#Black American families

[tani-b-art]

Let’s talk about genealogy…

I’ve been doing something that’s been a bright spot for me this year! I’m researching my family’s genealogy! And let me tell y’all, just from starting only this year, it’s been a fun-rough! But so rewarding!

So, I’ll give a long yet brief little review of my journey thus far!

The spelling of names was the first hurdle I ran into. I’ve run into my great grandmother’s last name spelled two ways and then found her mother’s (my great-great) first name spelled one way on a website and spelled 5 different ways between obituaries)! Heck in my case, I’ve come across my grandmother’s obituary and her sibling’s obituaries where they all spelled their parents’ names differently! Official census may have this recurrence too — the enumerator could’ve not asked for official spellings from the family and just wrote it how they think it would be spelled. And you also have to factor in our maternal grandparents’ maiden names pre marriage etc. For the longest, I’d been searching for anything using my great-grandmother’s obituary with her last name spelled one way and researched and researched and researched some more only to discover that on the official census, the last name is spelled completely different!

With that being said, I’ve used findagrave.com, familysearch.org. How I even got to those sites were from asking others on online groups I’m a part of AND simply typing my relatives names in a search engine. I’ve had successful hits and unsuccessful ones but recently, I’ve gotten more successful hits.

If you are blessed to have your grands and even great-grands still with you, talk to them (which I unfortunately did not do when both my great-grandmothers were still alive-don’t make my mistake but in my dynamic, both my great-grandmothers spoke Louisiana Creole only so there was a barrier there but I could’ve very well asked my grandmother who was bilingual in English & Louisiana Creole/Kouri-Vini to help translate; thinking back on this, it would’ve been so nice to have these talks with both my great-grandmothers and to hear them confirm all the discoveries I’m making today) and write down what they tell you. Speak to your momma and daddy and aunties and uncles, cousins. Go to their house and look at pictures, look at the photo albums and ask questions! Go to your family reunions and take pictures of your relatives and take pictures of any photos a relative may bring and ask them who the people are in the photos.

Keep obituaries (those are super, super important & helpful and relevant because these are the first line of recording that can start the groundwork; if you have nothing else). Record and write down any and everything that’s told to you. Paper and digital copies of what you’re tracing (please don’t just keep a copy of any of what you find just electronically or just on paper, do both). I’m no expert but I’m just sharing to help others.

I haven’t done this just yet (I’m currently in another state) but the city’s Clerk of Court or state’s archival buildings too hold loads of information. Marriage licenses, birth certificates, christenings, property documents (deeds, purchases of all kinds).

The sites I’ve used so far are familysearch.org and findagrave.com. These have been jackpots for me! I’ve been able to get records of my ancestors from US Censuses dating back to 1940 and 1900 and there’s still more to go back further! I actually found my ancestors who were born in the 1750s! That was emotional for me—every find has been from my great-great-great-great grandmother and grandfather to seeing their children who are my great aunts and uncles! Especially when I found my great-great and my great-great-great grandmothers’ records! My great-great, a woman who we always had an original, old, physical picture of and my 3xs great grandmother who I had had a photocopy picture of from our first family reunion years back and to finally match their faces on all the documentation that linked back to them both—the records actually has these same photos I have…was rewarding! I sat for a good 5 minutes and cried happy tears!

Prior to these sites, I had only fairly solid information on my grandmother’s maternal side of my lineage, now I have more from the maternal side AND paternal too! And as I keep researching, more is coming up! It’s going back to the 1700s with more to go! So that’s beyond exciting! AND my family’s roots are all up in Louisiana! Through and through. No one ever left Louisiana since 1750ish (and I’m not finished)! Black Indigenous American Creole Louisiana roots run deep!

Our ancestors have been here for so long. Very deeply rooted history we have as Black Americans.

Look at that…all I initially really had in mind was to start my little family tree on my grandmother’s side with the 6 photos (with obituaries for my 3 grandmothers on both sides) I had of relatives and look where I’m at now! Started off with photographs and misspelled names and entered question marks for their birth years…as of today, I have correct spelled names and birth dates as well as departure dates, marriage licenses, census with their names and children’s names! It’s pretty amazing! I feel like an archeologist—excavating and unearthing all these beautiful treasures of them…of me!

Let’s talk about genetic ancestry testing……

*The 60 Minutes segment aired October 7, 2007.

*Henry Louis Gates’ segment was November 2010.

I always never quite understood how saliva alone could be the evident tool itself to be able to trace ancestry all the way back on the entire continent of Africa. Yet alone, how could that absolutely or partially determine which tribe you possibly share heritage with. I’ve seen comments where people say Gates was just joking, but all chances of a joke or not aside, this isn’t something to make a mockery out of. People truly are having confidence in this testing and genuinely want to discover their history, ain’t no time for comedy and humor.

The notion of Black Indigenous Americans “are lost because we don’t know where we’re from” has always been the catalyst to wanting to connect ourselves back to Africa and so, the excitement for Black Indigenous Americans to find their roots back to the continent of Africa would absolutely be high and this DNA testing would be the solution.

