White People in My Family
I remember the first time I got my hair pressed. I was at least 27 years old and a recent transplant in the South. Sitting in my supervisors kitchen and watching the wisps of smoke rise from my "virgin" hair turned glossy and wide but not quite flat.
"There's a white woman in your family." She said as she racked the hot comb over the same stubborn section.
I laughed then but having done more research into my family history she was right. There are white passing men and women, some hailing from England and some whose racial designation would change from colored to white as the migrated across the eastern states.
The shocking thing about having so many white people in my family is how they must have been complicit in the harm allowed against their Black and Mulatto relatives. A white father marries a white woman the same age as his black daughter who does not have his name nor access to the wealth of his family. She is white passing based on this photograph and has 7 children with a Black man. What was it like that they live in the same county? What was it like when her mom does marry? What was the political climate in Bertie County.
The black fathers in my family really started checking out in my generation. But abandoning children has been a white father trait for much longer.
Deadbeat dads don't get my ire because I know personally how hard it is to stay when you're poor. I've contemplated leaving when I couldn't provide a roof and if I'm honest it is something that remains in my toolbox. Not because I don't care but because I do and sometimes the material things I lack seem more important than staying or staying alive like autonomous housing....
I don't assume all the white people in my family had money although some of their wills are documented and they neglect to mention the Black relatives. The interesting thing is that my Black relatives often had land up until a point and I can pinpoint when we started being housing dependent or those who possessed legal rights to land.
I know some of the white folks weren't materially wealthy but besides the Great Dismal Swap families, they were rich enough to have access to Black workers at their most vulnerable times before desegregation and typically only their employers would have that type of access because there were no bars, churches, dancehalls and neighborhoods that allowed for intermingling amongst the spectrum of humans we see collaborating today.
I don't need those folks to admit that they did us wrong. It would be nice but Im going for my Black identifying folks to be aware of what it is when a person uses their privilege to get close to you and gain access to your home, community, body. I have had this occur with much more white passing masculine folks than others and, because of the conditioning, I've fallen for it.
Someone is not safe because they are white or they speak closer to the Queens English, or have a job, no record or act right. The truth is all of us are given to harmful behavior unless we are letting a power bigger than our "good" in the driver's seat. People have different names for what that power is but there is one unifying understanding and that is that it 8s the only power.
"There's a white woman in your family." She said as she racked the hot comb over the same stubborn section.
I laughed then but having done more research into my family history she was right. There are white passing men and women, some hailing from England and some whose racial designation would change from colored to white as the migrated across the eastern states.
The shocking thing about having so many white people in my family is how they must have been complicit in the harm allowed against their Black and Mulatto relatives. A white father marries a white woman the same age as his black daughter who does not have his name nor access to the wealth of his family. She is white passing based on this photograph and has 7 children with a Black man. What was it like that they live in the same county? What was it like when her mom does marry? What was the political climate in Bertie County.
The black fathers in my family really started checking out in my generation. But abandoning children has been a white father trait for much longer.
Deadbeat dads don't get my ire because I know personally how hard it is to stay when you're poor. I've contemplated leaving when I couldn't provide a roof and if I'm honest it is something that remains in my toolbox. Not because I don't care but because I do and sometimes the material things I lack seem more important than staying or staying alive like autonomous housing....
I don't assume all the white people in my family had money although some of their wills are documented and they neglect to mention the Black relatives. The interesting thing is that my Black relatives often had land up until a point and I can pinpoint when we started being housing dependent or those who possessed legal rights to land.
I know some of the white folks weren't materially wealthy but besides the Great Dismal Swap families, they were rich enough to have access to Black workers at their most vulnerable times before desegregation and typically only their employers would have that type of access because there were no bars, churches, dancehalls and neighborhoods that allowed for intermingling amongst the spectrum of humans we see collaborating today.
I don't need those folks to admit that they did us wrong. It would be nice but Im going for my Black identifying folks to be aware of what it is when a person uses their privilege to get close to you and gain access to your home, community, body. I have had this occur with much more white passing masculine folks than others and, because of the conditioning, I've fallen for it.
Someone is not safe because they are white or they speak closer to the Queens English, or have a job, no record or act right. The truth is all of us are given to harmful behavior unless we are letting a power bigger than our "good" in the driver's seat. People have different names for what that power is but there is one unifying understanding and that is that it 8s the only power.
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