Debra Haaland (1960- ) is the Congresswoman-elect for New Mexico’s 1st District. On January 3rd 2019 she and Sharice Davids of Kansas will become the first two Native American women ever in the US Congress. Both are Democrats. The two Native American men already in Congress are both Republicans from Oklahoma – Tom Cole and Markwayne Mullin.
Activism: In 2016 she took part in the #NoDAPL protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. The protest failed to stop the pipeline, but it showed her and many other Natives that their voices needed to be heard – and could be heard. It has led to a new wave of Native activism. Add to that the racist rise of Trump.
In 2018 ten Native Americans ran for Congress – and four won!
New Mexico’s 1st District takes in most of Albuquerque and parts nearby. It is almost half White and half Latino and leans Democratic (blue) by 7 points. It is only 3.5% Native, much lower than the state overall, which is 11% Native.
Laguna Pueblo is the reservation where she is from, 50 km west of Albuquerque. It started as a Spanish mission in the wake of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. The reservation has uranium, yet her grandmother’s one-room house did not have running water or electricity till the 1970s. As a girl Haaland had to fetch water from a nearby pump. She calls herself a 35th generation New Mexican.
Military brat: She has lived all over, not just on the reservation. Her father was in the Marines for 30 years, winning a Silver Star in the Vietnam War. He was White – thus her Norwegian last name. Her mother is Laguna Pueblo. Both were Reagan Republicans. When she found out how terrible Reagan was, she learned to do her own research on politics – and became a Democrat. And, unlike her parents, she went to university, and later law school.
Politics: She got into politics by campaigning for John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. In 2014 she ran for Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico and lost. In 2015 she ran for Chair of the Democratic Party of New Mexico and won.
Green New Deal: She is for a $15 an hour minimum wage, Medicare for all, and other “radical” left-wing causes, much in the vein of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But her two big issues are climate change and renewable energy. New Mexico is going through a terrible drought – while it gets so much sun it could become a leading provider of solar energy. The US needs to wean itself from fossil fuels for the sake of the earth.
“A voice like mine”: And of course she wants to be a voice for Native Americans:
“I don’t know if it’s actual legislation as much as it is just really advocating to make sure that Congress recognizes the fact that the United States has a trust responsibility to Indian tribes. So at every possible opportunity, I’ll work really hard to make sure tribal leaders have a seat at the table when there’s issues of importance.”
Thanks to Mary Burrell for suggesting this post.
– Abagond, 2018.
Update (December 17th 2020): Biden has chosen Haaland to be his Secretary of the Interior, of which the Bureau of Indian Affairs is a part! More than 130 tribal leaders have been pushing for this. If confirmed by the Senate, she will become the first Native cabinet secretary. Read more at Indian Country Today.
Sources: Vox, Newsweek, CBC, her speech in 2018 at Netroots Nation.
See also:
- Welcome to Native American Heritage Month 2018
- Native Americans
- The 2018 midterms
- #NoDAPL
- Colonial Mexico
- Reagan
- Trump
- climate change
542
Abagond 
Congratulations to Debra Haaland – a beacon for future Native Americans to find ways of improving what the hell is going on in the Washington!
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Although the blue wave didn’t happen in 2018, maybe the country got something a little better a historic pink wave.
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@ Mary Burrell
Well said. I hope we live to see a Native woman become POTUS. That would be quite a “historic pink wave”.
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@All
As Deb has a Norwegian father, she is genetically Mestiza, not full Native. Remember:
Mestizo(a): Person of mixed European and Native American descent, for example, one white mother, one Native father, or two Mestizo parents.
Mulatto: Person of mixed European and African descent (two mulatto parents or one white dad and one white mon, for example)
Castizo: Person of a quarter Native American and mostly European ancestry (Mestizo parent, white parent; Castizoes are really whites with one Native grandparent in terms of genetic equivalence)
Mischling: Person of mixed European and Middle Eastern descent. (Ex. White father, Arab mother, etc. The Hadid sisters are this).
Sambo: Person of mixed African and Native American ancestry (Ex. Black dad, Native mom)
Quadroon: White person with quarter black ancestry
Plus others.
Learn science, please!
