browngirl

I have been pondering this since I saw your post this morning, but still have yet to come to any useful conclusions. I come two long lines of rednecks. One side claims Native American ancestry four or five generations back, and now you have me wondering. It'd come to something both ironic and sad if part of the Ick that is my family could be assigned to a smattering of denial and self-loathing on top of everything else. And it's not that I don't want to get into the other side, where (according to my dad) at the big extended family reunions, there's a large contingent of family members with my last name and much darker complexions, and Dad's pretty sure that's due to the really shitty things our family did before the Civil War, but right now, it would mean I once again make a race discussion All About Me.

So, thinky. We know race is a construct, and even the construct is a joke considering how blended we are (as the other commenters pointed out). I try to use it as a reminder that someone who grew up Black in the U.S. is going to have had different experiences than I did in my insular little redneck world. But then, I need to remind myself as well that everyone has had different experiences, because that's how life works, and that keeping those differences in mind is good for context, but the important part is what I've got in common with them.

*continues to make it All About Me*

*sucks*

*posts anyway*