"I also have some Chinese in me, at least as much as I have black (and maybe a
little Egyptian King Tut thrown in for good measure). All you have to do is look
at my face--it's all there."
Now, I'm not coming for the Godfather, because I have no idea in what context he made these statements or how true they are. But AAM's post made me think about how often black people claim mixed heritage as a badge of honor. And why is that?
I am not talking about bi-racial people who rightly claim both family cultures. I'm talking about folks who reach back 100 years in the family tree to tout a Cherokee princess who may or may not have existed.
I would venture that most black Americans that dig into their family history--and not that far back either--can find more than a few ancestors not of African descent. Most of us are are mixed. But there is something not exactly self affirming about many of the ways we communicate this:
"Yeah, you know me and my sisters have that good grade of hair because we have Indian in the family."
"The baby will probably be a nice color because the daddy is light and you know we have Indian in the family."
(Sidenote: It is always "Indian in the family" isn't it? While many black Americans do have Native ancestry, I bet a higher proportion have white ancestry, given the history of slavery. How come you never hear: "My great-great-grandfather was a white plantation owner?" Not exotic enough?)
Mixed ancestry is what we too often use to explain physical traits that are good, never mind the self-hating idea that tightly coiled hair and dark skin are bad. Mixed ancestry is often what we bring up to prove that we are different from other "just black" folks.
I find it interesting that many of the people who tout non-African ancestry rarely embrace that ancestry. They wouldn't know Cherokee culture from Nez Pearce culture. Chinese is the adjective they affix to every Asian person. And great-great-grandmother Siobhan was actually Irish not Scottish.
So, too often it's not about embracing all parts of our culture. In fact, it involves some exoticizing of other cultures--distilling them down to a source of pretty hair and acceptable features. It is about elevating ourselves in the hierarchy of race--from "just black" to something special.
What do you think?
10 comments:
I really like this post Tami and your musings about the claim for mixed-race, esp. American Indian lineage among some African Americans.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Harvard Prof) did this series for PBS about African American genealogies and they did DNA tests and traced back family records for 11 prominent AfAm folk like Chris Rock, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Jackie Joyner-Kersey, etc... (and one everyday AfAM person) and one of the celebrities they interviewed (a radio host with the last name Joyner) was told that prior to what his family had believed, there was no Cherokee ancestry but that they did, indeed, have "Caucasian" DNA mingled with their family tree.
Since I'm not AfAm I can't really speculate on the reasons behind the "Indian in the family" scenario you are positing, but it sort've reminds me of people who believe in reincarnation--who believe that in a former life they were royalty or someone famous. Maybe we all just want to spruce up our pasts.
Hi Tami,
I agree with you that much of the time when African American claim to have Native American ancestors it has to do with self-hatred.
But in many cases it's no different than many Black people saying that we are descended from Kings and Queens; which is not true 99.9% of the time.
I think some of it is Black people trying to have an interesting heritage like others claim. We have been cut off from knowing anything about our true heritage so many times we embellish.
How many times have we heard Whites and others go on about their ancestry, whether it's Irish or German or what ever? I’m sure they embellish too.
And there was a lot of mixing by African Americans and Native Americans. That was especially true in certain areas of the Southeastern U.S., such as in Florida, Alabama, and in North Carolina.
I actually think there is more of a Native connection to African Americans than we know.
One more thing; many times those stories of having Native ancestors are often passed down in families; I bet James Brown's Mother or Grandmother told him of his ancestry.
By the way; I have heard that there is Creek on my mother's father’s side of the family. Lol
But the really interesting thing is my grandfather really did look like a Native American. But I have no proof that the he was.
This is a very complicated subject.
MDC,
Oh, I acknowledge that a lot of black people have Native ancestry. Family lore says that a great-great-grandmother on my mother's side was a Cherokee woman. Can't prove it though. Her son's death certificate lists his mother as "unknown."
There was a lot of intermingling between black people and the five "Civilized Tribes" in the Southeast. Check out Tiya Miles' books, especially Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom. It is a great read.
In many cases, the Native family connection that folks tout is real, but it seems that the excitement many of us have over finding those roots is not related to an appreciation of a particular Native culture and a wish to explore it. It is more related to a desire to cast off our blackness.
Jennifer,
I think for many blacks, the idea of co-mingling with another oppressed race is more palatable than co-mingling with a race viewed as the "oppressor." That thought process alone is very simplistic, because...and I did not know this until reading Miles' books...some Native Americans owned black slaves, particularly as they were encouraged to assimilate and adopt "acceptable" (read Eurocentric) behaviors.