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@All
Addendum:
The only reason Deb’s called Native is the same reason Obama’s called black: She looks more Native than white. Also, she isn’t the first Native American-descended in federal government, as that distinction goes to a mestizo Founding Father and early VP named Charles Curtis.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
What makes you Native is not genetic. It is belonging to a tribe. Haaland is a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo, therefore she is Native. Full stop. It is up to each tribe to determine the requirements. Many tribes require a certain amount of Indian blood, but in that case it matters only because they say it matters.
Being Native is more like being a US citizen than like being Black in the US.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/fake-indians/
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@Abagond
I know that. Native American tribes are also technically separate nations from the U.S. Whenever you drive onto a reservation, you’re not technically in the United States anymore, but in another country. I agree that each tribe establishes the requirements to be a member. I was simply pointing out what she is genetically, though, and was not trying to mean that she was any less Native than she already is. Genetically, she’s a Mestiza, and if she married a white man, her children would be Castizoes. See what I mean?
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‘What’s your actual point pertaining to this post? What has being a quadropalon, decathon etc? etc, have to do with this post? This isn’t about genetics or ‘racialism’.
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The Laguna follow matrilineal kinship. Children are born into their mother’s clan, not their father’s. That means according to the Laguna, she is a full member of her mother’s clan.
“Learn science, please!”
According to modern science, race doesn’t exist.
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@Abagond, All
I never denied her tribal membership; I only pointed out her genetic makeup. According to science, she isn’t fully Native American. She’s Mestiza. If she had any kids with a white man, then they are Castizoes. It’s that simple. It’s like how the former president was a mulatto according to genetics and science, despite looking like a regular black man. Of course, Obama has some black in him on his mom’s side as well. Many white Americans are genetic castizoes or some other term, as well as being part black, you know. Learn science.
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@Solitaire
That’s just Laguna culture. She’s a full member because her mother was a member. Genetically, the direct family line is passed via the father. Her direct Y-chromosome ancestry is white, folks. Again, she’s HALF Native, not FULL.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
The terms you are using come from the Casta system which was devised hundreds of years ago by a bunch of racist Spanish elites obsessed over “blood purity.” There is nothing scientific about it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta
“It’s like how the former president was a mulatto according to genetics and science, despite looking like a regular black man.”
What percentage of African ancestry does someone need to be regular black man?
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@Abagond
@Solitaire
Thank you for educating that commenter who seems to be clueless about how being Native American works.
And most of that blood quantum stuff was not originally part of Native American culture or tradition, but forced upon them by the (white) US government through the Dawes Commission and laws such as the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and other actions.
Of course, once it was forced upon tribes, many tribes started to use it to their advantage or disadvantage (or to benefit some individuals and to exclude others).
A post on the Cherokee Freedmen controversy would be a good idea.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“That’s just Laguna culture.”
So you’re willing to uphold an outdated unscientific system of racial classification from Europe, but you dismiss a different system of classification just because it is Native?
No one is arguing that she isn’t half white. But if she doesn’t define herself as mestiza, please don’t foist that term on her. She might even find that word offensive; some people do.
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Just curious how gerrymandered New Mexico is to affect White, Latino/a and Native political power.
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@Solitaire
Those are not racist terms. They are scientific terms developed by scientists to explain the new genetic combinations brought about in the colonial era. Just because they didn’t have microscopes 500+ years ago does not mean that they were ignorant of genetics. They weren’t. Many mestizos, mischlings, and mulattoes come out very white looking due to the inner workings of genes, which are a funny thing, as you know.
Also, most blacks have quite a bit of white in them already, and most are probably mulattoes genetically. If you want a “truly” black individual, go to Africa. Similarly, if you want a “truly” white individual, go on to Europe. You aren’t going to really find that in America due to all the mixing.
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@All
“Mestizo” is not offensive. It is scientific. Ever heard of the term “miscegenation?” That’s a word used by science to describe mixing of the races, which often produce superior genetic stock. Mixed folks are:
Healthier
More attractive (eg. Meghan of Sussex, most American models, even the white ones)
Smarter
Etc.
Racial mixing brings out lots of good contributions to the genealogy. You all seem to forget she’s mixed because of how she looks, I think. She’s just as Native as she is Norwegian: a mestiza. If her dad were black, she’d be a samba.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“Genetically, the direct family line is passed via the father.”
Ok, now you’re suggesting that family lines are patriarchal according to genetic science.
