Why it doesn't matter that I might have a Native American ancestor (and why it does)

Many white families have a family legend of sorts that a far-off female ancestor was a "Cherokee princess." Mine does too, although to our credit, the word "princess" has never been mentioned. The Cherokee did not have princesses.

This relative is, by varying accounts, either my great-great-grandmother Hannah, born 1851, or my great-great-great-grandmother Susan, born 1829. Great-Great-Grandma Hannah has been described by living relatives as "full blood Indian," but other written histories of the family have noted that her mother, Susan, was Cherokee Indian. Beyond her, there are no records.

Because of the early dates, my relatives are not in the Dawes Rolls or any other archival records of Native Americans that I have found. There are other records though -- records showing that regardless of whatever my family members say, Great-Great-Grandma Hannah was listed as white in the census. So even if my family was Native American, they've been passing for white since the early 20th century and receiving all the privileges thereof. And in case you need to brush up on your history, that was not a very good time to be a "colored person" or an "Indian."

A lot of people, myself included, have gone on genealogical searches to find that long-lost Indian relative. We think it will explain our high cheekbones (got those) or our olive skin (not that though). And there is also the goal of Triumphant Documentation - the proof that will turn our family legends real. The name in the Dawes Rolls that shows, among all the families who say they have Native ancestry, that we make a legitimate claim. Perhaps there is also the idea that it will lend us a certain "minority cred" or an absolution of self-imposed white guilt - "I'm part {insert non-European ethnicity here} so I can't be racist, I can't have white privilege," et cetera.

But if we are even 1/8 Cherokee, or Peruvian, or Mongolian, aren't we still 7/8 European in descent? Does this one ancestor in our past (who may or may not have been matched willingly; love marriage is a relatively new phenomenon) negate our whiteness? That's the one-drop thinking of the racists of the past and I don't subscribe to it. I have grown up in White American culture. I guess you could even call me a WASP even though polo shirts don't look good on me and I've never summered at Nantucket, or however you're supposed to say that.

But this search has not been in vain. I have learned incredibly interesting things about my family history, including:

• My family goes back at least ten generations in the US on both sides
• Both my maternal and paternal lines (mom's mom's mom, etc. and dad's dad's dad, etc.) come from Ireland Way Back In The Day
• My family history is almost all English and Irish, with some French via Quebec in more recent days, which may or may not explain my love affair with Canada
• I had ancestors who were mercenaries in the Civil War; they decided to fight for the Confederacy because it paid more
• I had another ancestor who led a rebellion against the Confederacy and got hanged for it
• It is true that cousins married each other in the 1800s
• Tales of mystery and intrigue that will remain in the family and not on this blog

I have gotten in touch with family members I never even knew I had. (When your grandfather is one of nineteen children, this is really not very surprising.)

And just as importantly, if not moreso, I have learned about issues facing the the Native Americans of today, and keep myself informed. I visited Tahlequah, Oklahoma twice - in 1998 and 2000 - and saw what life was like in the Cherokee Nation. I learned more about the Cherokee and about the issues they faced, from people who didn't have to do genealogy work to know their heritage. In more recent years, I have learned about the Idle No More movement in Canada and the US and have read about current events and issues that affect the Native American community closer to where I currently live.

I have been hesitant to involve myself too much, as I don't think I know very much at this point and want to educate myself more on the issues before becoming involved, as the goal is not "look at me, I'm one of you" (because really, I'm not) but rather "how can I be of support, quietly, in the background?"

I, like most people, began this search in search of what I could get. I wasn't looking for college scholarships or tribal lands, but maybe a sense of connection, of belonging, of being able to say that my claim to Native heritage was correct. But if indeed I ever did have a Native American ancestor, I suppose the best tribute to her memory is what I can learn, and bolstered by that knowledge, what I can teach.

Money doesn't buy happiness, but happiness doesn't bring money

Apparently I am now at an age where I am expected to give Good Advice to Young Adults. I didn't expect that so soon, but after over a decade in the working world, I guess I should have.

During the last month or so, I have read numerous posts on Facebook (perhaps relating to graduation?) that sound a little like this:

"I refuse to sacrifice my happiness for some soul-sucking job!"

"We have a choice: We can make money or we can find meaning in life."

Rarely do I hear the other side spoken out loud, perhaps because blind pragmatism isn't as popular a trait among the newly-graduated as idealism, but I know plenty of people who have, indeed, done the opposite: gone into medicine, or law, or business, because they knew it would pay well, not because they had much interest or aptitude for it. Whether those people actually ended up becoming doctors, lawyers, or businesspeople is a mixed bag.

