
It's not my problem that they didn't pay the almost 50% in income taxes my grandfather did in the Eisenhower era.
He paid it - and they got all of the benefits - whether it was direct or not. My 4 aunts and uncles still alive paid it.
I want my pound of flesh. My family built this country, predate the descendants of MILLIONS of Ellis Island Era immigrants, sacrificed more, paid more and got less.
I want my tax credit. It's owed us.
Wingus Dingus
(9,173 posts)their profits taken away from them. Nor do I believe it's my ancestors' fault. The fault lies with the US and state governments of past eras, elected officials, judges--and any remedy also lies with them as well. I always vote for Democrats, so I'm not the people you need to convince.
JustAnotherGen
(37,604 posts)Your ancestors benefited from it. Maybe your parents marched in the second Civil Rights movement . . .
But white supremacy exists because good people do nothing.
My grand daddy was a Republican - he hated the likes of the Southern Democrats, the Kennedys. Liked and voted for LBJ.
The Kennedys wouldn't take calls from MLK.
Wingus Dingus
(9,173 posts)during the 20th century, so they got some sort of advantage from being white, certainly. And....
javihehim
(2 posts)the reason you might have mixed DNA could be from the rape of my people and other non-whites
GP6971
(37,655 posts)Cassidy
(223 posts)It is through my DNA analysis that I realized one of my ancestors was a rapist. That made something horrifically personal to me that had previously been historical.
My parents were divorced when I was very young and I grew up with my mothers family. They were all Volga Germans who had come to America in the early 1900's. So I naturally identified with them.
Only through genetic analysis did I learn that, on my father's side, in addition to my distant European American cousins, I have distant cousins who are African American.
That made me feel good, as I am part of a larger picture, and also horrified, because we know that came about because of the rape of a fellow human who was likely enslaved.
Why do you see this increased awareness as a bad thing?
Dial H For Hero
(2,971 posts)JustAnotherGen
(37,604 posts)But I fail to see how my ancestors who were enslaved did anything other than having a black body -
And that was the greatest offense to white Americans.
Dial H For Hero
(2,971 posts)Many of your ancestors (and everyone else's, for that matter) raped, enslaved, and murdered other people. Guaranteed.
JustAnotherGen
(37,604 posts)White Supremacy is in every thread of the fabric of America. Why do white folks always go back to Africa? We didn't have A choice to be here.
Eh? I'm just sick and tired of the European immigrant sob stories. A generation or two and they benefited from the sick, twisted, depraved abuse of black and brown bodies.
Like - I'm over it. Move on. My husband just received his US citizenship on November 16 (Italian Immigrant - Dual Citizen) and he finds the sob stories nauseating. They made a choice as he did in 2001. I made a choice to get my Italian citizenship in 2013.
Neither of us could just show up on a boat, pass a physical and get in. We had it harder as we had to spend thousands of dollars and to cut through tons of bureaucratic red tape.
.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Not everyone understands this.
cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)With very few exceptions every Black person sent to the Americas was captured and sold by someone in Africa.
JustAnotherGen
(37,604 posts)Who were enslaved. So its not my fault
Zeitghost
(4,557 posts)It would also be rape of their people...
BannonsLiver
(20,288 posts)
JustAnotherGen
(37,604 posts)
It's why a lot of non native mixed people prefer to identify as mixed. Who wants to admit those green eyes came from their grandmother's rapist. Sundown Integration was just the rape and impregnation of innocent black women.
jonstl08
(542 posts)Last edited Fri Dec 10, 2021, 12:56 PM - Edit history (1)
Had the luxury of both sides of my family being racist especially the Grandparents. Thank god my mother preached to us not to act like them and she herself was not racist. Once she told my father if he ever used the N-word around us again he would not live long.
Moms' side of the family changed over the years and softened their stance on race. Fathers side are still racist to the core and I avoid them.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)It is great you had such a strong-hearted Mom. Those family dynamics can be challenging.
Demsrule86
(71,499 posts)we need to look forward not backwards...we can't do anything about the past but if we manage to win elections, we can make the future better.
Caliman73
(11,767 posts)What would cause the decimation?
Is it that CRT is false? Something else?
Added: Can you look to the future, and make a better future without examining the past and learning what the attitudes and policies of the past were?
JustAnotherGen
(37,604 posts)I want a focus on the Voting Rights right now - CRT is a white racist ploy to change the conversation.
If we can get the two voting rights laws passed - then we can maintain the house and senate with an increase. That increase will allow us to change rules.
Then black folks - we are going to want to have a discussion with America. I'm holding onto my reparations manuscript until after the midterms.
If we save America again - it's time to pay the vig.
fescuerescue
(4,475 posts)I was just told it's all a myth anyway.
