The Atlantic - Latest Comments in The Shock Of The Hour

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

jlkenney — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:08:57 -0000

Tons of Ashkenazi Jews have blue eyes (and fair hair). And there's no such thing as a "genetic" "Semitic person." Semitic is a language family (which Ashkenazi Jews, btw, do not historically speak - Yiddish is a Germanic language with a lot of Semitic loan words). Presumably the relative prevalence of blue eyes and fair hair among Ashkenazi Jews indicates that there was some mixing with northern Europeans at some point in the distant past, but an individual Ashkenazim having blue eyes doesn't indicate that their grandmother was raped by a Cossack, or whatever.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

Juba — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:40:53 -0000

Excellent post, I never considered that but yes, absolutely.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

Juba — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:35:05 -0000

Man I got so many dead ends in my own genealogy.

To paraphrase the Greek from THE WIRE (S2)--"My name...is not my name." My g-g-grandfather changed it to a very common American last name after fleeing South Carolina for Florida. I'll have to settle for him (and those before him) being with us in spirit, I suppose. And Im ok with that.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

Troy — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:09:57 -0000

This thread is probably winding down, sorry I'm late to come back and check on it.

The story itself--black person has white ancestors--is old. That she's the first lady doesn't make it any newer. It's like writing a story saying that Michelle Obama likes Earth Wind & Fire or enjoys Harold's chicken. Well yeah, a lot of black people do, and yeah, a lot of black people from Chicago do.

I think the fact that she's the first lady makes all the difference. Because what makes this interesting, and therefore news, is the "from slave to the White House in N generations" narrative. Michelle Obama's personal history is the apotheosis of a story Americans love: the rags-to-riches, in-America-anything-is-possible story (think: "The Godfather").

That's why it's her ancestry that people are fascinated by, moreso even than the President's. The white ancestor is an interesting detail in that larger narrative because, as others have suggested, it's a detail that many non-blacks will find mildly surprising. But it's her story that's the driving force here, because it personalizes the historical arc of blacks in this country in a way that no one else's story can.

I agree that the fact that Michelle is first lady doesn't make her story any newer, but it does make her story news.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

rikyrah — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:23:15 -0000

LMAO about the comments about Bob Barr.

Barr is so ' FAMILY'.

Man has more 'NEGROID' features than half my BLACK family.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

rikyrah — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:16:01 -0000

the thought that anything in that article was a ' surprise ' to a thinking person is bewildering to me. the story of the First Lady is the story of Blacks in America.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

rikyrah — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:05:30 -0000

I don't know about the current generation, but Black folks were taught, as I was...

you don't bust those that are ' passing', because in order for them to make that choice, they've already given up so much of their soul, why add to their misery?

why do you think that our parents let us stay up past out bedtimes to watch Imitation of Life and Pinky?

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

eric k — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:29:33 -0000

I don't want to turn this into a bashing the South thing and brag about how great us liberal North westerners are, but my data point is myself:

I'm 43 years old so I graduated from High School in 1984. In Seattle we learned about this stuff, as well as Japanese internment, how the Indians were treated and so on.

Now that I think about it maybe in the 70s and early 80s things were more liberal in school and starting in the Reagan era the big conservative backlash started and schools stopped talking about stuff because they were afraid of some loud parents complaining.

Applies to other things as well, we had sex ed and no one seemed to complain, no one was protesting about them teaching us evolution and trying to get intelligent design into the curriculum, and so on. The Culture war didn't seem to exists the way it does now.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

zinjanthropus — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:28:01 -0000

I just want to broaden the debate a bit. Yeah i gotcha, maybe i got a little carried away. But doesn't not speaking on it actually narrow the debate? One last swipe...But just because something has always been done doesn't mean we shouldn't examine it does it?

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

anna perez — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:19:43 -0000

TNC, I'm all for broadening the debate (that's why I am a devoted reader of your blog and of your comments section) as long as the context is always present.

And yes, the male/female power imbalance is nearly universal in the course of human history. But slavery is a very specific power imbalance. In this country and others, when slavery wasn't the specific context, woman often had families, societal mores and however imperfect, laws to protect and/or avenge them.

Even in these cases, sexual coercion was often implicit. It is only relatively recently here in the US that the rape of a woman by her husband became even possible in the eyes of society, much less illegal. Was love in arranged marriages, for example, impossible? No, but a woman's right to choose her own marital destiny was.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

zinjanthropus — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:12:10 -0000

Rape is not an emotional term to me, it's a technical term.

Yes Adolphus, there's the entire history of men dominating women. And your post is probably more closer to the actual truth than mine is. Thank you. But I still look askance whenever I hear the phrase historical context. Sometimes it seems awfully convenient to use.