I recently found this page that talks a bit about this subject.
Why Your Great-Grandmother Wasn't A Cherokee Princess
Tami, you've given me some fuel for thought here. Briefly, I think what this represents is shame about participation versus resistance.
Recently, I read an article about Black Americans complaining that the children of Black immigrants (West Indians) where stealing all of the scholarship money that was due to "legitimate" Black Americans.
I think we have a tendency to denigrate survival as an act of resistance and glorify rebellion as an act of strength and courage. If you can't be royalty, the next best option is freedom fighter. What many of us forget is that there are many tribes who are extinct because they chose to resist rather than survive.
And I think that is why we claim any non-white mixed race heritage. We want to believe someone resisted. I've had Jewish friend who provided insight about this. Regarding their outward appearance, they shrug and say, "My grandmother was raped by a Cosack. Hee Hee," The sub-text is - "But look at me, I'm a strong, observant, Jewish woman whose family remained untouched by that kind of base warfare and humiliation. I am strong. They are weak."
We feel too ashamed to claim this kind of strength. Too much knowledge of who we are was willfully stolen for the exact purpose of making us eternally search for our self-worth.
I get so sick and tired of hearing that, too.
I got officially cured of that "I got indian in me" when I went to a Native American reservation in Fonda, New York.
The REAL Native Americans let us know how much they resented folks claiming a culture of which they don't even respect enough to understand, speak the language of or even KNOW any actual Native Americans.
We need to stop saying that. Or actually do the genological research and THEN stop saying it-- because who outside of you, really gives a damn anyway?
It's disrespectful to those who are actually of Native American culture, I think.
Personally, I think some of this comes from a person not really knowing their family heritage. It is one thing to say you are from a place or a culture and it is another to identify with it in some way. I have family from a number of backgrounds in the past, and identify with all of it on some level. Yet, there are dominate elements that I identify with 100% because they have always been a part of my life.
I think even when a person claims to be African the question has to go out of what does that mean? What ethnic group are they linking themselves to, what actual culture are they really identifying with? Do they maintain a familiar connection with said ethnic group?
In the end it doesn't matter to me what people choose to identify themselves as. The term black is so sketchy to begin with to where people could identify themselves as anything and still be considered black. Maybe that is the real issue. What is the overall definition of being black? What exactly is black culture and black heritage? Where is the national homeland of all black people? Not simply a continental geography, but what nationality are all black people connected to? Without these things people end up having to latch onto whatever they can easily identify with.
This declaration, made by many Black Americans (never having done extensive genealogical research), is at the top of my list of pet peeves.
I think in a lot of cases, it is just an attempt at being even more exotic... even more of an anomaly. Many of us grasp at straws,
"Oh, my great-great grandmother to the bazillionth degree, was British and married into the family... so I'm mixed"
(I notice a lot of Black celebrities are notorious for doing this as well...) D-lister Tracy Bingham... who has proudly claimed to the press(and still does), that she is a "mutt" or that she is "multiracial" was taken to task on the Howard Stern Show several years ago, when she was still somewhat relevant.
He asked her in what ways exactly, was she "mixed" and if one of her parents is White. All she could offer was, "Well, my dad has a liiittle bit of Italian in him..." So in essence she's no more of a "mutt" than any other Black American claiming to be something they aren't.
I think that Black culture is rich, multi-layered, and diverse enough, that we shouldn't even WANT to distance ourselves from that part of our beings... but then again... that's just me... being proud to be Black and nothing more. Great post.
have to agree with Coffey as well
for some reason, we assume that "other" is "exotic" and "exotic" is chic.
Hmm...I'm not African-American, per se. I'm a biracial woman who looks white and has ties to Jamaica.
Many people here had good points. I too have witnessed the phenomenon of people who claim to have this or that in their family tree. Or that they have "light skin" and "good hair".
I agree with DMB's comment. I'm able to look into my entire family history all the way back to the early 1600's. Few people can say this. I believe (as others have stated too) that some black folks desperately want to connect to parts of their history and how they came to be...therefore they invent their own history.
I don't doubt that Native Americans mixed with AA's...I simply don't believe that it happened as much as people would like to believe. My ex and his family constantly claimed to have Cherokee in the family. When they weren't busy claiming that, they were saying that they were partly white when this obviously wasn't true.
IMO, it is a combination of insecurity and not knowing one's true family history.
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