Ahhh, the Melting Pot
You learn something new every day. It seems that there were five tribes of American Indians who owned black slaves back in the day, including the Cherokee. A vote is being held (today, I think) to determine if the "freedmen" descended from those slaves currently included as members of the Cherokee nation will retain their membership. There's a really interesting article about it on msnbc.com here.
The article caught my eye in part because I've got a drop of Cherokee in me on my dad's side. My mother has been doing geneology research for several years now (she's currently on the board for the McLean County Geneological Society in IL) and she discovered that my great-great-great-great grandfather married a Cherokee woman. Unfortunately, that's all we know about her.
I think I heard once that something like 10% of "white" Americans have black ancestors. Things like this really make race a much more complicated issue...perhaps more complicated than we want it to be.
about the complications of race ... the more anyone gets into how "something" someone is, the more tedious race definition seems to me.
Funny, now that I think about it, how that same tedium becomes interesting when I hear people talking about their own bloodlines.
Thanks for this post.
Posted by: Tom Robertson | March 04, 2007 at 04:22 AM
Deep vows, Venerable Gyatso!
I think, if we're looking at it correctly, maybe applying right understanding, this makes the race issue simpler. The more we see that I, for example, as a white guy, may have black, Cherokee, or whatever else in my bloodline, the more we realize that we're all in the same bowl of water.
At least, I hope so.
Posted by: scruffysmileyface | March 05, 2007 at 12:59 PM
I've been doing a wee bit of genealogy myself. You know, the stuff you can get from people that are living. I'm planning on querying on of my buds who has a masters in library science. She'll know where to look!
There's a site (which is still beta), that you can do the same with called geni.com. It's pretty cool.
In looking at bloodlines, Form is Emptiness, Emptiness also is Form ... if you get my meaning :). For those who don't get my meaning, I sum it up below.
I find it rather frustrating when someone absolutely asserts that they are "Irish"; let's say. That's a really common assertion. It becomes pretty apparent that they are only considering one line of inheritance and negating the entire intersection of thousands of threads culminating in the person that they are.
Genealogy is very profound :D
Posted by: Kalsang Dorje | March 06, 2007 at 11:15 AM
I'm a complete mut myself: Irish, English, Welsch, Scottish, French, German, and probably some Dutch and Viking blood in there as well. I don't get frustrated by people who say they're Irish or whatever, but it is an oversimplification.
Posted by: Rinchen Gyatso | March 06, 2007 at 05:21 PM
Actually, race is a social construction, with absolutely no biologic elements. It is used to create a hierarchy of superiority with white "races" being the most superior and "civilized" (hence, white supremacy), and non-white people being inferior. This one is one way that colonization, and practices of colonization, were and are justified in the minds of those practising colonization. Which is each of us in some form or another.
Posted by: a settler on turtle island | March 23, 2007 at 06:45 PM
An interesting post :) Race is not really a complicated issue. There is only one race, the HUMAN RACE. All else is skin color, which is really only skin deep. And of course the prejudice and bigotry that go with it.
Peace and Blessings!
Posted by: Irving | March 27, 2007 at 11:21 AM