CNN WASHINGTON - RACHEL DOLEZAL IDENTIFIES AS BLACK
As a genealogist, I have to look at documents and depend on them but I also have to know that sometimes documents are incorrect and can be incorrect for many reasons. That includes census records that record the same person as White one year, Black ten years later, because that was the perception of one census taker or another.
Birth certificates can be incorrect because they are often a recording of testimony. Women can have identified the wrong man as the father on them. (Such was the case with Marilyn Monroe, whose mother identified a husband she had just divorced as Marilyn's father, when it was another man.)
Although I know that some people are asked to provide their birth certificate for certain jobs or governmental benefits, I've always thought that a social security number is enough. These days, and we have the Internet and Genealogy Databases that provide free personal information, including information on the living, for rampant privacy invasion. It's as if nothing is left that is personal. But if Rachel Dolezal had been asked to provide her birth certificate, as a documentation that she is Black, if the NAACP required that she be Black to be employed by them, that would have been racist of them. You do not have to BE Black genetically to do a good job advancing the cause of equality.
Rachel Dolezal, who has been working for the NAACP (National Association of the Advancement of COLORED PEOPLE) turns out to be White. So says her parents, who also raised four of her siblings, adopted, who are visibly Black (or African American.) Rachel SELF IDENTIFIES as Black. She probably did as far back as she remembers her Black siblings but maybe it's more than that. Rachel is saying something about her INNER LIFE not her appearance, though yes she does like to wear hair styles that might be thought of as Black.
That is why she sought out the job she did.
Frankly, I think that if she's been doing a good job, that's all that should matter. If I were her I would have told her not to resign.
You see, lots of people self identify with the ONE ETHNICITY of many that they have rights to, the one that they feel the most comfortable with or are most proud of. Many "Heinz Variety 57" people in the United States will declare their ethnicity to be that of their surname, even if they are now only 1/8th or 1/16th Scottish or Irish or whatever. They may even have a tartan kilt, but be mostly Polish.
A person who carries a Hungarian surname but is mostly English and other than Hungarian is the actor Richard Gere.
I think Rachel Dolezal should take a DNA test that may locate some COLORED PEOPLE as ancestors. I'm using this now outdated term because I happen to think the terms White and Black are oppositional, setting up conflict, and that we are all COLORED, but OK... some ancestors who tie her in with the African continent, in fairly recent history when it comes to genes, since we apparently ALL can trace back to Africa.
I also wish she, and everyone else, would read a book called ONE DROP by Bliss Broyard, which I read and reviewed for this blog some time ago. In Bliss's case, her father, who passed as White, on his near deathbed, admitted he was Black and so then were his children, but actually, he wasn't 100% Black and neither was she. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to pass. The book is about Bliss' family history search and wrangle with how Black she is or isn't. It only take ONE DROP of Black Blood (or Jewish Blood or whatever) for a person to be considered so, or so some people think.
But is DNA the point? Not when it comes to SELF IDENTITY.
I had a friend who, while not saying she was BLACK, had one ancestor who was a Black and free woman, and who married an Irish servant when he was emancipated from his long service contract. Though blond haired, blue eyed, and as WHITE as one could appear, all these generations later, she also SELF IDENTIFIED with BLACK CULTURE. She knew all about African art. She loved Black men. She even said things that could be thought of as Anti-White racist. She had "one drop" of Black blood, and in her case, she so depended on it.
Likewise, I've had a friend who self identified as NATIVE AMERICAN, who didn't look it and had one grandfather who refused to talk about his heritage, which was suspected to be Native American. She didn't have to prove anything to head up a local Native American interest group. She felt tied to the world of the Native Americans. I started her on a genealogy quest so that she could learn more about her heritage while circumventing her uncooperative grandfather.
Along with the DNA testing, I also think it's time for Rachel to do her genealogy, to be surprised by what she may find, as so may be her parents.