Klaralven
(7,510 posts)He was wounded in the Battle of Monocacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monocacy
Most of my ancestors arrived in the US after the Civil War.
DENVERPOPS
(13,003 posts)Often, they have a Colorado License Plate that says their ancestors were pioneers.
One was spouting off at a party I was at, and in front of everyone I said:
"So, it was YOUR ancestors that were the ones that killed off MY ancestors and stole their lands" ????????????
Then I said: "I realize it isn't fair to blame you for what your ancestors did to mine, but I certainly wouldn't brag about it, or advertise it on your car....."
Cassidy
(223 posts)Those stupid "Native" bumper stickers and similar signs infuriate me. Those people are so unbelievably ignorant.
DavidDvorkin
(20,498 posts)We're first-generation immigrants.
It does depend on when one's white ancestors came here.
Of course, I'm aware that the house I own (in Denver) is on land that was taken by violence.
EX500rider
(12,205 posts)DavidDvorkin
(20,498 posts)
Amishman
(5,917 posts)We're enough generations removed that I don't see it mattering at all other than as a historical curiosity
phylny
(8,792 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 8, 2021, 02:05 PM - Edit history (1)
1800s. My immigrant family (both sides) came to the U.S. because they were dirt poor and wanted opportunity. Four generations in, we are college graduates.
Aristus
(71,707 posts)One night in San Antonio, Texas, while my parents were dating, my mother's two uncles invited my future father out to "meet some of the boys".
My Dad was in the Air Force at the time, and stationed at Randolph AFB.
The three of them were walking out to the car when my Dad saw a number of shotguns laying across the back seat. He realized they were taking him to a Klan rally. He told me years later that he did a "Ooh! Look at the time! Forgot I've got duty tonight!" number, and beat it back to the base as quickly as he could.
My father had his own racial hangups and prejudices, but he never stooped as low as the Klan, thank goodness. My mothers two Klansmen uncles have been dead for decades, and I hope their filth has finally been purged from my branch of the family tree.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)but could easily have been their prey if they did not go along. Glad he got away!
Maeve
(43,338 posts)Moved to Ohio territory due to an aversion to slavery. Also fought for the Union. None that I have found came from below the Mason-Dixon line nor claimed to have owned any people.
But the point of pride those facts offer is tempered by the fact that their race meant they had those choices--they COULD move, they could enlist. And that privilege means I owe a debt to the ones who didn't have the same opportunities and if I ignore that then I'm the one not living up to the vision of America I was raised on. What others with different stories need to examine I'll leave to them--like you, I can only own my own history.
for bring the issue up.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Exactly right, what many are granted at birth is still elusive for too many...we must change that.
radius777
(3,921 posts)in healing and moving forward.
CRT is simply a continuation of the civil rights movement, which seeks to tell the true story of America, a country built upon freedom for some and slavery for others. No reading of America is complete without an understanding of this dichotomy.
Social justice more broadly is often uncomfortable because it forces various groups (white vs black, men vs women, gay vs straight, rich vs poor) to look at unearned privileges and how systems work to maintain hegemony.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)BannonsLiver
(20,288 posts)Thanks for the reminder. 
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)
Torchlight
(6,347 posts)Found out my g-g-g-grandad and his kids did some pretty bad things that forced me to face that while I am not who my ancestors were, it is a part of my family history.
I can ignore that dark past, or use that information as an indication how far we've come since then, which then instills its own sense of pride. I get that a lot of people want to ignore the shameful parts of our history, but in doing so, it becomes something other than history.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)old as dirt
(1,972 posts)For example, my wife comes from a long line of cattle rustlers, going back centuries.
Stealing cattle from white folks was considered a good thing in afropatiana society back in the 1700s. It was considered a crime by the colonial authorities at the time.
cinematicdiversions
(1,969 posts)On his mothers side of course.
old as dirt
(1,972 posts)It's hard to find anything about my wife's culture in any English source. Here's a fun little paragraph involving democracy, Simón Bolívar, and my wife's ancestors (ie: the bandits of Patía).