Y-chomosome inheritance passes through the father; this is science. But mtDNA is inherited from the mother; this is also science.
“Family line” is a cultural concept. One’s family line may be either passed through the mother or the father, depending on the culture.
We in the modern West are so accustomed to patrilineal descent that we have trouble conceptualizing the opposite. But many cultures determine descent through the mother. Her sons are part of the same family as her brothers (their maternal uncles), not their father, because the line passes from their grandmothers, not their grandfathers. If this seems odd, please flip the scenario in your head and realize that women in U.S. society are considered to be part of the same family line as their father’s sisters because the line is passed through their paternal grandfather.
“Her direct Y-chromosome ancestry is white, folks.”
Please also note that as a woman, having two X chromosomes, Deb Haaland did not inherit a Y chromosome from her father.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“They are scientific terms developed by scientists”
Proof, please. I’ve found nothing in my reading so far that says these classifications were developed by scientists — people dedicated to the academic study of science — instead of Spanish gentry and religious leaders.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
According to the Wikipedia she is not Mestiza:
The US is 6% Mestizo. She is not one of them.
I know the Wikipedia is not the best source, but if you have a better one I am all ears. Preferably a peer-reviewed scientific paper from this century, since you keep saying it is “science”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mestizos_in_the_United_States
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“’Mestizo’ is not offensive. It is scientific. Ever heard of the term ‘miscegenation?'”
Miscegenation is also considered an offensive word by many people who are mixed.
Miscegenation was a legal term used to outlaw marriage between people of different races. The term was used to oppress — and not all that long ago, either. There is one person in this conversation right now whose childhood was negatively impacted by anti-miscegenation laws.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
But that is the culture in question.
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@Solitaire
Family lines are not via the X chromosome, though. When we study last names, for instance, we use the Y chromosome, as our surnames are gotten via our fathers. Mothers do not transmit surnames. Fathers do. Her direct line is European, not Native American. When the last male dies, the direct line ends.
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@Abagond
Mestizo (n.) A person of mixed race, the offspring of a European and a Native American.
According to the dictionary, she is mestiza. Spaniards aren’t the only Europeans.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
According to the Oxford dictionary, the one this blog goes by, she is not:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mestiza
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@ Abagond
“Mestizo” has also been used in the Philippines since the Spanish conquest of the islands, as the Wiki article briefly notes.
Filipinos are Asian, not Native American, so we can see by this example that the colonial Spanish weren’t using the term solely for people of half-Native descent.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
You are trying to apply Latin American culture to her and she is not Latin American or lives in Latin America.
At that rate, Michelle Obama is not Black because in Ancient Greece people were not categorized that way.
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@Solitaire
Since when were there laws against racial mixing? I do not see any, because if there were, President Jefferson would not have married Sally Hemmings. Americans (by that I mean residents of the Americas, not just those from the U.S.) are largely products of a level of race-mixing that has to be seen to be believed. It mayn’t have been approved of, but I do not think it was necessarily illegal. Not only the Americas, but even in certain Islamic lands, such as Pakistan, there are large levels of white running in the veins of the people. Examples include the entire Assad family and much of Pakistan. India, too.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
According to the Ancient Greeks, Michelle Obama would be a barbarian. So would Deb Haaland. Should I have pointed that out in the post?
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“Family lines are not via the X chromosome, though. When we study last names, for instance, we use the Y chromosome, as our surnames are gotten via our fathers. Mothers do not transmit surnames. Fathers do. Her direct line is European, not Native American. When the last male dies, the direct line ends.”
You are arguing from within the strictures of your own culture. There is nothing scientific about last names. Many cultures still don’t have surnames at all, and historically most did not throughout the majority of recorded history.
The Laguna didn’t have surnames before the European Conquest, but they had clan names which served the same purpose, and those are handed down through the mother.
You sound like one of those people who gets interested in genealogy and traces their “direct line” through their father’s last name and then stops. True genealogists trace ALL the lines, all the different branches of the family.
Regardless of which system someone follows to determine the family line, none of this is scientific. Your surname is not magically tied to your chromosomes. Your surname is a cultural construct which, if you so desired, you could legally change in any court of law.