Finally, it's time for Rachel to be regressed hypnotically in search of this life and past life experiences that help her SELF IDENTIFY as BLACK. I suspect that she has had a life in which she was a slave, if having four siblings who are visibility Black is not enough to be Black, or if meeting people in this life, or exposure to another culture than the one born into isn't enough.
Here is my point: How is this different than say, BRUCE JENNER, the male Olympic Athlete of fame who has been married to women three times, and fathered, SELF IDENTIFYING AS A WOMAN? Despite his recent Vanity Fair cover, which was the result of some experts in hair, makeup, costuming, and photography, making him appear a woman, and despite any cosmetic procedures he may have had, Bruce cannot change his DNA. He is a man this life, but I'll bet that if he is hypnotically regressed, he will find that he has been a woman in many lives or in his most recent past life!
If we can accept (and the American public seems to have, wholeheartedly,) that Bruce Jenner is a WOMAN, we can accept that Rachel Dolezal is BLACK!
C Ancestry Worship Genealogy 2015 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.
13 June 2015
NO LINK BETWEEN VLAD TEPES AND ELIZABETH BATHORY - LET'S LOOK AT THIS FROM A GENEALOGICAL AND REINCARNATIONAL POV
A nice lady named Elizabeth contacted me a while back hoping that I could be quoted, if there was some link, through genealogy or reincarnation, between two notorious figures of Old Central Europe, Vlad Tepes (otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler) who lived in Transylvania and was Romanian and a Prince and military leader, and Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian countess who was probably mentally ill, and who may have murdered dozens of beautiful young girls, in order to preserve her own youth or beauty.
It seems that the Hollywood horror flick mythologies of Hungarians and Romanians as creepy people is taken for history and with all the media fascination, films and television shows that are occult based, about witches and vampires in recent years, I suppose there are a lot of people who feel familiar with and enjoy "the dark side" and want to explore "power."
The story of Elizabeth Bathory is associated with evil, with vampirism, and of power over the powerless, like a huge number of Slovak servant girls gone missing. Were they so desperate for work that when their friends disappeared but they still went on interviews to the manor house?
No one should be worried about Elizabeth and inheriting mental illness, which I believe to be schizophrenia, unless they can trace their genealogy and DNA back to her through their MATERNAL LINE. Science has now proven that while sons inherit the gene for this mental illness, they cannot pass it on through their children. It is passed from a mother to her children, meaning only Elizabeth's two daughters could pass it on. Even then there is evidence that a person can have the gene for it and not develop it and further that about 20% of schizophrenics are spontaneously healed of the mental illness as they age.
It seems unbelievable to me that the locals didn't know something was amiss and put a stop to it before so very many young women were disappeared. Remember that there were so fewer people alive on earth back in those days, fewer people per square mile, fewer people to keep track of, less anonymity. People lived off the land, agriculturally, and even if there was a manor house or castle or estate with a town around it everyone knew everyone because the main business of the estate was agricultural so in the villages they were seeing people they knew frequently, working with them every day, and gossiping about each other, keeping track of who married, who had babies, and who died.
What is implied is that because Elizabeth Bathory was noble and came from a powerful family she could get away with anything, that no one, not even her husband or family, would put a stop to her behavior, and that they were all sociopaths if they didn't try to stop her because all this was simply not right.
I found this site that is interesting http://bathory.org/shyla.html Anyone wishing to quote the owner of that site would need to get in contact with them. And you would want them to provide their documentation for each statement.
If we look at this story from a genealogical POV, trying to prove it, we would need documentation recorded in reliable old books and ledgers. I've yet to find any documentation of any murders that Elizabeth might have committed through anything close to a public or civil record, but according to this site, she recorded 612 deaths in her diary. So let's go back to the reality of living in those days, the smaller population, the way everyone knew everyone, and consider that 612 girls lured to torture and death, is greatly over and beyond the numbers that some of our most notorious mass murderers have been able to get away with today. Think about 612 girls in a relatively short period of time and in one place. What did she do with the bodies? Maybe her diary is full of her hallucinations and ravings?
