 |
| Photo by travel oriented via Flickr |
Trigger Alert!: This post is racist.
I’m really very American. I’ve got ancestors that came over before the Revolution. I have ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War (we won!) and the Civil War (we are such losers). So, there’s really nothing I can say or do that would make the ridiculous comment “go back to where you came from” mean anything to me. I came from Orlando.
But, I was brought up on the knowledge that I’ve got Cherokee in me. (Which, actually, would make me even more American than I am.) It was said that my father’s mother was part Cherokee and farther up the line some Bolch or Bolick married a Cherokee woman. It was always pointed out how black Bolch hair was (racism) and my brother didn’t have a hairy chest! (Egad, more racism! But I swear we discussed these things.) So, there you go. Cherokee.
I could sing that Indian Reservation song with some sense of belonging! They took the whole Chrokee Nation and put us on this reservation. (Well, not me. But still.) Took away our way of life! The tomahawk, the bow, the knife! Our native tongue! Taught their filthy English to our young! Damn those Western European white people!
I suppose it would help if I told you that both sides of my family come out of Buncombe County, North Carolina. And Cherokee is in North Carolina. Just a bit west of Asheville! And yes, I suppose the Cherokee tend toward lovely black hair. I know nothing of their chest hair other than what I see in the movies.
Of course, my brother’s chest is kind of hairy now. But he has a look to him that you could, in the right light, see as reminiscent of Native American. (I’m not sure if that is racist or not.)
My mother, on the other hand, has lately taken it into her head that she’s Scottish. She asked me the other day to get on my genealogy research and find out just where her Scottish roots are. After all, there are a lot of Scottish roots in the Smokey Mountains, from whence her people hail. And she’s been peppering her language with “ye,” as if that’s a Scottish sort of thing to say. (My family is full of racists.)
Wouldn’t you know it? I was able to tell her something without much research at all. I’d just had my Ancestry DNA results in! Here I am:
 |
| Photo by 00Ucci via Flickr |