Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello: Our Ancestors

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Our Ancestors

Silly Notions

BY NEIL STEINBERG Sun-Times Columnist

<snip> "And if my bloodline and Hitler's merged at some point in the lost Austrian past, what would that mean today?

"Why absolutely nothing, of course. Which is also what it means if -- a big if -- Barack Obama's great-great-great-great-great grandmother owned slaves, as the Baltimore Sun thought fit to research and report last week.

"I don't see why this sort of thing is considered news. If you go back far enough, we're not only all related to one another, but related to voles as well. It isn't as if there's a risk of Obama endorsing slavery, or that we lack actual issues to discuss. There's a war on, people. "

Steinberg's point is a big "duh," or ought to be. I mean, if my 18th century ancestor was a slave holder, does that mean I'm liable for reparations? It's just silly, Thank you Neil. I assume that was the point you were making.

Rodger the Real King of France 3/04/2007 09:34:00 AM 8 Comments

"If the number of Islamic terror attacks continues at the current rate, candlelight vigils will soon be the number-one cause of global warming. "
Argus Hamilton

8 comments:

AnnoyedOne said...: It's just silly...

Unless of course you're a guilt-ridden liberal bed wetter and want to give money away to the descendants of long dead people as "reparations".; 3/4/07, 9:56 AM
Anonymous said...: Since Obama is descended from slave owners, does that mean he owes reparations to himself?

BTW, I'm proud to say I'm descended from a drunken prostitute named "Cherokee Mary". You go gurl.; 3/4/07, 10:12 AM
Rodger the Real King of France said...: Cherokee Mary. Did her.; 3/4/07, 11:15 AM
Anonymous said...: Since Obama's dad was Nigerian, Obama is a real African-American, but not descended from slaves, so no reparations check. Hehh.; 3/4/07, 11:51 AM
Anonymous said...: But, Rodge, it was a matter of national shame a few short days earlier when it was unearthed that some of the Thurmond family owned some of the Sharpton clan 175 years ago.; 3/4/07, 12:04 PM
Blair said...: It is not surprising that Obama has slave owners in his family tree. Virtually all Americans, regardless of their race or ethnicity, have ancestors who owned slaves. Many African Americans who researched their family trees would be shocked to discover that have black as well as white ancestors who were slave owners. In the United States, free blacks as well as whites owned slaves (one of the South’s biggest slave owner was a freed black man notorious for his harsh treatment of his slaves). The percentage of free blacks who owned slaves was small, as was the percentages of whites who owned slaves, but the intricacies of the genetic pool guarantee that virtually everyone is related to them. African Americans who traced their heritage back to Africa would discover that virtually all their African ancestors were involved in the slave traded. The African tribes ran the “supply side” of the Atlantic slave trade. The ancestors of Hispanic Americans owned both black and Indian slaves. American Indian tribes practiced slavery both before and after the European discovery of America. (The Cherokee Nation, for example, voted overwhelmingly yesterday (3 March 07) to revoke the tribal citizenship of about 2,800 blacks who are descendants of Cherokee slaves.

It makes no diference which side of the Mason-Dixie line you were born in. Slavery was practiced in all the Northern states prior to the American Civil War and was still being practiced in many of the Northern states during the Civil War. That's why Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation applied only to states that had rebelled against the Union.; 3/4/07, 3:05 PM
Anonymous said...: The definition of confusion is fathers day in Harlem.
Tim; 3/4/07, 3:38 PM
Anonymous said...: If you go back to the time of Charlemagne (about 800 AD), everybody is related to everybody....just another day in Appalachian Tennessee. Argument over; Barrack, come to the dinner table.; 3/4/07, 5:14 PM

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Our Ancestors

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