In the year 1655 , a young woman named Elizabeth Key was denied her freedom once her Father passed away , he was ( White ) European etc,. Please forgive me using these labels but it is necessary for the experience I’m sharing . According to the law she was a free person because her father was white , even though her mother was black . In that period of time, all offspring of white males were identified as free . She was denied that and went to court were her husband was able to secure her freedom, he was the product of the same circumstance. Shortly after that, Virginia put a law on the books stating that from now on any child born would be identified by the mothers race . This helped ( slave owners) and white males in general to be able to father children without losing any of them that were born of their slaves to not be loss as property , subsequently any European woman that slept with a non European male and was impregnated or just found to be having relations would be severely punished, go figure. My son told me he didn’t identify being black/ African American like me or white / European like his mother , my X . I asked him why and he said that he definitely couldn’t pass for white in this society and blacks didn’t fully accept as black although he felt at peace and welcomed more with them. I told him this story to show him that ( race )was no more than a artificial construct used to rationalize the brutality of those in power at the time , they manipulated things to fit there agendas and beliefs = rationalization! He was like wow ! I wasn’t aware of that but thanks for letting me know that, it makes sense . I told him this is just a example one of many , of how ignorance is passed along . My son in the picture.
2
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
4 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Why am I a “Person of Color”?
Thanks for the post Outsideit. I thought you might like to read the article above by Lij Teodrose Fikremariam. It pretty much entails what you stated towards your son. Lij Teodrose Fikremariam is the co-founder and former editor of the Ghion Journal. He isn't doing much writing here since taking on the chair of Ethiopians for Constitutional Monarchy, but has a lot of good pieces you might be interested in. I use this site for other good articles from the writers within also.
William_Mary
Level 8
Jan 12, 2020
1
Thank you , I will take the time to read that and I appreciate you opening up another door .
Elizabeth Key Grinstead----[en.wikipedia.org]
I got into a debate related to this one day on Obama and Tiger Woods. We have a white mother in one case and an Asian mother in the other. 2 household names that always receive the black mans label. Rarely when they are discussed are the mothers brought into the conversation. In this debate I learned of a "one drop of blood" theory.
One-drop rule----[en.wikipedia.org]
I personally find it to be ridicules, along with labels. From then and to now. Now you might ask?
Since my mother passed away 10 years ago I went on a search for a father I never really knew. Born out of wedlock he was a married man in which I'm certain I never got all of the real story. I'm still finding out things as I go along today. It's funny when you're left alone, family wise, people like myself find an inner determination to find out who we are. I've never felt I knew who I was. I have 2 half brothers who never gave mom and me the time of day. And now I know I have 4 other siblings. Mom told me when I was young my dad was Italian. One day as I showed up with a t-shirt on with an Italian shield on it she questioned it. Informing me he wasn't Italian.
Getting information out of my mom was like getting water out of a rock within this issue. And by now I'm in my mid 30's 
And I'm sure my uncle as old school as he was had a lot to do with it. He always had mom burying anything from the past, I'm fairly certain now he found her past to be a shame on the family. Married to an abusive bully type man her first attempt, her husband with power in the city kept her 2 sons from her after she decided to get out. You know, the bare foot pregnant and in the kitchen, can't drive life style of the early 20th century. Somewhere she gets mixed up with my father. Mom worked as a waitress where he would visit for work time lunch. I seen him a few times there but wasn't allowed to make my presence overly felt or known. Talked a few times and he even bought me my first bike when I was in grade school. That's my time knowing my father. Moved from the area in 6th grade never to return to this area until 96.
Now I'm finding out my father was actually bi-racial stemming back to a great great grand father from Egypt. Details are a little murky being his birth certificate might have been fraudulent posting him born in and migrating from Mexico. I may be mixing one up with another grand father also. I'm really still trying to put the pieces together. It's so much to take in. I'm going basically from information from a cousin from that side on Ancestor who has been kind enough to help out, and another family member of hers/ours, that through some pictures of the family history together for me. Obviously the bi-racial exists in my father his brother and sister. It's in the pictures and you just can't miss it. I have it also but my moms family being as white as can be, Irish and German, mine shows up drastically in the summer. I always have a darker tone skin, winters are like olive green at the least, but I darken quick and deep in the summer.
I went from thinking the first half of my life that I was part Italian. Now I know some of my genes come from Egypt. Maybe some from Mexico also. How does the world view me? 
I can have a number of labels stapled on me. When do we get past the labels? There's only certain types of blood known to humanity. Genealogy has nothing to do with blood. We have no control over what brought us into the world, only with what we do once we get here, relying on those surrounding us who provide either a good structured foundation to grow on or a bad one. Once enough good foundations are achieved we will erase the labels. Which foundation do you help build on towards a better society? I'm sure there will always be a white society in which their conditioning doesn't need our divided attention.
I find it amusing when someone is attempting to figure out what I am.
