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Showing posts with label Black Americans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Black Americans. Show all posts
02 February 2022
08 July 2020
REVISITING HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. and FINDING YOUR ROOTS
PBS HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. FINDING YOUR ROOTS
I'm rewatching beginning with Season One. LOUIS HENRY GATES Jr., who I respect, says that about ten percent of contemporary Black Americans have ancestors who were Free Persons of Color - not slaves.
I had one client whose New Orleans heritage took us to Free Persons of Color ancestors. The reaction was a subtle disbelief at my research, as I showed them that their people had been part of a thriving crafts and tradesman community in which people lived in beautiful houses - some on tours today.
Who is or is not Black?
What is the difference between the White actress who most relates to her most recent Jewish heritage though she's got White Anglo Saxon heritage that goes back to King Henry the First of England, basically "feeling" herself Jewish" and someone whose appearance would not lead the average person to guess they have Black Heritage or someone whose DNA proves they are just a little bit African, but who most relates to contemporary Black culture?
In genealogy we search for documents.
But people often feel themselves to be most comfortable with one culture - including religion and spirituality - over another. I sometimes think this has to do with past life memories, which I realize is controversial. But through reincarnation we can experience what it is to live in different cultures, to be Japanese in the 14th century, or to have fought in the Civil War in this country for the Confederates.
As a result of reading hundreds if not thousands of documents as well as reading around American history, and my belief that reincarnation is real, I may have a different feeling about my own life and that of others.
We must ask ourselves WHY are we here in this life? What have we brought forward from the past, what have we learned, where do we want to go?
C 2020 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy
All Rights Reserved
23 June 2015
IF BRUCE JENNER IS A WOMAN THAN RACHEL DOLEZAL IS BLACK!
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.
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 March 2013
AMERICAN TAPESTRY by RACHEL L. SWARNS ON AMERICAN SLAVES PETITIONING COURTS TO BE FREE
EXCERPT: pages 251-251 in chapter 25 "Born Free" about the JUMPER FAMILY originating with Hagar Jumper on Dinwiddie County, Virginia.
Background : Hagar triumphed in court when she won her freedom - and that of her children and grandchildren - and soon appeared on lists of free blacks in the county. She had filed a lawsuit against her owner based on Indian (Native American) heritage.]
"Hagar was joining the nation's first communities of free blacks, which emerged after the American Revolution when some slaveholders embraced Democratic ideas. One Maryland woman said she freed her slaves because holding black people in bondage contradicted "the inalienable Rights of Mankind." That egalitarian spirit also inspired slaves, like Hagar, to take matters into their own hands and to fight for their liberty in the courts. "Whole families," recalled one abolitionist, "were often liberated by a single verdict, the fate of one relative deciding the fate of many." It is possible that Peter was descended from this line. He and Dolly may have also been the children of slaves who were freed by their masters, or the progeny of white indentured servants or poor white women who had relationships and children with African slaves. It was not uncommon for free blacks in Pittsylvania and Henry Counties, where the Jumpers lived, to report to the local courts that their mothers were white. The petitions - filed by men and women hoping to gain their freedom through the courts - suggested that these mothers were close to their children and willing to testify on their behalf.
However they won their freedom, Dolly and Peter (Jumper) clearly joined the free black community at a time when It was growing at an unprecedented clip. Between 1790 and 1810, the number of free blacks in the Unites States rose from 59, 466 - about 8 percent of all blacks - to 186,446 - about 13.5 percent of all blacks. In Virginia, where the Jumpers lived, the free black population more than doubled during that time By 1810, some 30, 570 African Americans - or 7.2 percent of the populations - were living free."
Background : Hagar triumphed in court when she won her freedom - and that of her children and grandchildren - and soon appeared on lists of free blacks in the county. She had filed a lawsuit against her owner based on Indian (Native American) heritage.]
"Hagar was joining the nation's first communities of free blacks, which emerged after the American Revolution when some slaveholders embraced Democratic ideas. One Maryland woman said she freed her slaves because holding black people in bondage contradicted "the inalienable Rights of Mankind." That egalitarian spirit also inspired slaves, like Hagar, to take matters into their own hands and to fight for their liberty in the courts. "Whole families," recalled one abolitionist, "were often liberated by a single verdict, the fate of one relative deciding the fate of many." It is possible that Peter was descended from this line. He and Dolly may have also been the children of slaves who were freed by their masters, or the progeny of white indentured servants or poor white women who had relationships and children with African slaves. It was not uncommon for free blacks in Pittsylvania and Henry Counties, where the Jumpers lived, to report to the local courts that their mothers were white. The petitions - filed by men and women hoping to gain their freedom through the courts - suggested that these mothers were close to their children and willing to testify on their behalf.
