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You hold a lot of grudges on a forum BTW in regards to "battles" and such. Get in a few online conversations with a libertarian and they get really hot and bothered I guess.
I'm just a person who is very interested in history, have been since I was a child. I find that you can learn lessons from historical persons and incidents. That interest lead me into genealogy which made me much more interested in history and how decisions/activities in the past still affect us in the future - even the decisions of our recent ancestors who I feel are more important in the American story versus the more famous Americans that we are taught about.
On DNA battles, not sure what the point would be. We are all humans and are over 95% genetically, via our DNA the same.
It's just cool to me to see how much of a "melting pot" we are as a nation. But like I said, I've never taken a DNA test. Have you?
And I know a lot of half black/half white people, including some of my cousins who are darker than me but half white. Obama is darker than me. He is even darker than my dad! My mom is very very dark skinned though. IMO skin color is not indicative of the race identity of one's ancestors. One of my identified white great grandparents is the grandparent of my mother, yet she is dark like Wesley Snipes and is probably "more white" than my dad based on the research I've done on her family.
I don't hold a grudge. It's just wise to keep up with your enemy. That's all we're doing here.
As far as the ancestry stuff I've never understood it. Randomly going back x amount of years to "see what you are" is kind of narcissistic/self-important.
Race is a social construct. Human is the only race. And in the beginning we were all stardust.
That's one of the more ironic things about science. Religion, its often-enemy, never came up with a cohesive & uniting origin narrative to make ourselves better. Hence Jews vs Muslims, Muslims vs Hindus, Christians vs Muslims and so on and so forth for all of history.
Then science comes along and says that not only are we all the same (basically), we are all connected to all living AND non-living matter in the universe.
That's the ultimate religion if you ask me. It's all-encompassing, non-judgmental and completely benign meaning free will is the greatest of importance (which promotes individualism over collectivism thus explaining why people often shun it).
And yet what do we continue to do? Pick out our "races", our "religions", and even our political parties (red team vs blue team) because life has to be "us vs them". It's how we fill ourselves up with self-importance and purpose.
It's how we justify the worst traits within us. Theft, violence, and general rottenness.
I finally had time to read the article, and it wasn't so bad. This girl just had an awakening is all. Her uncle's story about the Lundee Tribe (sp?) being a mix of escaped slaves and former indentured servants was pretty interesting. I guess it's sad for a black nationalist, but she'll get over it.
There was a process that was followed at Ellis Island. Read the information I posted. They just verified passengers based on the ship manifest that was provided to them. They didn't change anyone's names. The person you know more than likely changed their own name because they wanted to for various reasons. Many immigrants changed their names. It was not hard to do back then as there was no paperwork that was linked to you from birth like we have today. They could easily just go to a new town and say their name was something else.
Also, my great grandparents (except one) told me a lot of stuff about our family that I found via various records, including censuses, vital statistics, and newspaper articles, even books, that weren't true at all. Like that they were Indian and had visited a reservation in OK mentioned earlier in the thread. We have no family at all, not even in-laws (I research everyone who married into my family now that I've exhausted most of the blood relations) were from OK. So my great grandmother lied to me! I don't put it by people to lie. All people lie IMO.
I read your article, I would not have commented on it had I not. That may have been the official line but I don't doubt for a moment that were official government jack***es (er, I mean officials) that worked back then that did what they decided they wanted to do rather than what they were supposed to do, just like they exist today. And they could get away with it far easier back then.
If three of my great-grandparents told me something and I couldn't find "proof" of it decades later I would have assumed that I didn't have the full story, not that they were liars. I'm going to assume that they are at least my age, if not older, so among other things common-law marriage was not uncommon in our communities. Nor were fuzzy kinship lines uncommon. I had older relatives who had no birth certificate, you probably had relatives from the same era in that position also. Depending on where they lived, not all people were considered worthy of having their birth, marriage, or death made official. Mine was probably the first generation that real attempts were made to account for everyone's major life and death events. You are trying to make declarations about things that happened in another time based on the norms of today and it isn't that simple.
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After looking at a photo of her, how the hell did she ever fathom she wasn't a large percentage of white.
Because she was told she was part of the Lumbee Tribe and has coloring common among them. Their apparence is what America will eventually become as we become more and more mixed raced. The Lumbees have long been identified as a mixture of Native American and Black, they just forgot that white part. How they had a number of members with hazel or green eyes and occasional lighter hair and that didn't occur to anyone is beyond me.
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When I post in bold red that is moderator action and, per the TOS, can only be discussed through Direct Message.
After looking at a photo of her, how the hell did she ever fathom she wasn't a large percentage of white.
She thought she was lighter because of her American Indian ancestry.
Edited to say see Oldhag's post for the answer. I guess the Lumbee tribe is well known for adopting runaway slaves? I had never heard of them, but now my interest is definitely peaked.
There was a process that was followed at Ellis Island. Read the information I posted. They just verified passengers based on the ship manifest that was provided to them. They didn't change anyone's names. The person you know more than likely changed their own name because they wanted to for various reasons. Many immigrants changed their names. It was not hard to do back then as there was no paperwork that was linked to you from birth like we have today. They could easily just go to a new town and say their name was something else.
Also, my great grandparents (except one) told me a lot of stuff about our family that I found via various records, including censuses, vital statistics, and newspaper articles, even books, that weren't true at all. Like that they were Indian and had visited a reservation in OK mentioned earlier in the thread. We have no family at all, not even in-laws (I research everyone who married into my family now that I've exhausted most of the blood relations) were from OK. So my great grandmother lied to me! I don't put it by people to lie. All people lie IMO.
If you lie, you have to remember exactly what you said.
1. Any African American who can trace their roots to slavery (assuming she can) should consider that they very well may have had white relatives and may be some part white.
2. Any American who actually thinks they are part Native American should use their brains and realize that few people actually are part Native American, since like 90% died off after exposure to European diseases alone, and the rest were slowly killed off through the years, leaving a very small number who were forced onto reservations. AKA... no, you're probably not part Native American, and if you are it would be a teeny tiny negligible amount, like maybe one NA or part NA relative three generations back, because there weren't that many Native Americans left to mix with other people, who largely disliked them and wanted them gone.
3. Anyone who is "ashamed" to be any part white should be ashamed for being ashamed. Idiots.
Because she was told she was part of the Lumbee Tribe and has coloring common among them. Their apparence is what America will eventually become as we become more and more mixed raced. The Lumbees have long been identified as a mixture of Native American and Black, they just forgot that white part. How they had a number of members with hazel or green eyes and occasional lighter hair and that didn't occur to anyone is beyond me.
Willful blindness.
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