Sunday, August 19, 2012

Random Insight on Race and Oppression

Soooo... I've been sucked into the Ancestry.com vortex again recently. I've actually made some progress on the Slovenian branch of the family, which has always been a complete dark corner in my family history since my father barely knew his father - and my Grandma refused to talk about him, only referring to him as "that man."

"That Man" - My Paternal Grandfather
It's been great fun uncovering long lost cousins and finding the tiny town where my father's ancestors came from. I actually don't really think it's very important who descended from whom... according to Ancestry.com I am directly descended from King Olav of Sweden, a fact that I find to be totally laughable.


Mostly I just enjoy the treasure hunt of the whole thing, and getting a little picture of what life in the past was like for ordinary folk.


Anyhow, news broke recently that a team of genealogical researchers from Ancestry.com had uncovered evidence that President Obama is actually a direct descendant of a man named John Punch, who was the very first African slave in America. Interestingly, the link is on his white mother's side of the family.


Evidently, Punch was an indentured servant in the early 1600's who attempted to flee, and was then enslaved for life. However, he apparently fathered a number of children with a white woman (it's unclear to me if they were actually married or not.)


At any rate, I heard an interview with one of the researchers who was asked if this was considered shocking at the time, and he responded that it really wasn't. According to the researcher, this all took place before widespread enslavement of Africans by white folk, and thus there really weren't any taboos in place about mixed race couples. This is the point that really struck me.


I guess I've always understood the narrative on slavery to be that white people of European descent figured they were superior to Africans, and thus it was OK to enslave them. But given what this guy is saying, it sounds much more like the reality is that white people found it convenient to enslave Africans, and then decided that Africans must be inferior, as a way of easing their guilty consciences.


So... while I'm sure that bigotry does indeed beget oppression, it would appear that the reverse is also true... being an oppressor begets bigotry. Bigotry is, in a certain sense, a personal defense against the reality that one is behaving in an inhuman manner.


I have no great conclusions to draw from this insight, but I thought it was very interesting. It sorta made me wonder what other ways we twist around our belief systems in order to justify our behavior.






20 comments :

  1. Well, that discovery certainly goes against everything I've been taught. For a terrific discussion on Black History as part of American History, check this out:
    http://billmoyers.com/episode/encore-confronting-the-contradictions-of-america%E2%80%99s-past/
    The show was rebroadcast today & I found it fascinating. I really love Bill Moyers.

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    1. I LOVE Bill Moyers too. Thanks for the tip. I'll have to put that one on my "to be watched" list!

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  2. I'm not at all surprised by this, while I hadn't known it. I was talking recently to my neighbor about conditions when I first started school. I was placed in special education as any one who had a physical disability was considered mentally challenged at the time. She was shocked to learn that was the policy when I attended school since in her day there were plenty of polio children and other disabilities the children with disabilities were included in school with no question of what their intellectual abilities were. Why the policy was changed between her day and mine I have no idea....yet.

    Another example of this I learned in high school. My history teacher, when studying the American Revolution, stopped the class and asked us if we noticed any Black, women or children in the picture with Washington in a boat. Of course the answer was no. He informed us that it wasn't politically correct to put them in this picture of history in the textbooks but that black, white, women and children fought side by side. I was angry then to see that a picture would be created in such a way to continue a stereotype at that time.

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    1. Really? I can easily believe that black men fought alongside white men in the revolutionary war, but women and children? That totally blows my mind!

      And I am utterly flabbergasted that you were put into special ed because of a physical disability. The ignorance is just heartbreakingly mind boggling.

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    2. Our teacher told us that the women were there to mainly cook and do laundry. I think the children helped, although they also performed as the little drummers.

      Yes, I spent one year in special ed, then my grandmother convinced my mother to send me to Catholic school where they didn't have special education. For high school I was actually kicked out for refusing to attend special ed for a couple of weeks while we fought the school district.

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    3. Wow. Sounds like something you'd expect in the 18th or 19th century... not in a modern day educational system. Kudos to you for persevering!

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  3. I didn't know this, but it fits with what I've learnt about the human tendency to believe in a just world, and more generally to make up stories to make the world fit our beliefs. Another consequence is the blaming of rape victims.

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    1. That's a great example. I never thought of it as a way of trying to make the world appear to be "just" but I think you've really hit the nail on the head. It does sort of explain the "blame the victim" mentality that so permeates our culture. Something bad happens to you, so you must have done something to deserve it.

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  4. It does seem to be repeated throughout history, humans do something unethical, for economic gain, then twist the details around to "excuse" their really poor choices. We do it on a grand scale, as well as on a small individual level.

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    1. Unfortunately, I can think of more examples than I'd like to be able to. Oil tycoons sponsoring misinformation campaigns on climate change spring to mind...

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    2. I have a friend who is Native American and their view of the history of the United States is *very* different than the white man's version I was taught in school. Manifest destiny, my ass. Greed, pure and simple.

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    3. Indeed! Here in Colorado there are huge protests on Columbus Day as much of the population sees him as an invading conqueror rather than someone who "discovered" a "new world" (that just happened to be populated by several million people who had already been here for several millenia.)

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  5. My maternal grandfather is Slovenian. Holy crap. We could actually be cousins. My grandparents grew up in Colorado. Trinidad area.

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    1. Cue the Munchkins! It's a small world after all...

      Well, my Slovenian relatives all came from a small town called either Struge or Pedstruge (I'm still confused about that) and lived in Leadville, Colorado - where they (get this) ran a saloon! No wonder "that man" turned out to be an alcoholic!

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  6. Oh gosh, I see this everywhere. When we were Muslim, we were taught how to give a religious explanation for every-damn-thing. I think a lot of people do the oppression/behavior first, then find the reason to back it up. Alcoholism? Well, I had a shitty childhood. Jesus will save me! It takes all of the responsibility off of the individual for the behavior AND for the solution. And thus, why I am now vehemently anti-religious lol. It's crazy that once you start truly analyzing your own behaviors and take responsibility for them, how drastically your beliefs change.

    Also? My dad comes from a similar story. His father passed away when he was around 5, and his mother barely told him anything about his father. Just recently did my dad connect with his father's side of the family to find that the actually used to babysit him! Bad for us though, they are all VERY stereotypically Southern :/ (aka Bible-thumping Repubs)

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    1. "It's crazy that once you start truly analyzing your own behaviors and take responsibility for them, how drastically your beliefs change." I couldn't agree more!!!

      I guess long lost relatives are a bit of a mixed blessing. As a friend of mine used to say... "There's no reason to go dredging up people from your past - there's a reason they didn't make it to your present!"

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  7. I had to laugh; the first ad that popped up under this post was "Jesus Saves Lives! Christian Singles" :)

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  8. I just have to give you props again. I love your writing style.

    There are few people who can meet the dual criteria of writing efficiently, directly, without a lot of pretention, yet make very profound points. And to top it off, your punctuation with LOLCats that really move the point forward in a poignant yet humorous way!

    I just love you.

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    1. You totally made my day! Thanks so much for your kind words.

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