Since such subjects are of fascination, I've met people who say that they think Elizabeth, a powerful lady, was the subject of slanderous accusations.
So many things about Elizabeth Bathory's life were ordinary. She was from nobility and she married a noble. She married, she had children, she was supposedly able to compartmentalize so well that she was considered a loving mother. Who hasn't heard another woman being called a bitch or witch today? .
Was she "a witch"? As for "witches," people should know that during the times these people lived in, the accusation of witchcraft could be used on any woman who was not understood, or any woman who had not married or had children, or who was considered ugly or deformed, or who was different, or simply not liked. People were born into their class, their roles in this life and there wasn't a lot of tolerance for people who were different. It was an era of superstition, not science. When people accused other people of being witches, they were not talking the present day organization called Wicca, or nature worship, or the paganism of say, Native Americans. Talk of evil and witches (and Satan) was almost always that of people who were Christians and Bible based.
As for reincarnation, this is where I'm really thrown. Is there someone claiming to be a reincarnation of either or both Vlad and Elizabeth out there? Certainly I've never met anyone claiming so or heard of anyone claiming so.
And let's wrap our minds around this further, Vlad may have chopped off the heads of those he killed in battle and put them on spikes, but he wasn't the only one. This tactic was used by the Turks. It was used in South East Asia in the 1960's and 1970's. The same tactic of exhibiting the heads of those killed is being used by ISIS. Terrifying.
Reincarnation has been accepted as a spiritual reality by Hindus, Buddhists, and many other religions throughout the world for a long time. It was a matter of belief. A sensibility. These days, through the use of hypnotic regression, and through the testimonials of children who recall past lives, there seems to be more evidence for it. Having a past life or lives and recalling it through these means, dreams, deja vu, and so on, is not associated with "the dark side," or evil.
That's not to say that people never remember horrible things happening to them while regressed.
I was in a classroom in which everyone was regressed and there was a couple there who believed themselves to be soul mates who, in the past life they shared, were both victims of a concentration camp during the WWII Holocaust.
It seems that the Hollywood horror flick mythologies of Hungarians and Romanians as creepy people is taken for history and with all the media fascination, films and television shows that are occult based, about witches and vampires in recent years, I suppose there are a lot of people who feel familiar with and enjoy "the dark side" and want to explore "power."
The story of Elizabeth Bathory is associated with evil, with vampirism, and of power over the powerless, like a huge number of Slovak servant girls gone missing. Were they so desperate for work that when their friends disappeared but they still went on interviews to the manor house?
No one should be worried about Elizabeth and inheriting mental illness, which I believe to be schizophrenia, unless they can trace their genealogy and DNA back to her through their MATERNAL LINE. Science has now proven that while sons inherit the gene for this mental illness, they cannot pass it on through their children. It is passed from a mother to her children, meaning only Elizabeth's two daughters could pass it on. Even then there is evidence that a person can have the gene for it and not develop it and further that about 20% of schizophrenics are spontaneously healed of the mental illness as they age.
It seems unbelievable to me that the locals didn't know something was amiss and put a stop to it before so very many young women were disappeared. Remember that there were so fewer people alive on earth back in those days, fewer people per square mile, fewer people to keep track of, less anonymity. People lived off the land, agriculturally, and even if there was a manor house or castle or estate with a town around it everyone knew everyone because the main business of the estate was agricultural so in the villages they were seeing people they knew frequently, working with them every day, and gossiping about each other, keeping track of who married, who had babies, and who died.
What is implied is that because Elizabeth Bathory was noble and came from a powerful family she could get away with anything, that no one, not even her husband or family, would put a stop to her behavior, and that they were all sociopaths if they didn't try to stop her because all this was simply not right.