We Americans like to broadcast to the world the idea of our moral superiority, both then and now. With this in mind, I like to ask myself, was there at that time, A complete and total expectation that every master must/should have his female slave or was there a significant amount of the culture which held sex with slaves to be unthinkable? Enough rationale and moral expectation and to behave differently at that time? If the answer is yes then this must also become part of historical context.

Historical context tells us that these men like Thomas Jefferson had plenty of opportunity to behave differently but didn't, and that they may have been great politicians/leaders but they were fallible men. Just like Kennedy, and Clinton, King and Cosby.

Of course there was,as evidenced by the secrecy and shame surrounding the millions of mulatto children and the Black mistresses. We would have known much more about Sally Hemmings if it weren't a scandalous, shameful affair meant to be kept secret.

Had we always been taught that Washington and others owned slaves, and that Jefferson and others had sex with their slaves, then perhaps we wouldn't have all the founding father/diety bullshit. Perhaps we would actually have a deeper reality from which to view ourselves.

History telling us that thousands of "great" men throughout our history owned people and often had sex with them would certainly have put Clinton and his silly little grunting in a different perspective.

No these weren't super men full of honor and Christ-like virtues, They were men who were good at their jobs.. just like Dennis Rodman and Mike Vick. Historical context tells us that Mike Tyson was right to have expected that silly beauty queen to have given it up that night after all, he was world famous and rich, but it also tells us that he raped that girl. Both at the same time.

And yes, if i owned slaves i would have screwed every pretty one and half the ugly ones too.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:49:22 -0000

There's a comment up thread that addresses this. Basically, through much of human history, a very similar power imbalance existed. What do we make of those relationships? In many societies women were effectively property. Was all of that sex coerced? Perhaps. I just want to broaden the debate a bit.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:47:07 -0000

But zinjanthropus, for most of human history sex has not been on equal terms by 21st Century standards. It has only been very recently, and not everywhere in the world yet. That a woman is free to choose her sexual and matrimonial partners is a very modern, mostly Western concept.

Bingo.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

Adolphus — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:37:38 -0000

But zinjanthropus, for most of human history sex has not been on equal terms by 21st Century standards. It has only been very recently, and not everywhere in the world yet. That a woman is free to choose her sexual and matrimonial partners is a very modern, mostly Western concept. For centuries women were bartered by parents and had their marriages, and subsequently their sexual partners, arranged for them when they were still children. In fact, I would say, if considered historically, most women have been "un-free" in this regard to some degree.

The hesitancy to call this rape is not a hesitancy to recognize that this was an exploitative and coercive relationship, but a hesitancy to over simplify a very complex social and historical phenomenon. Using an emotional label like "rape" (or I would argue "evil" or "genocide") inexactly has a tendency to shut down discussion and inquiry, inquiry into the many motivations of the agents, their choices, the consequences of choice, their fears, expectations, and circumstances.

It's not that you are wrong, necessarily, but how much do we learn or understand about this period in history or the people involved if we affix a quick and easy label. We owe all of our ancestors the dignity of considering them in as much historical context as possible.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

anna perez — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:34:32 -0000

Citing the book "The Hemmings of Monticello" up thread, Rosessupposes notes the "choices" that slave women had. Um, given the nature of the relationship--and here, context is all--any "choices" the slave woman had were granted by her master--hence no choice at all. And if one of her choices was to have sex with said master to free her children or live with the distinct possibility that she or they would sold away, live a life in bondage or be beaten, violated or killed--all at the whim or "choice" of the master, well that sounds like a "Sophie's Choice" to me."

It may well be true that some sort of "love" grew out of these relationships, though I think it was more on the order of "Stockholm Syndrome," but in a slave/master context, that love would always be "fruit of the poisoned tree."

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

Tim — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:15:47 -0000

I'm not holding back anything at all. Put bluntly, I thought most Americans knew. But even conceding that, a story isn't defined by the borders of what most people know. If we found, for instance, that one of Michelle Obama's ancestors served in the Civil War, I doubt that'd be much of a story--even though it's something most of us didn't know.

Ignorance doesn't make a story, the counter-intuitive does. If you spend ten minutes with a book on slavery, this story, much like a story about Obam's ancestor serving in the Civil War, isn't counter-intuitive. If anything, it's been widely written about.