My own last name has been passed down for 12 generations, but before that, it didn’t exist. My Swedish ancestors changed their last names every generation. It was only after the English conquered the colony of New Sweden that my ancestors were compelled to invent permanent surnames like the English used and follow the English tradition of patrilineal surname inheritance.
The Icelanders still to this day use that older system where surnames change every generation.
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@Abagond
Greece has nothing to do with this.
Look into the genealogy of any American, white or black, and you’ll see people of other races the farther back you go. I already pointed out that Obama’s mom was partially black, as are most white Americans. In the days of colonization, people were mixing the races like you would never believe, creating a weird mixture that would eventually evolve into the American culture we see today. Also, many of our presidents (besides Obama) had black in them, too, such as Abe Lincoln, whose mother was a mulatta named Nancy Hanks. President Harding was part black, too.
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@ EFP
Right, and Latin America HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS EITHER.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“Since when were there laws against racial mixing? I do not see any, because if there were, President Jefferson would not have married Sally Hemmings.”
He NEVER married her. She was his SLAVE.
Have you heard of Loving v. Virginia?
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“It mayn’t have been approved of, but I do not think it was necessarily illegal.”
Did you see Jefe, who commented above? His parents could not get married in their home state of Alabama because it was ILLEGAL.
I don’t even know how to take this. On the one hand, I guess we have come a long way if younger folks can’t even conceptualize interracial marriage as being against the law. But on the other hand, we CAN’T forget the history.
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https://abagond.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/loving-v-virginia/
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re: Solitaire
LMAO 😛 😛 😛
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@Solitaire
Jefferson may have been Hemmings’s owner, but she was also her husband. Look into the history for once, folks.
Historical records tell us that Jefferson was instantly smitten upon his first sight of Hemmings, for it was said she looked like a girl he knew at a younger age. I believe the former President and his slave-wife loved each other very much. After all, they were married over sixty years, and had many children. Today, Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson have descendants of all races, and they still meet at Monticello every once in a while. Could a white man like Jefferson love his slave enough to become her lawfully wedded husband? Of course!
Also look up Elizabeth Grinstead. She ended up marrying a white lawyer from England, and this was over 100+ years before Jefferson in Virginia. It was not illegal then. It was simply frowned on.
Face the facts, Abagond and friends, Americans are products of good old-fashioned mestizaje, whether you all like it or not.
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@Solitaire
Of course Jefe’s parents could get married in Alabama. You’re just parroting fake news. if they couldn’t, then why is it that I have a white great-grandfather named Nicholas Bent on a branch my paternal line. Also view the story in “Roots” (part 2) of the white guy who married the young black teacher. This was during the Civil War. Mixed marriages weren’t illegal, they were disapproved of. Approval and legality are two DIFFERENT things!
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Thanks for this blog regulars vs EFP exchange. I’ve not laughed this hard in a while.
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Correction:
Why is it that I have a white great-grandfather named Nicholas Bent on my paternal line? (Referring to mixed marriages).
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@ EFP
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings were never married. Just to make sure I had not slipped into an alternate universe, I double checked the Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Hemings
Nope. Never married.
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@Gro Jo, All
Actually, I’m pointing stuff out, that’s all. Also, to correct a posting, Nicholas Bent was my paternal great-great grandfather, actually. My great-great grandmother, Marjorie Walker, was his black wife. One of their sons, Plunty, was my mulatto great-grandfather, and he married an equally mixed woman named Clara James (my great-grandmother), who was of partial Scots-Irish extraction. it wan’t illegal, folks.
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@Abagond
Even if they were not, they DID love one another. And YES, they were married. If they were not, why did the tabloids make a big fuss about in one of our first elections?
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@ EFP
Do you have any proof they were married or even loved each other?
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@ Everett F. Pomare
Did you read Abagond’s post on Loving v. Virginia? That’s a U.S. Supreme Court decision, which to the best of my knowledge the SCOTUS has not yet been categorized as Fake News.
The laws varied from state to state. That’s why Jefe’s parents went somewhere else to get married.
The Loving v. Virginia decision changed all that and made mixed marriage legal nationwide.
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@Abagond
Jefferson talks about how Sally looked a lot like a girl he had a crush on when he was younger. I believe they did. It was not rape.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“If they were not, why did the tabloids make a big fuss about in one of our first elections?”