However they won their freedom, Dolly and Peter (Jumper) clearly joined the free black community at a time when It was growing at an unprecedented clip. Between 1790 and 1810, the number of free blacks in the Unites States rose from 59, 466 - about 8 percent of all blacks - to 186,446 - about 13.5 percent of all blacks. In Virginia, where the Jumpers lived, the free black population more than doubled during that time By 1810, some 30, 570 African Americans - or 7.2 percent of the populations - were living free."
C 2013-2025 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
20 February 2013
AMERICAN TAPESTRY : THE STORY OF THE BLACK WHITE AND MULTIRACIAL ANCESTORS OF MICHELLE OBAMA
By Rachel. L. Swarns. The book just came out, copyright 2012, and I just got my copy. I'll let you know more about this book soon.
The inner pages are lined with our First Lady's Michelle Robinson Obama's family tree: some of the surnames include Cohen, Shields, Easley, Johnson, Lawson, Jumper, Wade, and Moten...
The author, Rachel L. Swarns is a New York Times reporter who covered the presidential campaigns and is the Johannesburg bureau chief... I can hardly wait to pick up the crackers and cheese on the way home from the bookstore... I'll be reading so I won't be cooking!
C 2020-2025 Ancestry Worship Genealogy - BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
18 September 2009
BLISS BROYARD : ONE DROP
ONE DROP by Bliss Broyard
From Page 315 of her book about discovering her "one drop" of African Ancestry;
Bliss' father Anatole Broyard, a New York literary critic, who became quite successful in his career, died having just revealed that he was from New Orleans Creole ancestry. Her search for her father and her heritage took her to archives and into interviews with previously unmet family members...
"When you love a family member of close friend, people tell you, to console you, that your loved one will always live on in your memories. They act as if this process occurs involuntarily; a biological trick to offset your grief, just as the brain suppresses traumatic memories that are too difficult to handle. Your friends don't tell you to record everything that your remember about the dead person because you will indeed forget many things over time. Nor do they warn you that your memories will become irreversibly mortared into a monument of the "dearly departed" --- some myth that your fashion to help organize your recollections to better retrieved them. Nor are you told about the contaminating influence of other people's stories, which seem all the more vivid compared to the familiar old statue in the corner of your brain. And absolutely no one will suggest that you might begin to wonder how well you knew your family member or close friend in the first place, now that it's too late to learn anything more firsthand."
21 July 2009
HISTORIC CHICAGO AFRICAN AMERICAN BONEYARD SCANDAL
This BLACK AMERICA WEB article is about the African American Graveyard in Chicago where bodies were being dug up so the same grave spot could be resold. A worker there, though afraid to loose his job, was the whistleblower. (And we want to congradulate him on his courage.)
"Officials estimate that at least 300 of 100,000 graves were tampered with at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., which is the burial place several famous Americans including civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till. Four former workers are charged with dumping exhumed bodies in a deserted field the size of four square blocks in order to resell grave plots. Till's grave was not disturbed."
"Thousands of bones may be mixed together. Investigators say it may be impossible to sift through them to match them to specific people and return complete remains to a single grave."
- Rupa Shenoy, Associated Press
"Officials estimate that at least 300 of 100,000 graves were tampered with at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., which is the burial place several famous Americans including civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till. Four former workers are charged with dumping exhumed bodies in a deserted field the size of four square blocks in order to resell grave plots. Till's grave was not disturbed."
"Thousands of bones may be mixed together. Investigators say it may be impossible to sift through them to match them to specific people and return complete remains to a single grave."
- Rupa Shenoy, Associated Press
06 April 2009
IN SEARCH OF OUR ROOTS by HENRY LOUIS GATES JUNIOR
Subtitled "How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past... featuring a whole lotta great people like Quincy Jones and Tina Turner, Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou, the author spent three years conducting genealogical research on nineteen "compelling" African- Americans.... Can't wait to write more about this one!
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