But I’ve always questioned — how can I (me personally, I cannot speak on anyone else) trace what could be an enormous amount of gap years from now to Africa if I’m not even considering to piece the centuries of years on American soil? If I’ve never done my American lineage yet, I’ve never done my genealogy of who my great-great and greats were here on American soil…how can I skip completely over 200+ years of direct lineage to simply get names of my great-great-greats or get their place of birth and anything else about them before I ancestrally trek the continent of North America and swim an ocean to cross to Africa?

Do you know your grandparents’ full names and date of birth and place of birth?

Do you know your great-grandparents’ full names and date of birth and place of birth?

Do you know your great-great grandparents’ full names and date of birth and place of birth?

Do you know your great-great-great grandparents’ full names and date of birth and place of birth?

If you don’t know the answers to these, then the first efforts should be genealogy-here. Not genetic testing that allegedly isn’t much accuracy at all. That’s just me.

Black Americans certainly have very traceable paper trails with all the detailed recording that’s been done on our ancestors. Census, ledgers, books, bill of sales, ads, etc.

If you don’t know this or haven’t delved into researching this at all, then you’re missing centuries and decades of your American ancestry that absolutely matters. That DNA testing should actually be records tracing for Black Americans. Fully. Because it takes so much effort and time (and money on occasion) to conduct this as it is. It takes alot of time and mental, physical and spiritual energy. The swap is the easy and apparently inaccurate path. But that genealogy will have you on a long road but a more accurate one with evidence. That was a huge reason for me not ever doing the 23andMe.

Everyone will go about tracing their genealogy how they need to and with what they have. And my advice, to Black Indigenous Americans is to start with your genealogy. Your American ancestry that is very immediate, here, in your homeland.

If anyone has done their ancestry through paper records, share what your success and setbacks and progress have been. What new discoverers have you made? What confirmation did you confirm? What did you disprove? Are oral stories matching up? [heads-up: there will be some families that unfortunately have no paper trail or the paper trail will abruptly just stop and the tracing ends there but that doesn’t mean you and your lineage stops because you are your ancestors’ continued legacy].

I hope you have fun doing it! It’s exciting and frustrating and relieving and confusing at times and absolutely rewarding! It’s tedious work! The pride you’ll feel and the proudness you’ll get for your bloodline! It’s worth it!

Black Americans, we were & are never lost, we were just misdirected. (And, we simply didn’t know this path was even the option). You just have to find your way that your ancestors left behind. They left behind their ancestral print for us and are our guiding light to find our path.

Your heritage, lineage and ancestral footprint is right here in America.

[saydesole]

Thanksgiving 🤎

[originalhaffigaza]

[milkcos]

lemonade mouth/band au! more notes under the cut

lemonade as in like the disney movie! so there are a couple like clear comparisons but mostly it's the bad kids get stuck in detention together except they form a band instead of an adventuring party

fabian > no equivalent (olivia vibes)

the most popular kid at school who is both in dance and on the football team. somehow gets decent grades as well. no close friends, but a lot of people who know him and want to get on his good side. kind of depressed, and his dad's currently in prison. he started playing the guitar as a way to show off and then genuinely started enjoying it

adaine > mo

she's a concert violist (playing the viola) always an accompaniment for her sister and is striking it out on her own for the first time. her family is very upset about this, and consistently puts her down so she'll go along with they want her to do. also she recently transitioned to going to public school for the first time, making her the new girl.

kristen > no equivalent

she's recently ex mormon, got out of her parents house (currently living in her car) and without all of her former friends stuck in a student president position that she got when she was still with the religion. questioning her sexuality after one too many encounters with the soccer team captain, tracker. used to be on the church choir, was a bit too enthusiastic about it.

gorgug > no equivalent (charlie vibes)

he's got like one or two kinda friends (mainly fig). extremely busy with his classes and with marching band and self isolating as a result. he's stressed out about living up to his parent's name (they run a very successful electric engineering company). signed up to work as a sound tech for the theatre department bc one of the female stage managers is very cute (zelda) and then discovered that he rlly like it.

riz > no equivalent

no friends! (other than maybe the AV club + penny) too used to burying himself in work at both his part time gig and with his insane amount of extracurriculars. started playing the piano bc he heard it helps with memory retention and overall cognitive ability.

fig > stella/wen

she's the cool loner skater kid who is the floater friend mostly? she's got a maybe relationship with ayda, who she loves to annoy at the school library. very interested in making her own music not very interested in school. freaking out over her parents getting remarried. her mom enrolled her in music lessons when she was younger, and it's one of the only things she can talk about with her mom these days.

[thashining]

My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was the district attorney of San Francisco. I remember cooking meals for her and taking her to her appointments. I did what I could to make her comfortable. I figured out which clothes were soft enough that they wouldn't irritate her, and told her stories to try and make her laugh.

Caregiving is about dignity—not just for the patient, but also for the caregiver. We must lower the costs and ease the burdens faced by our caregivers to make it easier for them to provide care while pursuing their aspirations.