There is no direct relationship between financial stability and meaning in life. Nor is there an inverse one. They are two separate things and must both be considered when making a plan for the future. Money vs. Happiness is not a zero-sum game -- or at least, it doesn't have to be.

I was one of those idealistic college students myself. I changed my major midstream from religious studies to business due to outside pressures -- and I hated every second of it. I cried in the meeting with my advisor where I told him I was changing. I attended just enough of my business classes to make the grades I was accustomed to. And I did succeed; in fact, I even won a cash award for Outstanding MIS Student. And I was a complete jerk in my acceptance speech, making sure to mention that I didn't even want to be a business student. I look back on that now and cringe.

I followed the typical path of a BBA overachiever, and that was to the Big Five accounting/consulting firms, which is now the Big Four. (Guess which company I joined.) My four months there were awful. I was a fish out of water. I carried the wrong purse, drove the wrong car, didn't keep up with sports, and found it abhorrent that people were upset over a memo that they could no longer take their clients to strip clubs. I guess I can thank Enron for getting me out of that environment and launching me back into what I enjoyed - educational technology, corporate training. I now have the best of both worlds - a job that I am good at that I truly enjoy that also pays my bills. I would have been a terrible consultant. I'm where I need to be.

So looking back at my own mistakes, here's my advice to graduates and soon-to-be graduates:

• Do what you love. Know what you love, and do it. But make a plan. Know what the career options are in your area of interest. If you want to be a WWE wrestler, be the best WWE wrestler there is. The more "unconventional" your field, the better you have to be at it. 
• If you want to go into academics, keep in mind that academics has as much politics - perhaps even more - than the corporate world, and that the main goal of universities is to make money for itself, not necessarily to educate students.
• Get a job, even if it is just to fund your social life or keep you hanging in there while you "find yourself." The routine will also keep you sane. No, it won't stifle you.
• It's better to be a first-rate botanist or writer or teacher than it is to be a third-rate lawyer or brain surgeon.
• And if someone wants to give you awards and money for hard work or what looks like it, be a nice person and smile and say thank you.

There is money, and there is happiness. Why not both?

"Accidental Racist" is accidentally racist

And honestly, I'm not that surprised.

I get the point that Brad Paisley is trying to make. The Confederate battle flag is a part of Southern culture. For better or worse, it just is. But does wearing it make him a racist? He's offended that people might think that. He's just a good ol' boy, tryin' to do no harm. And so he wrote a song about it.

I am not a scholar in critical race theory, but I have found the following things present in the song that do not help his argument that really, wearing the Confederate flag isn't racist:

• Defensiveness ("And it ain't like you and me can rewrite history," "walkin' on eggshells")
• White guilt ("Caught between southern pride and southern blame")
• I have a black friend, and he approves, so it's okay ("If you don't judge my gold chains, I'll forget the iron chains")
• Reductionism and lack of context ("They called it Reconstruction, fixed the buildings, dried some tears" -- Reconstruction was about way more than fixing buildings and drying tears, and there's nary a mention of Jim Crow, which set race relations in the South back even further than before the Civil War, besides that slavery thing)

And when I see the above things, I realize it's the same tired old argument, the same tired old white guilt that people feel proud of, defensive about, frustrated by, or all three at the same time.

I also know the importance narratives play when trying to decide if something is racist (not if someone is racist; the two are different things.) And while I understand that the Confederate battle flag is a part of Southern heritage, I also understand that there are people who are offended by or who feel nervous when they see it. It's even mentioned in the song ("I see that red flag and I think you wish I wasn't here"). Both narratives are important. But even while trying to do research for this post, I found a lot more hits for the "the Confederate flag is part of our Southern culture" narrative than for the "this makes me uncomfortable" narrative. I have a hard time believing that this symbol doesn't have deep negative meaning, at least for some. But why don't I hear their opinions? Why is that narrative reduced to one line in the song?

I hear a lot of white voices --including mine-- surrounding this issue; those who support the flag and those who do not. But where are the voices of people of color? Why can't I find them with simple Google searches? It seems Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's question of whether the subaltern have a voice is still extremely relevant today. I cannot make an informed decision until I hear the narratives of those who are supposedly affected by the negativity inherent in the symbol.

But until then, Brad Paisley is not telling me anything I don't already know about the fact that white guilt exists and that it does absolutely nothing to confront the issue of racism. It just states his position and despite the inclusion of his "black friend" LL Cool J, does not seem to invite dialogue on the issue, but instead exhorts people to leave the past in the past and try to see this symbol so often construed as negative with the positive connotation he puts on it as a white Southerner instead.