Guilt in Your DNA [Archive] - Simple Living Forums

LDAHL

6-28-23, 10:48am

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-slavery-lawmakers-overview/

So Reuters went to a great deal of trouble to compile a list of government officials with slaveholding ancestors. Every living president (except Trump), for instance, had some slave owning forbear. But what are we to do with this information? Should it affect our vote or our opinion on reparations? The whole exercise reminds me of those German genealogists who used to certify untainted bloodlines.

ToomuchStuff

6-28-23, 11:59pm

littlebittybobby

6-29-23, 12:51am

Okay---D'you kids remember that Arnold, the Terminator who became governor o' callyfornya, is an Austrian-American? But yeah--his daddy was a military man who served the Nazi regime. Yup. But, even though summa those callyfornyans find EVERYTHING relevant, they apparently saw little if any in the Ahnold connection to Nazi Germany. So, some "journalist"(rabble-rouser) can do all the deep research they want, but does it matter? Oh yeah---Yobamma's Daddy was a habitual drunken-driver, and ended up in several serious crashes. I believe his last one took his life. But, did it matter? How many votes did it cost Yo? Or sympathy votes did it garner? But no---I'm not making an issue o' either of these facts. Just using them to make a point. Hope that helps you some.

bae

6-29-23, 12:59am

Hmmmm.

I think the Constitution forbids "Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted."

iris lilies

6-30-23, 10:45am

I’m surprised they couldn’t get Trump on this.

As far as this slaveowning forebears in my family, I’m not aware of them but I suppose someone exists back that way. I know that the only auld world relative I really care about came to this country well after the Civil War, so he’s not guilty of it.

Tradd

6-30-23, 1:37pm

My mother’s side (Scots-Irish) came to the US in the early 1930s from Ontario. My father’s side is German and French-Canadian. The Germans came around 1900. The French-Canadian great-grandmother I’m an exact physical copy of came to the US in the 1920s.

I dare someone to attempt to tell me I’m personally responsible for slavery when my ancestors weren’t in the US.

LDAHL

6-30-23, 1:48pm

I dare someone to attempt to tell me I’m personally responsible for slavery when my ancestors weren’t in the US.

They would say you owe a debt for your lifetime of privilege.

Alan

6-30-23, 1:58pm

I dare someone to attempt to tell me I’m personally responsible for slavery when my ancestors weren’t in the US.
My family has been around in the US for quite some time, although to the best of my knowledge, all of them, up-to and including my grandparents (both sides) never owned real property of any kind. No land, no homes, no persons, nada. They were all tenant farmer types, living on the land owners property, in homes provided by the land owner in exchange for a portion of each years crops. My family did the same up until I was in the 6th grade.
My dad had the distinction of being the first person in his family to own a home, on the other side of my extended family, my mother was only the 2nd person in her family to enjoy that honor.

JaneV2.0

6-30-23, 5:49pm

One part of my family has been here since before the Revolutionary War, and there are more recent immigrants. My Southern ancestors were mostly too poor to have slaves. So I'll save my inherited guilt for that pompous old reprobate Nicholas Noyes, who--unfortunately--was part of the mix.

bae

6-30-23, 6:10pm

They would say you owe a debt for your lifetime of privilege.

My family came to the US a few years after the abolition of slavery in the USA. Fleeing persecution in Europe, and the loss of their land there.

Here, they were privileged to become coal miners in a company town, and some escaped that life eventually to become hillbillies in Ohio, or dirt-farmers in the Dakotas. The ones in Ohio had a fun time in the German-speaking part of Ohio during WWI/WWII, because, well, they were clearly not real Americans. "Victory Cabbage", anyone?

I grew up in a not-quite-single-wide in the back woods in my early years. My grandma lived in that trailer until she was in her '80s and my Dad relocated her to come live with him. Many of my other relatives still live in the back woods, and haven't travelled outside their county-of-birth.

I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. Largely due to the financial aid package offered to me for both high school and college.

My daughter has a Ph.D. and now teaches at Cambridge. She benefited from a lifetime of privilege, built on the successes of her ancestors.

Tradd

6-30-23, 9:03pm

Both sides of the family were blue collar and laborers. Mother would have gone to college if she didn’t have to support her ill mother right out of high school.

I’m the first one on father’s side to attend college, let alone graduate.

Everyone had to work damn hard to get where they got. Mother’s family was very poor. I don’t buy the privilege bit at all.

Rogar

7-1-23, 12:57pm

My maternal side goes back to at least the Revolution and started as farmers but seemed to advance to prominent business men in some later generations. I have a pretty detailed account of that side of the family and there is not mention of slaves, but possibly a servant or two along the way. The other side seemed to be poor dirt farmers and hill people. I picture that as a pretty typical mix of early common people and the one's with slave holders in their ancestry came from a different stock of the more elite in the south and east. Not in my backyard.

I suppose giving the descendants of slaves preferred access to high education is out now.

JaneV2.0

7-1-23, 2:08pm

I believe I had at least one indentured servant in the mix, from my UK line; I assume he eventually freed himself.

LDAHL

7-1-23, 2:15pm

I don’t think people who favor the “equity” concept of fairness care about how you or your family arrived at the outcome they did. They only care about the results and not the process.

Tradd

7-1-23, 5:47pm

So blacks are supposed to get preferential treatment forever? What about poor whites or Native Americans? Or everyone’s favorite, those coming through the southern border?

Asians are minorities, but I guess they’re considered white. And it’s not a homogeneous group. Japanese, Chinese, and Indians have a culture that places a big importance on educational achievement with families that seem care how their kids do in school I’m going to be blunt, the black culture certainly does not seem to. So black students should have preference over other minorities?

Rogar

7-1-23, 9:26pm

Cephalopod Week just ended June 28 rather unnoticed, even though a couple of species are endangered.

early morning

7-2-23, 10:15am

Interesting turn of conversation, Rogar! :)

JaneV2.0

7-2-23, 3:57pm

Cephalopod week! How did I miss that? Dang.