- This topic has 4 voices and 7 replies.
-
Posts
-
May we salute her for bringing public awareness and discussion of the intricacies of racial identity among us multi-racials.
They are making such a big deal about her identifying as “Black”. Actually, on the form the media shows in their reports, she identifies as Tri-racial. White, Black and American Indian. Her parents admit to “a little bit of Indian”. …. they aren’t going to admit to any Black blood even if she has found proof in her genealogy.
We all “self-identify” culturally, I’m not gonna judge her.
Welcome to our world, Rachel……. welcome to Saponitown 😉
[QUOTE=Dreaminghawk;
They are making such a big deal about her identifying as “Black”. Actually, on the form the media shows in their reports, she identifies as Tri-racial. White, Black and American Indian. Her parents admit to a little bit of Indian. …. they aren’t going to admit to any Black blood even if she has found proof in her genealogy.
I think shes great! If I saw her on the street Id give her a hug. Very brave.
I can identify with her in many ways. I was raised “white” but I never felt white. From as early as I can remember, I have felt more comfortable around brown people than white people. That’s not a “normal” way to feel in a Jim Crow South. It’s not a safe way to feel in a Jim Crow South.
For the last 5 or so years I have publicly identified as “tri-racial”. I’m comfortable with that. Some of the people that I grew up with are not. It recently came to my attention that one of these “friends” had been talking about me to someone who he didn’t realize was close to me. (This real friend gave me a heads-up.) This childhood chum asked if I was still “playing at being indian”. Then he said, “He’s as white as I am. Hell, I’ve known his family my whole life and that BOY ain’t got a drop of indian blood.”
To add to the irony,
I am older than he is
He only addresses men of color as “BOY”
His grandfather was registered Haliwa-Saponi (so he’s as ndn as I am;-)
He is in total denial of the ndns amongst us.
I was momentarily hurt, then grinned,(I could picture him saying it exactly as my friend had quoted) and just said, “It is what it is”
I am so proud to discover this thread on my site. LOL. It was hard for me listening to the ridicule and the anger and harsh judgments towards her from Black people. I’ve been hearing a lot of it directed at me, lately, as I’ve been “coming out” about who I really am. I’ve been commenting on sites where issues of race are being discussed (obviously Black sites) and it’s stunning to see the amount of anger expressed in a space where people are uninhibited, towards someone as defenseless as I am. I’m perceived as an ‘other’ and I’m on their turf, and I’m a lone female. A recipe for total abandon. The degree of venting that goes on can be blistering.
The reality is that I’m just another Third World person living in Diaspora, telling the same kind of tale of genocide, enslavement, subhuman status, extermination, that’s effected us the same kinds of ways, but the story cannot be heard for what it is. It’s goes through the ‘White filter” and it’s unbelievable how distorted it gets. I’ve always known that’s the way it is, but now that I can articulate who I am clearly, and with the uninhibited internet environment, it’s fascinating to see the facets of all this so clearly.
I need to clarify, sorry. What I’ve discovered in the last few years while Saponitown lay fallow was that, on my father’s side, my grandmother was from people (the ethnic, minority Serbs of Croatia) who lived as subhuman chattel for five hundred years, then as vermin for 100 years, and now we’re considered extinct. We got it all, baby. The culture that produced Tesla is now defunct. We exist only in Diaspora, too small and too scattered to be considered viable. And the persecution of the few old folks still there continues. An 80 year old woman was beaten up last month for breathing while Serb. There have been as many hate crimes against us in five months of 2015 as occurred in all of 2014.
There was so much trauma in the family about this that I came up only able to relate to and care about other Third World people living in Diaspora. That is what it has always been about. Totally. I knew that, though I could not explain it. I didn’t know who I was. Grandma passed for the people exterminating us.
I would seriously LOVE and appreciate it if y’all could subscribe to my blog and bolster me with comments now and then. http://krajinaserbic.com.
Dreaminghawk, I didn’t know that’s how you felt. I should have. You were expressing it, but we are so brainwashed by this racist culture that we all will be shown one thing and interpret another.
I have also noticed that some Blacks seem to think that they are the only ethnic group that has been victim to abuse and mistreatment and they hold their anger near and dear to their hearts. When I sometimes try to mention the atrocities committed against Native Americans, or Jews or Serbs or Armenians or Palestinians, etc.. ad nauseum, they will shut me out. “It ain’t the same” “It’s exactly the same.” “No it ain’t” “Why not?” “It just ain’t” ……… but they can’t tell my why it’s different.
In Rachel’s case, all her support of equal rights and all her dedication to the betterment of people of color meant less than nothing to a bunch of (supposedly) colorblind NAACP members because they didn’t like the way she “represented”. That ain’t right.
If she committed perjury on a job application with the police dept then that is an issue to be dealt with by Human Resources of the dept…… not public opinion.
I learned long ago to let my anger go and pick my battles carefully…….. so I just shake my head at the current fervor over the Stars and Bars, monuments, names of buildings, Dukes of Hazzard (really??) ……. but it’s not our first effort at whitewashing history…… our genealogies wouldn’t be so hard to trace if it were not so.
Rachel says she identifies as “black” not African American. I see what she’s saying but apparently nobody else understands what she means.
Apparently, she’s meaning ‘Black’ to refer to identity, “African American” to refer to physical descent.
I’m identifying as ‘left of Black.” It’s a quite accurate description, referring to my Krajina Serb heritage. We had an incredibly similar experience that went way, way worse. One out of four of us was exterminated so sadistically by their version of the Klan (Ustasha) that Hitler was appalled. Then in the 90’s, while the world was being told Serbs were genociding people, we were in fact the only ones being successfully genocided. We are now effectively extinct. Survivors exist only in Diaspora and it’s felt we are too small a group for the culture to continue.
That’s why I surrounded myself all my life with other Third world people living in Diaspora. I was feeling it. That’s what I see in Black people. Us. Alive and well.
You can see from this story on my blog why I’m saying the story is so eerily similar:
http://krajinaserbic.com/the-confederate-flag-debate-what-it-indicates/
It’s like Jim Crow south on steroids.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
