Rachel Dolezal's pathological privilege

[JustAnotherGen]

91. That's a good point in Native American

My dad's father - his mother grandmother was full Seminole - but she was a slave. So she was swallowed into the 1870 census as black. There are many pictures of her - Miss Gracie or Grandma Gracie as my aunts nd uncles refer to her.

His maternal grandmother Cherokee and Irish. Her mother - full Cherokee.

My eyes and torso give me away. So do my politics when it comes to Native Americans. Its in my blood.

But I don't identify as native. I'm a black woman of bi-racial (black/white) parents.

My father idenitified as black. <--- I think a result of growing up in the Jim Crow system, a mixed mom who married the blackest black man she could find to save her children from what she experienced, a fear of of his Native and Slave elders - a mix of things.

The only great great he adored was the Off the boat from Ireland - who used to teach him Irish poems, toasts, taught him Gaelic, etc etc. But by all accounts - he was a hoot and spoiled all of them rotten.

Still me dad identified as black - and would only offer up the rest if someone questioned hs heritage.

The Seminole wars and trail of tears are there - I respect the suffering and horro of the genocide -

But shame on me if I claim that heritage and take a desperately needed opportunity from omeone in hell on a reservation in the Midwest, or Western NY, etc etc

It would be disingenuous. It would be a lie.