William_Mary
Level 8
Jan 12, 2020
1
You are a soldier and I hope you find what you seek , as I stated in my post , I was conveying to my son through a small example how race is merely a artificial construct , that was necessary for the Europeans of that time to ration their conquest of foreign lands , and in general also rationalize brutal behavior shown to Non Europeans . We all are the by- product of this and enablers to one degree or another . My parents raised me not to see that ( race ) and the stereotypes that come with them even though they lived during Jim Crow , on rural Texas and Georgia respectively, I am grateful for that. Thank you for sharing continue your search , but consider what you are as well and the family history is just something interesting to know and perhaps pass on but it is not whatyou are . My Great -Great Grandfather on my mother’s side full blown Irish , John H. Reagan he put my Great Grandmother on his tree : Texas Senator, judge and part of the confederate government, on her mom side Great -Great Grand Father half Comanche , his mother full so we are a melting pot . Enjoy the adventure but embrace what you are .
My daughter is white and her children are half black and we have seen what your son describes as well.
A former friend asked me why my daughter gravitated to black people (her words) instead of white. My response was "when white people see her kids, they see black; when black people see her kids, they see black." She puts them where they will receive the most acceptance.
Although there have been a couple of instances where black people are less accepting, our family has found that we (including me) are much better treated by the black community than the white
Lucy_Fehr
Level 8
Jan 12, 2020
2
My so of 15 years was a black man. He resented the fact he wasn't dark enough. it matter not to me but when my mom (who lived 2,800 miles away found out she was pissed - this was when I realized the woman was a racist and a bigot) I so wish people would get the fuck over themselves and this preoccupation with skin color. While I do not have the white guilt some have I am not at all pleased with the behavior of many white people.
@silverotter11 You should not have the white guilt , what has happened and still does was put into motion hundred and hundreds of years ago and once we understand the system we all can dismantle it and see each other as merely human beings .
And to think all of this nonsense was created by Men .
I've had to give up friends over their inability to be woke. Ive not lost relatives but my daughter's father has had nothing to do with her since he found out she had a mixed child. He proceeded to call her filthy names and then told her that if he could get away with it he would kill the fucking monkey himself.
Messed my daughter up emotionally and why he is the only person still walking the earth that I have an enduring hatred for. Although we have encountered some disapproval from a few black people, we have never experienced that level of hatred
@Outsideit67 Oh, I have no white quilt but I know of some who do. Like I said the whole thing just seems so odd to me, as does religion, erring humans have created many forms of evil.
@Lucy_Fehr Most just do not have awareness of how the white supremacist ideology is based in ego and false beliefs. Hopefully your daughter has been able to let that go and keep it moving . When someone shows you who they are don’t look past it and don’t get caught up in the image that you/I have of them . Attachment to things is are our downfall.
Yes well I found it odd that Obama was described as being black when to me he looked much the same colour as many white people. I think Michael Moore hit the nail on the head when he said that white people in the states live in constant fear of black people taking over. It was realised in England after the Norman conquest (eventually) that the only way to beat the Normans, with their impregnable castles, was to marry them. Gradually over the ages the USA will become brown and the whites will become a minority and may well be forced to serve the browns.
rogerbenham
Level 8
Jan 12, 2020
3
Not if the likes of mitch mcconnell, graham, kennedy or collins have anything to say about it.
I highly doubt that whites will be forced to serve Browns but that is a legitimate fear of a white supremacist . I actually had a co worker confide in me that he was scared if Obama became President he would make white people slaves , he was dead serious . I had to break down to him how that wasn’t possible, and thought to myself : You should not be allowed to reproduce, of course he already had , lol I think this younger generation looks at us and says , no way will we follow in their footsteps, at least my son tells me that ! There will be and are those who don’t want to let go of the racist ideology that the United States society was built on but nothing is forever , hopefully we don’t destroy it for the future generations can do something different.
@silverotter11 Well you have named four people who I wonder often how they can be as horrible as their public personae. McConnell and Graham in particular strike me as horrible people. Do their wives love them?
Would those four ever advocate killing black people?
@Outsideit67 Well I was a new university graduate and wanted to know the truth about South Africa so I went there in 1969 for 3 months and worked on the Carlton Centre in Johannesburg.
What I found was that I disliked pretty well everything about the Africanse. I heard one talking about bull whipping his black 'boys'.
There was a fear in the white people about black people taking over and this was being fed by white farmers fleeing the new state of Zambia saying how their farms had been taken away by gangs of black people. Later on the same thing happened in Uganda. And it also has happened a little in South Africa but Mandela did a fantastic job. Whites say it was Le Clerc.
The thing is that racism seems to be a human property. The best answer may be to all intermarry until we all look the same ... but of course we won't and there will always be racism until we grow up.
We need to grow up very badly right now as we are close to looking at extinction in the eyes.
The so called Christian Right with their dreams of Armageddon are the most worrying factor!
