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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   24128 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024

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Hated Ancestors

I am part of a family heritage organization. This particular family has been in the US for a little over 400 years. The organization's main responsibilities are maintaining a few old grave sites, and serving as a bit of a repository of information for people going on genealogical hunts. I am possibly going to be joining the board of this organization in the future.

Anyways, these ancestors of mine owned slaves, and quite a few of them fought and died on the losing side of the American Civil War. I feel mostly apathy about this. I did not know these people, I didn't even know anyone who knew them. Any "wealth" they had from slavery was never passed down, they all went heavily bankrupt in the 1870s (they were all lending each other money, and someone made a poor investment so they all went down together when debt collectors came in). I don't feel any need to defend their actions, or to attack them to prove to myself I would not have acted similarly in their circumstances. Its just a fact that sits out there and is kind of interesting, but has no bearing on me personally.

I was aware that my view on this might be different than others, but it was confirmed the other day. We received this email to our general inbox (information in brackets is anonymized from original email):

Began my morning looking to purchase land in [Southern US State] and I came across the [Surname] name while viewing a property in [Small Town, Southern US State].

As I further traveled down this rabbit hole, from the time, ‘A man from [European Country]’ entered America, natives chased away, privileged education, owning slaves, and building up the economic community to owning many properties across [Southern US State] and possibly the United States.

I read a section on your website, how to gather and reserve information about the enslaved in a PowerPoint. I opened a next page showing all of the different owned properties from A to Z, assuming to be left as a legacy to your descendants.

This research was very daunting to my spirit albeit it being a part of history, your history, which at the same level very interesting. This information also showed how ‘others’ had their history swayed and influenced by your family’s history.

If it were not for the slaves… If it were not for the Natives… If the [Surname] never entered America… This country, your family…what would have happened to its inhabitants?

Doubt if I’d buy that piece of land in [Small Town, Southern US State] for fear of the ancestor’s spirits, Native and African slaves wandering around looking for descendants in 2024 to be released from their bondage and inequities thrashed upon them for wealth by its oppressors.

Purpose of this email was to express my personal feelings towards the [Surname] descendants and how sad it is that when Americans say privilege, we only need to read history of those before us.

~Forgive my sentence structures. My [Community College] English instructor always reminded me to work better at my writing skills. Education.

Thank you for your time.

In most cases I'd be happy to toss this email in the trashbin of my mind. This lady disliking me because of my ancestors isn't really a big deal. Someone lost a property sale somewhere, also not me and also not a big deal. But I do share one thing with this lady that constantly frustrates and annoys me: A Government. It would be nice to be a in a world where I could fully dismiss this kind of thing from my life. But if they vote and too many people that share their opinion vote ... well I'm sure they will find inventive ways to make their feelings towards us a more solid thing. I don't know where this leaves us. I'm certainly not going to respond to this lady's email.

It would be wrong to leave you all with the impression that this is a normal interaction. My mother has been doing genealogical research lately, including some compiling of the slaves names. She has made friends with a man in the state who was trying to research his ancestors. The man had hit a wall and couldn't find out more until my mom published the slave research.

I'll answer questions about my ancestors, but I will generally try to avoid doxxing myself, even if I'm not highly concerned with that outcome.

It really is a shame that people who are afraid of vengeful ghosts wield so much power over us.

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