If they were married, why wasn’t Sally Hemings the First Lady?
If they were married, why weren’t any of their children legitimate? Why were their children born into slavery? Why did so many use Hemings as their surname?
If they were married, why is there still debate over whether her children were his or the offspring of one of his close male relatives?
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@ Solitaire
LMAO!!
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“Jefferson talks about how Sally looked a lot like a girl he had a crush on when he was younger.”
Wrong again. She was his deceased wife’s half-sister. She was said to greatly resemble his dead wife. This is thought to be one of the reasons he was attracted to her.
That doesn’t mean SHE was attracted to him or wanted to have sex with him.
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@ EFP
And was Sally in love too? Sounds pretty one-sided to me. Most rapes are.
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@Solitaire,
My parents were married in the District of Columbia, where we had to live. I do remember, that, as a family, we could not dare cross the Potomac River into Virginia, lest we our family got arrested or stopped by the cops. We could not even dare appear in Virginia in public. Virginia, in some respects, was the strictest. After our apartment building in DC was blockbusted we moved to a place on the MD/DC line, but even in that case, my mother had to sign the lease on the apartment herself and have her family move in later. Maryland did not repeal their laws until 1967 (although, I think they became more lax in enforcing their statutes in the months leading up to Loving v. Virginia.)
One thing curious about Maryland: It was one of the few states that prohibited marriage between different nonwhite groups. For example, Filipinos could not marry blacks (in addition to whites).
My Filipino-American godmother married a Filipino when she was still in her teens, but later (in her 30s) married an Italian-American in …. … 1967 in Maryland. Her brothers first married white wives before 1967, but could not bring them to Maryland before 1967. One of them stayed in New Jersey and never came down.
We definitely could not travel all the way to my mother’s home state of Alabama and pass through / stop in all the states in-between – imagine what that would be like – no hotel to stay in and some cop definitely would have made sure it never happened. The first time we went as a family unit to Alabama was in 1968.
I have my a certified copy of my parents’ Marriage certificate and it looks identical to the Lovings’. It gave me a strong connection to what that era was like (beyond what I actually remember).
I know, I saw that, and realized that there are people now who will invalidate my entire childhood experience. Something that I have to psychologically prepare for if I move back to the USA.
Well, maybe soon people might not be able to conceptualize that Jim Crow even existed. I do remember very well when they started to desegregate schools and professions and ended blockbusting.
And I do know people who attended Indian boarding schools. I guess soon that will pass into some imaginary American mythology too.
By the way, Alabama did not repeal their anti-miscegenation statutes on their state laws until November 2000. This is not pre-history and easily checked.
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@Abagond
Of course she was. She was not raped. For crying out loud, they even went to FRANCE together, of all places! Read history, please. Just because an antebellum white man had a relationship with a black woman, that does not mean it’s rape necessarily. In many cases, it was not. Folks just cry “rape” over racial mixing in the colonial days because they want to not acknowledge proper history. While there were slave women who were raped, most certainly there were, Sally, I think was not among them. Neither was my great-great grandmother.
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I guess Brown v. Board of Education is just fake news too.
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Oh, lord. Now Thomas took Sally to France for a romantic honeymoon, not as part of his household slave staff. The revisionism!!!
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@Jefe
Brown v. Board isn’t fake news. It was real.
@Solitaire
Read a good book on their relationship. They loved each other very much. They were together over 60 years! Is that not love? I say it is!
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@ EFP
They were “together” and went to France and all that because SHE WAS HIS SLAVE. It was not a sign of love.
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@Abagond
Yes, she was his slave. However, she was also Mrs. Jefferson.
Similar to how George Washington had a black girlfriend named Venus, and through her, a son named West F. Washington.
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@ EFP
Please present some proof they were married.
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@Abagond
Whatever proof there was might be lost, though their descendants to this very day all say that she was one of the family.
Tom really loved Sally, and this proves it above. Your accusing him of rape is not really correct, as if a founding father WERE a rapist (which Tom Jefferson was not), he’d’ve been arrested and charged long ago. That’s not the case.
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The comedy continues. Of course Tommy and Sally ‘loved’ each other. I can think of a number of ‘loves’ founded on abnormal relations. Human beings are weird and kinky.
Sir/Madam, let me be the first to congratulate you on your “mad miscegenist” routine. Comedy at its finest, keep it up.
