If Our Ancestors Could See Us Now - Part 2

I was born in Eugene, OR, the youngest of four in my family unit, with two white parents and three white siblings.  Our mother is our biological mother.  Our father is their biological father, and the man who cut my umbilical cord and held me in his arms from day one.  The explanation over all these years of “how” and “why” is a deeply personal and hurtful story to my family.  It is also one which everyone feels they are entitled to.  Strangers see this white family with a black child and feel they deserve to know why I’m holding everyone’s hand.  I’ve gotten good at telling a quick story, with varying amounts of detail depending on who is asking.  But mostly I’m tired of explaining.  The answer I wish I had is simply “Does it matter?”  Unless you are my therapist or a person deep within my heart, I will no longer willingly give you pieces of myself for your own narrow-minded understanding of family.

It never helped that we always lived in very white places.  The west coast is often boasted as being quite liberal, but liberalism within whiteness is still fraught with racism.  Oregon was founded as a “white state,” with a black-exclusions act written in the constitution. The more rural parts of western states are just as red as Tennessee.  So despite being in a college town, my classmates were mostly white. Then, when I was eight, my parents chose to move us across the country, back to their home state of Michigan.  I am the only one in my family unit not born in Michigan.  We moved to the northern part of the lower peninsula, where I was never more than one of two black students in the district, and usually the only one.  

I didn’t learn much about black history until I started going to summer camps for black kids.  I didn’t know school districts usually closed for MLK day because ours didn’t.  Everything I learned about black history I didn’t start learning until I was 16.  Even now, in my mid-30s, I’m living in a black neighborhood for the first time. I have heard the stories of some of my black ancestors’ journeys to “America.”  My grandfather’s family came to be on the west coast when my great-great grandfather escaped slavery and moved to California to work in the lumber industry.  On my grandmother’s side, her grandfather came from the Bahamas to Florida and was one of the first black millionaires in the country.  Before my grandmother passed, she was the matriarch of the family, and every single person, herself included, had attended college.

Then there is the family I was raised in.  My maternal grandfather traced our family back to the early 1600s.  Back to landing in Jamestown, and building a plantation full of slaves.

For black folks, having slave owners in our DNA is something we are unsurprised by.  The assault on black bodies since the start of “America” has meant many mixed race babies on plantations.  While I am sure that is still true for me, my background is a bit more complicated.  I don’t see this story-line several generations back - I see this story-line now, the proud heritage of my grandfather who venerated our ancestors for colonizing this country.

Allie and I also share a paternal great-grandfather who was a member of the KKK.  The fact that my dad’s dad was raised by that man and was one of my favorite people in this world is proof that people have a choice, and can decide to love.

This story feels unfinished, an abrupt end.  But black women don’t owe you anything, and this is all I want to share for now.