Do you know who you really are?

Are you who you believe you are? Is your racial/ethnic identity what you have been told, or have you been deceived? Whenever I see racism and elitism based on culture and nationality, I laugh because none of us know every detail of our backgrounds. 

I have often referenced the film Mandinga (Not Mandingo), where a slave master raped and impregnated a slavegirl. Her baby was snow white, and the other slaves were afraid the master or hsi wife would kill the child.

They placed the baby on the doorstep of a White preacher and his wife, who raised the little girl as White because they did not know any different. She grew up, married, and when her first child was born, it looked Black. Her husband poisoned her because he thought she had cheated with one of the slaves.

When you research American history, and I suggest you do, you will find a common denominator. European's who came to this nation felt superior to others. Natives had their land taken, and they were almost wiped out.

 Africans were enslaved, and those who came from Ireland, Italy, Asia, and other continents that were not Europe all experienced forms of racism and exclusion. This is where the term WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) came from.

The Anglo-Saxons were a group of Germanic tribes - primarily the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes - who migrated to Britain from modern-day northern Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands beginning in the 5th century following the Roman withdrawal. They settled in Britain, forming several kingdoms (the Heptarchy) and establishing the foundations of English culture, language, and law. (Wikepedia)

It is known that after slavery ended, African Americans who could pass for White did so to have a better life in this nation. What isn't so widely known is that some Americans who were Hispanic, Jewish, Asian, Arabic, Italian, etc., also passed for White, so they did not experience racism.

This means that some Caucasians who believed they were marrying and having children with their own race were not. People living today who are pushing racism, nationalism, Black power, or other separatist ideas may have blood coursing through their veins of an ethnic group they are indifferent to.

My mother's paternal grandfather was White, and her maternal great-grandmother was part Native American. My father's paternal grandfather was full-blooded Cherokee. When this is mentioned, we get accused of being ashamed of being Black when all we are doing is embracing all of our ancestry.

My late brother married a woman whose father came from Hungary and her mother from England. My brother's children do not appear biracial and look like White Americans.

One of his daughters, my niece, has two children by a White man. I have no idea if he knows her father was Black, as we have not been introduced. Their children look White.

Hopefully, this does not happen, but they could become involved with racist groups without realizing all the ethnicities in their families. They could also marry White and have children who look Black, like the woman in Mandiga.

I had an older cousin who was light with wavy hair. We were told her mother was raped by a White man she worked for as a maid. This cousin married a Black man, and they had five children. All of them looked Black. 

One daughter married a dark-skinned Black man, and their son looked like his dad. Their daughter was born looking 100% White. There was nothing about her to suggest she was Black or even biracial. They said it was a recessive gene from her great-grandfather.

These situations are why we should not be divided by ethnicity or race, because we don't know who in our ancestry hid their true identity to survive in America.

Many Jewish Americans changed their last names to make it in Hollywood. Kirk Douglas was born to Russian/Jewish parents, and his birth name was Issur Danielovich Demsky. James Roday (Psych), who looks White, admitted his Hispanic heritage and now uses his given name Rodreguiz.

It's very sad that those in this nation who are not perceived as White Anglo-Saxon Protestants deal with so much related to identity. Truthfully, there are more Americans than you realize who look like WASPS but have the blood of other races, which is why we should accept that we are all of the human race.

In my opinion, anyone accused of a hate crime should have to take a DNA test to check their ancestry. They might be surprised at what they learn.