Comments on: More on First Lady Michelle Obama’s Slave Roots

By: Aminah Hanan

Aminah Hanan — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:26:06 +0000

@YONNIE 3K the word “victim” qualifies miscegenation. Victim as in a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action (or force). Someone that is harmed or murdered (including the spirit) or offered as a sacrifice (so that we live to tell the story today). Victim as in the hunted, the innocent, a sufferer, a wretch if you will. Cohabitation nor procreation delineates force. There were many Black women that cohabitated (bed warmers) and procreated (produced offspring) with slave masters, but they were indeed victims.

Please check my previous reply to this post and you will read the word
RAPE. Then check the title of this blog. With all due respect, it is not Ann Dunham Watch, Halle Berry Watch, or Mariah Carey Watch. It’s not even my maternal grandfather’s watch. It is Michelle Obama Watch.

Please note that you’re speaking to a health care professional trained in incest, rape, and sexual abuse counseling, who is pursuing a masters in African American Literature, with a focus on historical fiction and nonfiction. I know the definition of rape, rather it be in antebellum or contemporary context. I think we’re on the same side here. Let’s not strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.

Now I’m turning off my Public Enemy “Revolutionary Generation” background music and getting back to Michelle Obama Watching.

Thank You,
Mrs Aminah Hanan

PS I could delve into your choice of the word “likely” in antebellum context, but I won’t.

By: Yonnie3k

Yonnie3k — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:16:40 +0000

“under circumstances that have been lost in the passage of time” is a slap in the face and a very poor and cowardly choice of words by the NYT.

Having said that, Ms. Hanan, you are also guilty of poor word choice. Her ancestors were “victims of miscegenation?” Miscegenation is simply marriage, cohabitation, or procreation b/w the races. So in this case, was Barack Obama’s mother the “victim” of miscegenation? Was Halle Berry’s mother or Mariah Carey’s mother? Michelle’s ancestor was (likely) the victim of rape, not miscegenation. The two are not synonymous.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:51:42 +0000

A slave is a slave is a slave, says Gertrude Stein

By: NitaShay

NitaShay — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:07:31 +0000

That’s crazy for you people to put out anything on Mrs. Obama webpage talking about her passage of time. Is it that a black couple made it to the white house or is it that you are trying to down grade her because of what happen to her great-great-great grandmother back in slavery. How could you fix your mouth to bring up something about a black woman, that had a slave great-great-great grandmother. Know that it was always blacks that created anything that you could think of, that knew how to survive, it was the whites that didn’t have a clue of what was going on around, so what did they do; they inslave the blacks and made us do the work for them, and they started rapping us creating mixblood kids so don’t try to tell us anything about a horror experience in slavery, when the whites was the one’s who violate us as blacks’. So you people need to leave Mrs. Obama alone and get educated.

By: Aminah Hanan

Aminah Hanan — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:48:13 +0000

@ADMIN yes this is a snooza palooza. It’s almost like we’re sitting in a public thearpy session.

@HONOREE yes historical amnesia indeed. “…under circumstances lost in the passage of time.” What a bunch of BS. My great grandmother that passed in 2002 knew about those “circumstances” and she lived through Jim Crow. Imagine those “circumstances” during slavery. I think the word we use now is rape. And please for heaven’s sake, don’t any one on this blog tell me there were instances where slaves had consenual sex with a slave master.

By: Honoree

Honoree — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:33:37 +0000

I agree. This is a really boring story, and what’s worse, an infuriating story when all these people online are like, “Wow! This is really a shock!” A shock that most black people have white ancestry, and that most of it came from slave masters who raped young black girls they “owned”? This is historical amnesia at its worst.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:33:15 +0000

YAAAWN to the NY Times. Didn’t they already to this story? In addition, most Black folks in these parts can point to their White Ancestors. My great grandmother was born in the late 1800’s Big YAWN

The New York times COULD have spent resources doing some journalism on any number of things happening NOW, but they went to try to sensationalize slavery. Get over it. If they want to drag up slavery, tell some of the really true horrors.