Black History Month || Miscegenation or Mrs.Mary is Mexican

This post was an impromptu one inspired by Grayson Queen, in particular a comment he left on the blog  check him out he is all kinds of awesome. No relation to Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow)

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Black history Month never honours or talks about miscegenation which is a shame as it has played such an important part not only in our history as a people, but the nation’s history. American is supposed to be at its very least a melting pot of cultures and languages. But the reality is that we are and have never been a melting pot as the outcry over the Coca-Cola ad celebrating our diversity to drum up more profits, during the SuperBowl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=443Vy3I0gJs

When I  have travelled through the country in the big cities: hyper-segregation (A form of racial segregation that consists of the geographical grouping of racial groups)  and class-based economic policies keep us  separated. Yet despite all the hate and turmoil we have still managed to come together when it counted, in matters of the heart, in tragedy and to make fun of Bruno Mars at the Halfime Show.

Media and Miscegenation

 Up until 1967 , when the Supreme court in Loving v. Virginia, decided that the remaining anti-miscegenation laws in the country were unconstitutional miscegenation, or the marrying of different raced people. To give you some perspective there were Anti-Miscegenation laws in  Nazi Germany and South Africa. We were in questionable company for a while .

What this means to me is that  my policy towards dating women would have gotten me imprisoned, jailed, lynched or hospitalized if I was born at a different time. My policy is simple: generally whoever makes me pitch a tent I want to go camping with. Nothing makes a person more tolerant than really getting to know someone from another culture. I think as long as we stay separated, each ethnic group in their respective corner we will never come  together to effectuate change.

Why you ask ? – Well because our media is speaks in stereotypes. Our media loves to egregiously fill us with pre-fabricated ideals, images and situations to use fear to get us to  do things. Then we, because we are so busy and hurried and harrowed by the lives we have to lead to provide for ourselves and our dependants talk without listen, read with without analysing, speaking without reflecting. Again

We do not talk—we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests. Henry Miller (1891-1980), U.S. author. “The Shadows,” The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (1945).

History of Miscegenation

My paternal grandmother could pass for a white woman but she was mulatto with reddish brown hair and freckles. I have an aunt and uncle with the same complexion. You wouldn’t think we were family if we stood together unless you looks at our faces. My cousins are part French and mulatto and the same thing goes. Many African Americans and New World Blacks are mixed.

Of course I have to say that not all miscegenation was consensual. There was an incredible amount of rape going on during the past and many cultures bear the mark of that. Speaking of which did you know that there are an estimated 450,000 people in Mexico of African heritage?

Most Americans, and even many Mexicans, don’t realize that a significant fraction of the Mexican population once looked markedly African. At least 200,000 black slaves were imported into Mexico from Africa. By 1810, Mexicans who were considered at least part-African numbered around a half million, or more than 10 percent of the population.

These people are Mexican

Finally

I wanted to keep this brief and light. Something happy. It’s not all pain a suffering. There are some happy moments, some happy stories. What I find interesting is that of course slavery was not as harsh in Mexico as it was in the USA and that intermarriage continued steadily until African genes had widely diffused into the population. I mean that’s a beautiful story for me. This is why I feel that black history month should make more mention of miscegenation. So many of us are mixed and the crisis of identity and acceptance faced by people of mixed race is sometimes tremendous. Sometimes our own “people” are not as accepting.

Mrs-Mary and I have seen our fair share of hate sent our way from being together, we were denied service in some place in Colorado on an epic journey to from NYC to Vegas by Greyhound. But we have both been enriched by each other’s culture and its been a fun ride. I dunno if you’d like I can talk about chilling in East Los Angeles and have everyone stare at me or living near the projects with MrsMary in Brooklyn the types of interactions we had  lol I might be able to coax her into writing something only if you are interested enough

Mr. and MrsMary

I had just for no reason bleached my hair and tried to dye it something ridiculous  in the first pic , adn the lovely MrsMary in the second pic