Blake Griffin

Debut says:

These are younger people commenting who do not know ‘everything’ about black history. I was born in the county where my forebears were freed 65 years after word that the Slaves were freed was received in Galveston, TX.

The Whites were always in denial by ‘believing’ there was no race mixing. Most of the White men had two families, one white and one black, in our small town. Relatives who never left the county, now say some of the White remnants now acknowledge that a lot of them are related to Blacks. Blacks always acknowledged the mixing because they were interwoven into our families and communities. In our segregated schools there were always blonds, blue, hazel, and green eyes. My stepfather had green eyes.

Sometimes the mother’s were White. One was in my segregated high school who looked totally White, but her hair was a give-away. She lived with her single mother and White siblings. The White siblings attend the White school a few blocks from our school, but the one in our school was unacceptable in the same White school because she had the proverbial ‘one-drop of Black blood’.

My step father was the son of a Sheriff in a small TX town near Houston, TX. His father had a white family, but he captured my step father’s mother when she was 15 and sired two sons by her who carried his last name. The father also built a home for them and took care of the family. The father shot the mother one time when she was still young and wanted to get away from him to have a life. The sons looked more White than Black and many people did not know unless he told them or he was with us (except Black folk who usually know a white-looking person by looking at them — even if they are passing).

Another one in my family was in a similar situation in TX, and that White father and his brothers won a gun battle with the KKK. That father had built a home for his Black family, and built a smaller one next door for himself, for appearances. I found the two homes with their names in the Census.

My first husband was born in Southern Illinois. When I looked up the Census for his family, I found that his (my 1st spouse) father’s grandfather and grandmother were from Italy. Now, this is in the 1930 Census and the Census was written in cursive writing, so there was no typo. When I told my children, they confronted their grandmother from their father’s side. But the grandmother said they were all sworn to secrecy and would take it to her grave — and she did.

This kind of mixing happened at a time when Blacks were unable to defend themselves and families, unless they wanted to die. After 400-plus years of Slavery the Black race and men were emasculated and dehumanized. It takes much time to overcome such brutalization.

I know many more stories within and without my family, which is too much to handle in this format. I should probably write a book.

I believe that is why High-blood pressure is so high amongst the descendants of the Slaves. Our lives has been riddled with all kinds of adverse oppression.

Many younger White people now question why the descendants of ex-slaves identify ourselves as African-Americans instead of Americans. Well, that is because your White forefathers did not allow us to, just like on the Census, until recent years, we were not allowed to acknowledge any mixed blood. It seems that whites first called us Ni–as, Negroes, Colored; then as the pressured lifted a bit we started calling ourselves African American, Afro-American, etc. You guys never walked in our shoes so you don’t know why ‘we can’t just get over it’. Well it is not that easy getting over where your forebears forced us. They were working on making us become animals to serve them. They had developed a plan to dehumanize us. I believe it is online because it is in book form. That is why some Whites still insist that we are subhuman and unable to learn — still trying to brainwash us.

‘Nuff true black history.