Hating The Whiteness Within

Recently a sister I am friends with on FaceBook wrote:

Quote :

I have another confession to make. I am a mixture of Black, Native American, and White. But I am ashamed of the White part. Am I the only one who feels this way???

This beautiful woman is very melenated with lovely dark skin--and upon reading further I felt that she has a lot of other personal issues to work through involving color, heritage, and acceptance, but this post will remain specific.

Some people asked her, "Why would you be ashamed?", some were family shocked to hear that there was a white person in the family, other people of mostly dark skin tone offered up various percentage of white ancestry that they have become accepting of since learning about. I am friends with a lot of Afro-centric spiritual people who call upon their ancestors actively, so my response does kind of "go there", but I do believe is still universal, especially when over coming spiritual trauma like residual White Supremacist interaction with our ancestors. I decided to post my response here....

Most black people in the diaspora have 2-30% white in them. And for all their claims of 1/64th Cherokee, the same is true for white people, most are mixed with Black, something like over a third of all white people here have black blood. I understand not feeling connection to it, especially not feeling like it is honorable or special. But it is history, it is testament to what our ancestors endured and felt and did. It is a testament to where we have walked and where we are going. I used to let people degrade me for being light skinned, tell me I wasn't black enough, accuse me of being white when I am not, accuse me of faking being Latina when I am, accused of so many things that are beyond my control, that all really has to do with how others perceive (no need for shame if you don't care what others think) but one day I realized I literally have ALL of my ancestors behind me at ALL times, even the light-skinned-mixed-with-invading-Spaniard ancestors, even the rapist Spaniard ancestor that is within me, my vessel holds it and my spirit uses it, and as a strong indigenous/tribal woman, that is both a burden and honor my soul bears.

Think about this: We may carry all ancestors within us, but each is unique even within a family. For example, say two tribes in Africa marry! More than just DNA is married, conflicting ancestors, conflicting language, conflicting religion... But in our culture you don't just practice two religions like that, you aren't doing Ifa AND Santeria AND Voudoo or some nonsense, praising all Gods and practices. Your ancestors pull you toward the side which gives you the most power, the ancestors that are meant to protect you will migrate to you. An example of this is, my birth father is a force in my life though he died when I was a year. He follows me. Other ancestors I have to actually call on, I am not in their main interest, but we are blood so they listen. I think mixed race people, especially in the tumultuous diaspora, have even more conflict than Ifa vs Santeria. They have ancestors that might have clothed them, but also used the n word. Ancestors that kissed their grandma, but closed the blinds to the suffering of their people. Maybe the conflict you feel inside towards that ancestor aren't just YOUR feelings, but actually the collective of your ancestors within you reminding you of history as well as asking you to be weary in the future. It is already long proven that African people carry trauma generationally--melanin HOLDS ON TIGHT (to bad, as well as good)--so it's also proven that our oral traditions run very deep. So deep I believe firmly our ancestors assist us in this way.

Anyway, I hope this made sense, basically that ancestor could be one you need to respect for what he did and no more, no use romanticizing him unless he was martyred for the cause really, hr was only human, and the other ancestors in your blood may just not get along with him. Stop giving him power, he is not one of your more powerful ancestors anyway if the others have you all up in your feelings just thinking about his little picture on the family tree