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I loved the part about all mixed race people being geniuses. Hilarious.
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@Grojo
Whatever they did in bed is their business. As a married couple, Jefferson and Hemmings could do whatever they pleased in bed. What they did is none of our business. Only they know, not us. Plus, they’re both dead.
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@ Jefe
“LMAO 😛 😛 😛”
Glad to make you laugh 😀
But I do have the science right, I think? Of course, men do pass genetic information to their daughters, but it is the X chromosome those men received from their mother.
If I understand the science right, if I wanted information about my father’s Y-chromosome ancestry, I couldn’t do it from my own DNA sample; I’d have to get a sample from my father or a brother or a paternal uncle.
In which case, all this about Debra Haaland’s direct family line being determined by Y-chromosome inheritance is nonsense. She inherited an X chromosome from her father, which is in fact the X chromosome of her father’s mother and so on back through a long line of women.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“Tom really loved Sally”
But did Sally really love Tom? That is and has always been the question.
I do agree with you that some mixed-race couples were truly both in love even back in those times. We have records of some of those couples refusing to be separated, of the white partner saying they’d rather be made a slave themselves or be a beggar in a ditch as long as they could stay with their spouse.
But someone who really loves their black “wife” does not let the children they have together remain slaves, as Thomas Jefferson did.
Some white southern men who fell in love with black women moved to the North or to Europe, where they could be legally married and their children would be legitimate, could get a formal education, and could inherit their father’s wealth. Thomas Jefferson never did this for Sally Hemings.
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EFP, what’s your opinion on “statutory rape”? Pro or con? Do you realize that a 46 year old man impregnating a 16 year old girl constitutes statutory rape? I bring it up, not because I dispute your claim that they “loved” each other, but because people have gotten on the case of prophet Muhammad for a similar interest in young girls, yet, no one seems to question tommy’s morals. Who knows if tommy hadn’t started to “mess” with sally years before he impregnated her?
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“But someone who really loves their black “wife” does not let the children they have together remain slaves, as Thomas Jefferson did.”
My, you are such a romantic! You are factually wrong about Sally being “black”, she was as ‘black’ as Meghan Markle if not whiter.
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@ Jefe
“I know, I saw that, and realized that there are people now who will invalidate my entire childhood experience.”
It’s one thing to be ignorant of history, and quite another when someone is informed of the correct history and chooses to double-down on his mistake and deny the truth even when confronted by someone who actually lived it.
I’m frankly surprised at this point that he isn’t also trying to deny slavery ever existed.
“And I do know people who attended Indian boarding schools. I guess soon that will pass into some imaginary American mythology too.”
Already many white people hear “boarding school” and conjure up an image of an elite prep school. They don’t understand what the Indian boarding schools were really like.
“By the way, Alabama did not repeal their anti-miscegenation statutes on their state laws until November 2000. This is not pre-history and easily checked.”
Thank you for that reminder. Left to its own devices, the state of Alabama would have continued to outlaw mixed-race marriage through the end of the 20th century, if not beyond.
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@ Gro Jo
“You are factually wrong about Sally being “black”, she was as ‘black’ as Meghan Markle if not whiter.”
Sally was considerably more white than black. This did not prevent her from being enslaved because of that small percentage of black ancestry.
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“@Solitaire
Read a good book on their relationship. They loved each other very much. They were together over 60 years! Is that not love? I say it is!”
EFP, stop, you’re killing me. Tommy lived from 1743 to 1826 and Sally from 1773 to 1835. Do you realize how obscenely kinky what you are claiming is?
Now, I’m no admirer of randy tommy, but I refuse to believe he was messing with the girl seven years before she was born! When tommy died, sally was 53 years old! EFP, you kinky devil, get help for your sick miscegenistic fantasy.
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@ Gro Jo
“My, you are such a romantic!”
Thomas Jefferson lusted after Sally Hemings. He didn’t care about her well-being past what was necessary to enable her to meet his desires. He didn’t care about her right to freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He didn’t care about their children’s right to freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
If he had loved them and wanted what was best for them, he would not have acted like he did.
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Solitaire, why don’t you just say you agree instead of making a point nobody, not even the “mad miscegenist”, disputes?
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You really are a romantic. What was that line from Midsummer Night’s Dream?
“Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword. And won thy love doing thee injuries. But I will wed thee in another key,. With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling.”
Tommy never got around to the pomp, triumph and reveling bit.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“As a married couple, Jefferson and Hemmings could do whatever they pleased in bed.”
Actually not true, either, depending on the state and the laws, until very recently.
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@ Gro Jo
“Solitaire, why don’t you just say you agree instead of making a point nobody, not even the “mad miscegenist”, disputes?”
Which point is that? You’ve lost me.
“You really are a romantic.”
I call it making a distinction between functional and dysfunctional family dynamics. You call it being a romantic. shrugs
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@Solitaire
Of course you can do whatever you please in bed with your spouse. It does not matter.
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“Which point is that? You’ve lost me. ”
The following: “This did not prevent her from being enslaved because of that small percentage of black ancestry.”
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EFP, when are you taking this routine on the road? I want to catch the act live.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
I agree with your sentiment, but you are wrong in believing that this was the societal attitude until very recently:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/04/11/laws-against-sodomy-survive-in-24-states/9dc20b7c-326f-4f79-8a11-57d005ea54a3/?utm_term=.add5b643a02b
https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_griswold.html
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@ Gro Jo
Check out your wording:
“You are factually wrong about Sally being ‘black'”
If I simply said “agreed,” you could pounce on it and say I agreed to being factually wrong. Not falling for that.
Sally Hemings in her time was not considered to be white, either legally or societally. Whether she was classified as Negro, colored, quadroon, or octoroon, all of these terms were meant to signal that she was not “white.”
Based on every description I’ve read of her appearance, she most probably would be considered “white” nowadays.
But you know what? Let’s revise my original sentence. I will still argue that a man who truly loves his enslaved wife, whatever her color, will not keep her enslaved and will not doom their children to slavery. A man who does so felt no more than lust, not love.
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“If I simply said “agreed,” you could pounce on it and say I agreed to being factually wrong. Not falling for that.”
Right. Now prove she was “black”. You can’t, as your second paragraph indicates: “Sally Hemings in her time was not considered to be white, either legally or societally. Whether she was classified as Negro, colored, quadroon, or octoroon, all of these terms were meant to signal that she was not “white.””
My dear, where did I argue she was white? She was a white looking quad or octo.
“Based on every description I’ve read of her appearance, she most probably would be considered “white” nowadays.”
Really? is Mariah Carey considered white? The French used to call people like that Sang-mêlés to distinguish them from even the swarthiest “white”. Given that fact, I enjoy the ‘debates’ that break out here on definitions of races. Nobody gets the joke.
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@ Gro Jo
“Nobody gets the joke.”
Well, the joke certainly is going over my head. Can you spell it out for the humor-impaired?
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The definitions and terminologies are bullshit.
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Yes, they are. How do you propose that people navigate those bullsh’t definitions and terminologies?
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😂😂😂😂 Omg this post has me dying laughing.
Congrats and well deserved win for Deb Haaland.
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@All
What in the world is a dangerous melé?
Yes, there are whites with colored ancestry out there. Still doesn’t negate Haaland being mestiza.
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Re what I wrote above:
“She inherited an X chromosome from her father, which is in fact the X chromosome of her father’s mother and so on back through a long line of women.”
I think I may have oversimplified it by leaving out recombination of the X chromosomes….
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@ Everett F. Pomare
“One of their sons, Plunty, was my mulatto great-grandfather, and he married an equally mixed woman named Clara James (my great-grandmother), who was of partial Scots-Irish extraction.”
So do you call yourself a sacatra?
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@Solitaire
I also have quite a bit of white ancestry on my mother’s side as well. My maternal grandmother, Loella “Lola” Britton was a white woman from the island of Providence. Most of my mother’s family via the Britton line of descent are from that island, which is near San Andrés (St. Andrew in English). In former times the islands were a British colony, but today they’re part of Colombia. My great-grandfather was a white supremacist redhead named Baldwin Britton, and as for his wife, Eliza, she was a drop-dead gorgeous blonde.
When Lola met Robino Wilson (my maternal grandpa), Baldwin got very upset because she’d married a colored man. As a matter of fact, one of my granduncles was kicked out of the house for marrying a black woman.