Don't the details make the story? It might not be counter-intuitive, but there aren't any other former slaves whose descendents became First Lady of the United States. There's one. The path from Melvinia to Michelle is unique in American history. There have been other First Ladies who had ancestors serve in the civil war. That would not have been unique, but this story is. And yes, it was not at all surprising the the first black First Lady of the U.S. is descended from slaves, but this was the story explaining, for the first time, who that former slave actually was, and where Michelle Obama came from.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

zinjanthropus — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:05:26 -0000

Hmm... So if I had sex with a 13 year old girl who was my student in 2009 US, even after she begged me to have sex with her, this would still be considered rape, yes?

This is probably because I, as a grown man in a position of authority would have a significant advantage over a 13 year old girl under my care. Ditto for an owned slave?

I'd say the slave had less options than the present day 13year old. Even if the girl had decided to take advantage of me and my sexual weakness to get a better grade, It's rape by default, Rape by law. By statute. The slave is an owned female human and the sex is most definitely not on equal terms.

That's Rape.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

Adolphus — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:03:43 -0000

I'm a little late to this thread and don't have much of substance to add except how cool that name is "Dolphus."

Just sayin'.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

Jackie — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:35:56 -0000

I'm not shocked - and I'm white. I'm also a student of the Civil War and slavery so I probably know more than your average white citizen.

But history always becomes more alive when it is personal and when we can see the results. I thought I understood the Holocaust-again I am a reader of history and of the Holocaust. But, standing in a synagogue on Yom HaShoah and seeing the people who you talk to after every Friday night service walk to the bimah as survivors of the Holocaust, makes it all so much more alive. These are not six million people, these are Oscar and Margaret and the other 10 survivors still living in my community.

In the same way, we see Michelle Obama, a smart successful woman. A mother of beautiful small children. And now, we see a child, just younger than hers, ripped away from all that she knows and moved deeper south. In a few short years, when she is just older than the Obama children, she will have a child of her own. And, say what you will, a 14 year old slave was probably not in control of that situation whatever it was, and so, I am content in calling it rape unless the father of her child was a 14 year old lower class kid unrelated to the people who owned her.

There are very few years between that life and these lives in front of us.

It doesn't shock me, I'm sure it doesn't shock the Obama's but it brings the past to the present in a very real and sorrowful way. It makes our inhumanity real and present. It's important for that, if for no other reason.

Jackie

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

CitizenE — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:14:36 -0000

My people insofar as I have been told are Jewish in all sides and all directions. The immediate generation that came to America came from Russia and/or Poland. Semitic people genetically do not have blue eyes, yet there it is--my sister and I, just about everyone on my father's side of the family. What's more though my mother had black eyes, blue eyes require a recessive gene in both parents. Someone in my heritage back in the old country was definitely not Jewish.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

mjnewt0n — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:55:10 -0000

We're all mutts the farther you go back..

I agree. I say it differently.

I say we are all Americans.

Most all of us came from somewhere else. We mix it all up in the "melting pot".

It is the strength of our country.

With apologies to Native Americans.

But even the natives how now mixed in with the rest of us mutts...er, Americans.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

ProudBison — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:54:21 -0000

I didn't see the newsworthiness in this either. I thought this was common knowledge but clearly, it's not. Back in Minneapolis, I was listening to a popular radio talk show host going on about Radical Islam and using the Koran to justify terrorism. I called in to compare this with Christian slave owners using the Bible to justify slavery. The host had never heard of such a thing. I was totally shocked that this man, with all his education, was ignorant of this fact. Blew me away...

This story about Michelle's white ancestor brought something else to mind that really blows me. "Everyone keeps talking about the first BLACK president, but he's HALF WHITE. Stop denying his white heritage!" I have repeatedly heard, and read, this sentiment among some white people and it pisses me off every time. If Barack was on the corner slanging crack, you wouldn't be trumpeting his white heritage! Now you want to claim him because he's the president...

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

ErikaMSN — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:46:46 -0000

Heh, this (the poser comment) reminds me of one of my college history profs (who's a great scholar, but we loved to mock him). We had a seminar on miscegenation & the american experience, and at some point in the class he let drop that under the one-drop rule, he would've been considered black. I think he thought we'd all be shocked, us middle-class white children--but nobody even batted an eye. I think we disappointed him...

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

Persia — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:45:16 -0000

Kate Chopin had a really good short story about a woman who was orphaned and who had a 'black'-looking child.

Re: The Shock Of The Hour

tricstmr — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:39:46 -0000

The only thing that is surprising here to me about this is how silly these things can get. So now Michelle Obama isn't all "Black"??? What? Does this work in reverse? If I have an ancestor at that level who was black, does that make me black now? Or one that might have been native american or Indian or Chinese--does that make me any one of those ancestries?

We're all mutts the farther you go back..

This Link: http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/1072 talks about a product that points this reality out..

Sorry if this seems ranty--not meant to be..