Myths of Harmony: Race and Republicanism during the Age of Revolution, Colombia 1795-1831
by Marixa Lasso (2007)
https://www.scribd.com/document/447078042/tegsnb-pdf
https://www.amazon.com/Myths-Harmony-Republicanism-Revolution-1795-1831/dp/0822959658
(pages 2-4)
In such nineteenth-century creole writings, modernity is the commendable aspiration of creole patriots and one of the principles justifying independence from Spain. Yet early narratives of the independence wars also contain some of the first denunciations of modern democratic politics as unsuitable for Spanish American societies. These texts did not condemn democracy per se, but rather its excesses. Simón Bolívar is perhaps the most influential representative of this tradition. His attacks on lawyers, demagogues, and incendiary theoreticians for their failure to grasp that modern politics could not be transferred to Spanish America without sufficient attention to local geography and culture are well known. What often goes unacknowledged is his influence on the development of an intellectual tradition that erased the contribution of the Spanish American popular classes in the history of modern democracy, making modernity seem a mere illusion of the elite. Bolívar sought to prove that fully representative politics did not suit South Americans. He created a dichotomy that distinguished between politically virtuous North Americans and South Americans, whose “character, habits and present enlightenment does not suit perfect representative institutions.” An “entirely popular system,” he insisted, was not appropriate for this region. He also cast local demands for popular and regional representation as the political pipedreams of a handful of enlightened lawyers. In his address to the Constitutional Congress of Angostura, he criticized the current constitution by reminding legislators that “not all eyes are capable of looking at the light of celestial perfection.” Representative democracy might belong in paradise, but not in South America. By making representative politics look like the exclusive aspiration of self-deluded lawyers, he detached the new constitutional governments from the societies that birthed them. This narrative’s legacy erased from historical memory local struggles over the nature of the new political system. Yet if Bolívar lashed out against lawyers’ inability to realize that liberal and perfect institutions did not fit the geography of Colombia, this was because he feared not that the popular classes would remain aloof from modern politics but that they would participate too much. As Germán Carrera Damas has shown, he feared that democracy in Spanish America could lead to the end of elite rule. He blamed lawyers for not understanding that representative institutions among do“the Caribes from the Orinoco, the sailors of Maracibo, the bogas [river boatmen] of Magdalena, the bandits of Patia . . . and all the savage hordes of Africa and America” would lead to Colombia’s ruin, perhaps to a second Haiti. In his famous “Jamaica Letter,” he noted that in Lima “the rich would not tolerate democracy, and the slaves and pardos would not tolerate aristocracy.” Years later, he would warn José Antonio Paez against changing Colombia’s republican system, arguing that “the height and brilliance of a throne would be frightful. Equality would be broken and los colores [the colored classes] could see all their rights lost to a new aristocracy.” Future interpretations of Bolívar would tend to forget the strong linkage between pardos and democracy in his writings. Mostly remembered instead is his attack on lawyers’ inability to comprehend local society.
Torchlight
(6,347 posts)Could you highlight that argument in the article for me?
old as dirt
(1,972 posts)I’m just sitting here and eating pizza and drinking a pitcher of cervesa and being my usual smartsss self. We just got back in the country late last night, and I haven’t eaten a pizza in 3 months.
My wife’s ancestors could give Obama’s Cheney relatives a run for their money when it comes to war crimes and atrocities.
Just sayin’…
Parentesco, co-parentesco y clientismo en el surgimiento de las guerrillas en el Valle del Patía, 1536 - 1811
by Francisco U. Zuluaga
https://historiayespacio.univalle.edu.co/index.php/historia_y_espacio/article/view/6785/9276 (pdf)
La tozudez y la fiereza con que los guerreros patianos defendieron el estandarte realista, entronizaron al Patía y sus gentes en las categorfas de lo más bárbaro, cruel y salvaje que haya podido darse en la historia de Colombia.
————
The stubbornness and fierceness with which the warriors from Patía defended the royalist banner, enthroned the Patía and its people in the categories of the most barbaric, cruel and savage that could have occurred in the history of Colombia.
ESPEJO RETROVISOR BAMBUCO PATIANO
Torchlight
(6,347 posts)Will make a note of it.
old as dirt
(1,972 posts)Some 500 years ago, my wife’s ancestors were among America’s very first “illegals”. They ran away, and their masters wanted them back.
Cimarrones, negros huidos, negros fugitivos, negros libres (pardos).
They established a palenque, El Palenque del Castigo.
A couple of decades ago, the US government tried to kick us out of the country with a ten year ban, since my wife was considered a 20th century “illegal”.
I’m sure that it was just a coincidence.
Torchlight
(6,347 posts)against an attack no one made. But I get it.
old as dirt
(1,972 posts)…I chose not to post it as a direct reply to any individual comment.
ismnotwasm
(42,663 posts)I don’t have to go back generations. I’ve actually bothered to take classes on how racism works, how “white” evolved, and how whiteness is a social standard. A standard that is being rightly and righteously challenged because it is toxic bullshit.
People are going to squirm anytime their comfort zone is challenged. And that’s a damn shame
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)milestogo
(22,639 posts)No African or Asian or American Indian heritage. All northern European immigrants. None owned slaves and none lived in the South. Only one grandparent had a family that immigrated more than 120 years ago.
I have investigated my family history, and there were no surprises.