Today, I am announcing a new historic Medicare at Home benefit as part of my plan to help families with caregiving needs and strengthen Medicare for the long-term. Over 67 million people are covered by Medicare, yet many Americans don’t realize that Medicare does not cover long-term services and assistance like home health aides.

As a result, many American families face challenging and sometimes impossible choices.

My plan will strengthen Medicare to cover home care services and support for seniors. This will include providing care workers with better wages, improving the quality of care for seniors and those with disabilities, and treating our seniors with the dignity they deserve.

Kamala Harris

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔄𝔡𝔡𝔞𝔪𝔰 𝔉𝔞𝔪𝔦𝔩𝔶 (յգգյ) 𝔡𝔦𝔯. 𝔅𝔞𝔯𝔯𝔶 𝔖𝔬𝔫𝔫𝔢𝔫𝔣𝔢𝔩𝔡

[thechanelmuse]

Kendrick, Drake, and Ethnic/Cultural Identity

One of the most discussed topics during this exchange between the two is if Drake is a culture vulture. In short, yes. He's always been. It boils down to inherited cultural identity and respected history, not the upholding of a social construct of “race.” 

Race is a goofy non-biological caste system that operates in various countries and it’s a dumbass global push to get people to embrace a superior to inferior hierarchy in classifying the globe into 5 broad groups solely based on perceived skull sizes, hues of skin color, and perceived traits and phenotypic features via the teachings of François Bernier, Johann Blumenbach, Carl Linnaeus, and them other hoes. Get race tf outta here.

I’m gonna make this concise as possible, but fleshed out a bit for full understanding.

Kendrick Lamar is Black American on both sides with his roots most likely coming out of Mississippi and/or Alabama to Chicago to Cali by way of the Great Migration. (He may even descend from Duckworths from Louisiana). I haven’t done his genealogy, but now I may out of curiosity.

Black American is a double ethnicity. We’re citizens of America (nationality = US Citizen), and our ethnic group (Black) was created & descends from this land (ethnicity = American) through ethnogensis. It has nothing to do with one’s brown skin color or how the cops see us 🙃, but everything to do with the lineage of one’s parents and their parents, etc. (For info on lineage tracing, refer to my post here.) 

Black Americans are an ethnic group (the largest from this land and largest in this country after Germans), while “white Americans” are a self-identification race to remove ethnic identity and conflate numbers. I can break this down further in another post if y’all want since American history is complex and will explain why Black Americans have been reclassified seven times by the US government 🙃. 

Now.

Culture is largely passed down through your mother, and her mother, and her mother, and so forth for Black Americans (and I’m sure other ethnic groups). No matter if it’s a two-parent or single-parent household, she’s your ultimate teacher in setting the foundation of your cultural upbringing. It’s the same if one is raised by their grandparents. It largely stems from the grandmother. If one’s father is their main parent, that’s a different case of course. 

Drake falls in line with this as someone from a single-parent household. He is half Ashkenazi of Latvian and Russian descent (ethnicity) through his mother and of half Black American descent (ethnicity) through his father. He is a dual citizen of Canada and America (nationality), who was raised in Canada with his Ashkenazi Jewish mother and Ashkenazi relatives with an Ashkenazi upbringing. He went to a Jewish day school and was engulfed in all aspects at home. 

Kendrick is ethnically and culturally Black American. Drake is ethnically and culturally Ashkenazi. He is also ethnically Black American (through lineage), but not culturally Black American. Does that make Drake a culture vulture? No. He just didn’t have the cultural upbringing but could always immerse himself in learning, appreciating, and respecting the other half of his history and culture.

What makes him one is how he operates as an outsider. He participates in an aspect of Black American culture (Hip-Hop) for his monetary gain, adopts a manufactured image for his perception of believability, and disrespects the people of this culture. “…run to America to imitate culture.” It’s like a jacket to him. He takes it off to try on another (like a Jamaican accent) and swaps for another, etc. 

A few examples that’s been touched on: He blackened his face to depict blackface while wearing a Jim Crow t-shirt… That’s specific disrespect towards Black Americans, mocking our history and our ancestors. “Whipped and chained you like American slaves.” That’s specific disrespect towards Black Americans, mocking our history and our ancestors. “[You] always rappin' like you 'bout to get the slaves freed.” Do I even need to explain this? Hopefully it’s understood.

The muthafucka is not like us.

[bbyitsbri]

[asexual-juliet]

no but ryo paul debut is actually making me care about paul as a character for the first time because holy fuck if a white darry & japanese american paul dynamic is not supremely compelling in terms of 1960s oklahoma race and class tensions

[cupiidzbow]

i don’t really even have it in me to be miserable i want to live and im gonna live my life regardless and im just gonna fight and help people who are affected inside and outside this fuck ass country as much as possible . At this point it’s the least I can do .

[sbrown82]

This performance lives rent free in my head! 🤌🏿🔥

[tabney2023]

Michelle Obama and her daughters, Sasha & Malia.

[originalhaffigaza]

[chowplanet]

JFK with his sister Rosemary Kennedy