@rogerbenham IMHO in a NY minute. Gerrymandering is working to keep poor and blacks from having a voice. Personally I really do not get this white fear of blacks. It is a learned fear and how it continues to be propogated puzzles me. Yes the need to grow up right fucking NOW!!
@Outsideit67 I had a woman who is 7th Day Adventist tell me that blacks are not as smart as us(meaning whites). I so wanted to just say dat be a whole loada stupid white shit but I simply said, that is propaganda and not at all true or factual.
@silverotter11 RSA (South Africa) 50 years ago attempted to prove that. It turned out that if anything at all the blacks were smarter than whites.
One beautiful fact to remember is that Cro Magnon came out of Africa totally black and met Neanderthal who after 200,000 years in Europe would have become white and the Cro Magnon most likely killed off the whites along with a certain amount of cross breeding. We are about 2% Neanderthal.
But that was 50 or 60 thousand years ago and our pigment went through a mass of changes depending where we were.
@rogerbenham I'm sure that study got like NO air play. 
@silverotter11 It was not popular but it leaked. Maybe the non Africanse found the report. It was interesting being a second class citizen or even 3rd. The recent Dutch were maybe the 2nd and white Europeans third.
@rogerbenham The easiest way to see past this nonsense is to just study history and it will show us the concerted effort of those who were consumed with greed , power and control , which are by- products of the Ego were compelled to fabricate a set of beliefs to rationalize their actions , furthermore history continues to show us that the masses are unwilling to independently look at things for themselves even with the access now that we to information.
@rogerbenham, @silverotter11 through out the annals of history , people like Hume , Descartes , Locke and the list goes on , in non secular spheres Cotton Mather is credited with championing the racists ideology as these other men are secularly . These individuals and more circulated their personal beliefs into articles , journals and other sources to propagate their superiority and those that are non European inferiority. As early as the time of Aristotle the climate theory was being pushed by him , and scholar such as IBN Khaloud. There have always been those who have felt they were superior based on illogical beliefs and foundation. Leo Africanus, being the first Black racist , that wrote articles on the inferiority of blacks even though he was half and most of the things that were written and distributed, were done so from his chambers .
@Outsideit67 The white christianity spoon fed to black slaves hasn't done a lot to make things better either - IMHO.
@silverotter11 Absolutely true !! If most Blacks would simply do their research , and look at the many articles, journals , discourses , and decree(s) that were put forth by our former masters they would reject Christianity as well as Islam but Christianity for sure . After the transatlantic slave trade was abolished, breeding farms were established in this Nation, and from that point on , the only history , secular and non secular that the slaves had was what their masters told them . If one looks at the teachings of Cotton Mather and those that follow ,you can see why blacks as a whole cling to these beliefs that have been passed down through the Generations. The fear that my mother and her siblings have of questioning The Bible is unreal . She knows I don’t accept it, she doesn’t have a issue with it , because of the discussions we have had . It’s just plain sad , because many of my Cousins are pastors.
@Outsideit67 Glad you picked up on my massivey understated comment about white christianity . Those that have rejected our pasts just gotta keep trying to educate and help the fearful let go of those fears.
@silverotter11 Agreed , thank you for your input and perspective, a confirmation that I’m not a Lunatic!!! Lol
Recent Visitors 30
Photos 120 More
Posted by William_MaryIf You Wish Someone a Happy Memorial Day, You Fail to Understand Its True Meaning The mythology perpetuated at Memorial Day benefits no one save the militarists and war profiteers.
Posted by LufahyuMedia Sources; people from all walks and ideologies peruse a variety of source material available on the Internet, some more reliable than others.
Posted by joy2loveThe Neuroscience of Illusion - Scientific American
Posted by CherokeemanBlessings y'all.
Posted by Archeus_LoreA good meme for religious people to see . . . .
Posted by William_MaryIt has been questioned if Einstein actually made this statement.
Posted by William_Mary“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.
Posted by William_MaryHowever we have an escape-------[wsws.org]
Posted by William_MaryKeep people from their history, and they are easily controlled.
Posted by William_MaryThis fairly explains our political woes within our citizenry when it comes to the voting process that's managed within only 2 parties with their perceptions managed by propaganda designed to support ...
Posted by William_MaryI can pretty much apply this thought to just about everyone who has attempted to challenge my agenda here in this group, and my comments on social media in regards to our political arena.
Posted by William_MaryBy Apr.
Posted by William_MaryThe working class holds the strength to change the world for a better society for everyone. We just need to refuse to remain indoctrinated into their manufactured delusional reality.
Posted by William_MaryWhen the state is controlled by corporations and the ruling class.
Posted by of-the-mountainHas sanity and respect for all female, male, and children’s healthcare been suspended by these obstructionists republican fascists with their overt agenda against the people of this country!!! Are ...
Posted by William_MaryWorld's Most Tyrannical Regime Can't Stop Babbling About "Human Rights" We saw the change in coverage because Washington and its imperial spinmeisters only care about human rights abuses insofar as...