Tetrachloride
(9,405 posts)tho less brutal
Raine
(31,100 posts)Last edited Thu Dec 9, 2021, 06:11 AM - Edit history (1)
not nice at all. I don't take credit or praise for the great things some did. I'm not to blame, responsible or guilty for the bad things some of the others did. I take responsibility for what I do and I do the best I can to be a decent person.
DFW
(59,761 posts)Some of them came from Eastern Europe in the 1870s and never got farther than New York City. One was the son of a tailor in South Carolina who left for New England just before World War I, somehow got into Harvard, worked his way through college as a janitor. Others were deadbeat Mississippi River Boat gamblers who fled East to escape their debts. I think most of them were more concerned with where their next meal was coming from than anything else.
malaise
(293,058 posts)Thanks all 
Mossfern
(4,631 posts)at the turn of the century (last one). They came from Russia/Ukraine and Austria Hungary (now Poland)
They were fleeing pogroms. I have no knowledge of what came before them - there are no records. My grandparents refused to speak of the 'old country,'proclaiming that they were now Americans, and that's that.
My grandmother did sometimes speak briefly of Cossacks who would "come on their horses and hit us with sticks." I have a feeling there was much more to that story. My grandfather, at age 13, was sent away from his home in Odessa to travel by himself through Europe and Asia to Palestine and then to the US.
I really don't know what horrible things my grandparents may have done, but I do know that my father and his brothers got into a lot of mischief growing up on the lower east side.
MineralMan
(150,671 posts)my mother's and father's side. Both arrived in the United Stats in the 1870s and 80's from Ireland and Scotland. Both of my known great-great grandfathers were miners by trade, and ended up in Arizona, working in copper and other mines there.
Did they own slaves? Well, no, of course they didn't. That doesn't mean that I'm not aware of slavery in this country and its impact on people of color here.
LeftInTX
(34,015 posts)Last edited Thu Dec 9, 2021, 04:05 PM - Edit history (2)
They were southerners.
We were told that they were too poor.
I don't think my mom knew
I found out after I did my DNA and was able to develop a family tree. They all had slave schedules in 1850. It was upsetting. I was surprised to find out that they actually had money
I do not have any African-American DNA. But that doesn't mean that something didn't happen. It just means that I'm not an heir of an African-American. Many children who were the product of rape were raised African-American, so the DNA went out, but not in.
I assume the Civil War made them poor. They moved away from their homes in the decades following. One great grandfather moved away from North Carolina and married a woman from Georgia. He died in Florida in 1924 and picked oranges for a living. The other great grandfather moved around the South also. They were from South Carolina, but they were residing in numerous places in the early 20th Century. His death certificate lists his occupation as barber.
My other side are recent immigrants.
However, even before finding this out, I knew that slavery was one of the US, "original sins", the other original sin was our treatment of indigenous populations.
I think you are preaching to the choir.
We all know this.
We all acknowledge this.
We all want the truth taught to our children.
We all want the truth taught to our grandchildren
Our grandchildren need to learn that being Latino is more than family, food and speaking Spanish.
(Two of my grandchildren are 3/4 Latino, the newest addition will be 1/4)
My kids did not learn much about Mexican-American history in school. They learned the Texas narrative.
They did learn about Cesar Chavez and his activism and that was about it.
I started doing genealogy on my husband's side a few years ago because my paternal side ends due to Armenian genocide. (There are no records) We all need to need to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. We all need to acknowledge that many cultures were wiped out via rape and pillage.
My husband's family came to the US from mostly Northern Mexico in the late 19th and early 20th century. My husband's DNA is 50% indigenous and pretty much 50% European with about 2% Sub Saharan African and about 2% Jewish. The African is from Spanish-Mexicans who married African slaves. In Mexico, African slaves could marry and obtain freedom. The Jewish is from a few Conservos turned conquistador who came to Mexico during the Spanish Inquisition.
My husband is also direct descendants of some badass conquistadors who were founders of Nuevo Leon...In Mexico, Spaniards married into the native population fairly early on. The earliest ones married into Aztec royalty. Anyway, his history I guess it truly the American story..LOL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_de_Tolosa_Cort%C3%A9s_de_Moctezuma
My husband is not related to Montezuma, but thought I would throw that interesting, complicated nugget in there. Other Montezuma heir went to Spain and became nobility over there
We all know that longstanding mistreatment of minorities is a major cause of inequality.
I support critical race theory.
It's the Republicans who are whitewashing history.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)we will uncover.
LeftInTX
(34,015 posts)We all know the history and we should not cover it up.
The stupid asses who say, "Slavery ended in 1865" are full of it and deny what happened after 1865.
Much of the anti-CRT are trying to cover up the KKK terror and bullshit.
They are doing it to suppress civil rights and voting rights.
They want kids to grow up and be indoctrinated into the GOP.
It's a bunch of racist bullshit.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)We're on the same page.