C’mon, now, America. You’re starting to scare me with all these surprised-sounding stories:
WASHINGTON // Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.
But an intriguing sliver of his family history has received almost no attention until now: It appears that forebears of his white mother owned slaves, according to genealogical research and census records.
The source for this also links both John McCain and John Edwards to slave-owning ancestors.
Yeah? And?
For a genealogist (like me), this is interesting — but for anybody who was actually awake during their American History or Social Studies classes, there’s nothing new or surprising here.
Many years ago, I remember reading that something like 30% of people who descend from pre-Civil War era families have mixed ancestry. I can’t find the source of that anymore, but as a mixed-ancestry person descended from two separate lines of slave ancestors who lived in New England (rather than the South), you can bet it stuck with me.
Let’s just pause here and think about that for a second. 30%.
And that was just referring to miscegeny — racially mixed relationships between people whose descendants today see themselves as black, or white, or multi-ethnic. That article wasn’t even taking into account the sheer number of descendants of slave-holding families, generally.
When you realize that one couple, who lived well-over 150 years — five generations — ago, could easily have hundreds of descendants, it’s clear that many, many people have some kind of connection to slavery.
This, people, is who we are. This is our America.
Why the surprise?
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More thoughts:
Booker Rising, Villainous Company, The Carpetbagger Report, The Moderate Voice.
And, of course, memeorandum has more.