I found this site that is interesting http://bathory.org/shyla.html Anyone wishing to quote the owner of that site would need to get in contact with them. And you would want them to provide their documentation for each statement.
If we look at this story from a genealogical POV, trying to prove it, we would need documentation recorded in reliable old books and ledgers. I've yet to find any documentation of any murders that Elizabeth might have committed through anything close to a public or civil record, but according to this site, she recorded 612 deaths in her diary. So let's go back to the reality of living in those days, the smaller population, the way everyone knew everyone, and consider that 612 girls lured to torture and death, is greatly over and beyond the numbers that some of our most notorious mass murderers have been able to get away with today. Think about 612 girls in a relatively short period of time and in one place. What did she do with the bodies? Maybe her diary is full of her hallucinations and ravings?
Since such subjects are of fascination, I've met people who say that they think Elizabeth, a powerful lady, was the subject of slanderous accusations.
So many things about Elizabeth Bathory's life were ordinary. She was from nobility and she married a noble. She married, she had children, she was supposedly able to compartmentalize so well that she was considered a loving mother. Who hasn't heard another woman being called a bitch or witch today? .
Was she "a witch"? As for "witches," people should know that during the times these people lived in, the accusation of witchcraft could be used on any woman who was not understood, or any woman who had not married or had children, or who was considered ugly or deformed, or who was different, or simply not liked. People were born into their class, their roles in this life and there wasn't a lot of tolerance for people who were different. It was an era of superstition, not science. When people accused other people of being witches, they were not talking the present day organization called Wicca, or nature worship, or the paganism of say, Native Americans. Talk of evil and witches (and Satan) was almost always that of people who were Christians and Bible based.
As for reincarnation, this is where I'm really thrown. Is there someone claiming to be a reincarnation of either or both Vlad and Elizabeth out there? Certainly I've never met anyone claiming so or heard of anyone claiming so.
And let's wrap our minds around this further, Vlad may have chopped off the heads of those he killed in battle and put them on spikes, but he wasn't the only one. This tactic was used by the Turks. It was used in South East Asia in the 1960's and 1970's. The same tactic of exhibiting the heads of those killed is being used by ISIS. Terrifying.
Reincarnation has been accepted as a spiritual reality by Hindus, Buddhists, and many other religions throughout the world for a long time. It was a matter of belief. A sensibility. These days, through the use of hypnotic regression, and through the testimonials of children who recall past lives, there seems to be more evidence for it. Having a past life or lives and recalling it through these means, dreams, deja vu, and so on, is not associated with "the dark side," or evil.
That's not to say that people never remember horrible things happening to them while regressed.
I was in a classroom in which everyone was regressed and there was a couple there who believed themselves to be soul mates who, in the past life they shared, were both victims of a concentration camp during the WWII Holocaust.
10 June 2015
CURSIVE WRITING BECOMING EXTINCT - EDUCATIONAL DISASTER - DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOUR CHILD!
Today, because of the dependence on the keyboard, typing, and text, school children are not being taught CURSIVE WRITING... HANDWRITTING.
Oh you've read me complain about dealing with bad handwriting on documents and the poor way in which they are read and then typed into databases. Much of my personal research STILL will not come up on databases and I've wasted so much time trying misspellings! BUT TO NOT KNOW HOW TO HANDWRITE?
That is an educational disaster.
If your child is one who will not learn to handwrite in school - which usually began I believe in the first grade and used to be taught before or with printing - make it a summer project to teach them.
C 2015 Ancestry Worship Genealogy - All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
Oh you've read me complain about dealing with bad handwriting on documents and the poor way in which they are read and then typed into databases. Much of my personal research STILL will not come up on databases and I've wasted so much time trying misspellings! BUT TO NOT KNOW HOW TO HANDWRITE?
That is an educational disaster.
If your child is one who will not learn to handwrite in school - which usually began I believe in the first grade and used to be taught before or with printing - make it a summer project to teach them.
C 2015 Ancestry Worship Genealogy - All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
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