Category: Racism

Grandma’s Nanny and her Twelve Children

I listened to a story on Facebook, I think it was, that was much like this story but also was different. And I’ll tell you why. But it reminded me that I should probably write this down because I’ve already forgotten so much of it.

My grandmother told me this story countless times. I never tired of hearing it because it was so strange and so different from anything that I knew as a white girl, living in the Pacific Northwest. I would picture, in my child’s mind, their nanny, washing clothes outdoors in a wash tub, on a washboard. I don’t even know if that’s an accurate picture.

I believe it was her great-grand parents who  owned slaves in Kentucky on a plantation they built themselves. According to Grandma, Grandpa was infamous for “being as kind to his slaves as he was to his race horses”. They grew sugar and tobacco. And I don’t know what else.

There were nine kids in Grandma’s family, but their house slave had twelve children. Grandma grew up with this house slave. She knew her house slave’s, name, and all twelve of her children’s names. This is where the story I read on Facebook differs from my own. They called their nanny the “N” word but not thinking they were saying anything wrong. (Translate: racist).

Grandma and her siblings would dance around their nanny singing, “tell us the name of your children, “nanny”, but using her real name. I guess it was because her children’s names sounded strange to them.

The nanny would go along with grandma and her brothers and sisters until she tired of it. She then shood them away, saying that she would “soap them all up with a bar of soap and swallow them whole”.  Then, they would all run away, screaming as though their nanny had turned into a monster.

Grandma told this story to me over and over again. Among other stories, never, I don’t think, realizing the racism of having only black people working for them. Grandma thought of this nanny as one of the family.

But after her work was done, scrubbing their clothes, cooking, cleaning their house, watching after all the children, she went home to her own home, which was more than likely a “house” on the plantation grounds and do all the same things for her children.

I don’t ever remember her talking about any of the other slaves. Her grandfather’s father had come to Kentucky from England. He moved to Kentucky with a black man, either slave or friend, I do not know. They first built a small cabin. Then grandfather or both   built a home and then built the plantation. This black man had a name. And it’s written down in history, but right now, I don’t remember it. Grandpa became a wealthy man on the backs of his slaves.

Still, our family is the wealthiest family in that countyl. I must say that wealthy is a relative term in this day and age. When grandma’s father and mother decided they wanted to move west to Rainier. Oregon, Grandma would tell the story of leaving their nanny and all nine children gathered around her, crying and tearing at her apron and trying to hold on to her. Say what you may, they believed they loved her. And they believed that she loved them.

When Grandma would tell me this story, tears would always come to her eyes. She never ever used the “N” word nor did any of her brothers and sisters speak of their nanny in any negative way. But the story of dancing around her and pulling at her apron strings and chanting “tell us the name of all your children” she didn’t see as racist.

At one time, I wrote this story down. But I can’t find that story any more, and my memory does not serve me as it should. I forgot the nanny’s name long time ago. The only one of the children’s names that I can remember is, Ethelial”… her oldest boy and the name that she would tell them first.

This is by no means the story of my grandma and her ancestors. It’s just a thought I had when I heard the story of this other person who used the “N’ word to talk about their black nanny, and I remembered grandma never doing that ever. I’m not saying that she was any less racist. I’m just saying they didn’t use the “N” word.

I still have a living relative, my dad’s cousin, who reads my blog. She has a wonderful memory for these things. And she might read this blog post and make corrections. I welcome them.

What are You Saying When You Fly the American Flag? Think About It.

Just thinking this morning… as you display the American flag for the 4th of July… contemplate for just a moment about what that flag really represents.

Think about being of a global mentality, not nationalistic, not patriotic, not about building walls to shut people out, not about killing people who are not like you, not about who’s stealing your jobs, not about robbing other people of their natural resources and occupying land that we are not invited into.

Think about, just for a moment, how our country was founded on the usurping of land that was already occupied and the mass murder of First Peoples already living on this continent for our (that’s you, white people) own gain.

Think about the Black people who were brought here as slaves, not paid, not free, not welcomed, not loved, not equal. Thnk about the new Jim Crow. Think about, still, how they are singled out for failure and are still not accepted as equals… equal in anyway.

Think for a moment about your heritage… where your people came from… if you are not native. How did your people get here? Weren’t they immigrants?

Think about our young men and women who have been sacrificed because our military and corporate government commands them to war. Think about the making of more and more disillusioned and suicidal veterans every day, every year, every decade, every century.

Think about how, instead of us being the salvation of the world… a great country that others can look up to, we are becoming more and more feared and hated and becoming a political laughing stock in the world.

Think about how worried you are about corporate greed and the destruction of the environment for economic gain for a few. Think about how hard it is for us to find well paying jobs, affordable housing, affordable health care, a decent and an equitable education for all. Think about the failing infrastructure, not just in your city but, nation-wide.

Think about big pharma and the drugging of America. Think about GMO and the poisoning of our food and water and how we don’t seem to have any control and how our sustenance has been usurped by Monsanto and other large corporate chemical companies.

Think about a lot more as you raise that American flag in the next couple of weeks. Think about whether you are really proud of what we have become. Think about the future of our children and our grand children and future generations. Think about whether we can heal the wounds of the American people inflicted by the wealthy and powerful.

Think about what you might do to change this; change this with your neighbor, your colleagues, your co-workers, your family, your friends… Think about how you might help to open a few eyes, to open a few arms, to open a few hearts.

Think about speaking up when you hear hate talk. Speak up when you see injustice. Speak up when more war is begun and more war continues. Speak up when sick people want to rule America.

Think about what you are saying when you fly that flag. Think about what our flag means to the other… the disenfranchised, those who stand at the end of a loaded weapon held by an American on their own soil… in their own houses, those who are suffering war at our hands. Think about what the other might think that we deserve…

Think about it…