To this day, most of the people I’m related to on my mother’s side are white.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
” In former times the islands were a British colony, but today they’re part of Colombia.”
Is this where your use of Casta terminology is coming from?
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@Solitaire
Nope. It comes from reading books and Dr. Cornejo’s lectures at Broward College.
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@ Everett F. Pomare
I see that he is a history professor. My advice is that before you go around saying the Casta system is scientific, you read up on modern genetics.
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@Solitaire
I don’t agree with him on everything, but he’s pretty good. Also check out Prof. Rudy Jean-Bart. I don’t agree with him on all things either, but he’s alright also.
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So Loving v. Virginia is fake news?
How is one major SCOTUS decision not fake news, but another SCOTUS decision, 13 years later, is fake news?
In fact, the SCOTUS rulings used to overturn Jim Crow are flanked on either side by these two very SCOTUS rulings.
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996028,00.html
There is even a national celebration in honor of the June 1967 SCOTUS ruling.
http://www.lovingday.org/
In all fairness, Ken Tanabe, the founder of Loving Day in 2004, had a Japanese-American father and white mother and had never heard of the Loving SCOTUS case until university. I am not surprised that some people are not aware of this, but people who refuse to believe in light of the incontrovertible evidence are simply willfully obtuse.
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@Solitaire
Indeed, a couple of female cousins remarked to me that I have to do the DNA test to trace my paternal grandfather to help them learn about their maternal grandfathers. The only ones alive to do this are my brother and I and my brother’s son, as my father had no surviving brothers, and my grandfather’s brother’s sons had no sons themselves.
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re: Solitaire
Indeed, my mother passed away in 1998, more than 2 1/2 years before interracial marriage was finally repealed in her home state.
Anti-miscegenation laws were not the only segregation laws repealed in Alabama in the 2000s. Others include school segregation, poll taxes,
Alabama was a final holdout on desegregation and interracial marriage.>/b>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/02/09/alabama-was-a-final-holdout-on-desegregation-and-interracial-marriage-it-could-happen-again-on-gay-marriage/
Well, he admitted that Brown v. Board really happened. So there is selective admission of some historical realities and denial of others.
But he is not alone or unique. Actually quite a few commenters on this blog deny that an ethnic cleansing of Chinese occurred in the last couple decades of the 19th century and early 20th century. Failure to understand or acknowledge what happened at that time makes it difficult for many “deniers of history” to understand what “repeat of history” is going on in the USA.
Author Recalls Chinese American History in ‘Driven Out’
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11825013
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@ Jefe
“to help them learn about their maternal grandfathers”
That’s a good point. The example I gave would only help me find out about my paternal grandfather. If I wanted genetic information on my mother’s father, I would need to ask male relatives on my mother’s side. If I wanted information on my great-grandmothers’ fathers, I would have to search for distant cousins to ask.
I know this has been said before, but I think it is worth repeating on this thread, that the DNA tests are not 100% reliable in telling us about our ancestors because there is no such thing as race. The tests rely on certain mutations and markers generally found more often in certain populations, but those things do not constitute a “race” gene.
Siblings inherit different mixes of these genetic markers, and their DNA results can therefore differ in the “racial” percentages of their ancestry. We don’t carry all the genes of all our ancestors, so there’s no way we can ever get a 100% complete picture of who they all were and where they all were from.
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^ Agree that it is complete folly to use genetic markers on DNA to make any determination of “race”.
It can be useful to determine some things about human beings (ie, homo sapiens as a species, eg, to trace the spread of neanderthal genes in the species or the path of human migrations) and to determine if two individuals share genetic markers indicating connection to a common ancestor.
It is useless to use it to demonstrate anything to do with “race” or determine if someone is your family or not.
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Update (December 17th 2020): Biden has chosen Haaland to be his Secretary of the Interior, of which the Bureau of Indian Affairs is a part! More than 130 tribal leaders have been pushing for this. If confirmed by the Senate, she will become the first Native cabinet secretary. Read more at Indian Country Today:
https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/a-barrier-breaking-public-servant-6ry2p054SE2dELR9BC-ezA
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I hope Rep. Haaland makes a difference at the Interior Dept. Dealing with public resources and climate issues at this critical time will require extraordinary leadership. I hope she is up to the task.
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Congratulations to Deb Haaland.
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