Insurrection Winter

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 Yesterday, I fell down a rabbit hole and traced my family's ancestry back 12 generations to 1321 in a small town in Wales. Son of--son of--son of--

Included in this bloody stagecoach that points dead west (I write, while sitting in my office in Portland, a few hundred miles from the edge of the continent) are some knighted folks in the 1600s, a Reverend in the early 1700s, Jamestown settlers, a doctor who built a plantation in Rutherford County, Tennessee, his son a Confederate Colonel, a professional football player, a professional baseball player, dirt poor farmers, an Air Force pilot who died in WWII, and my own family who got planted in Chicago when my grandmother, who grew up on one of the Rutherford county properties, married a Yankee and moved North.

Look up the family history of a white American and it seems likely you'll also see a history of Manifest Destiny, white supremacy, blood upon blood. I think about the times in grade school when I would proudly pipe up with the un-verified family lore: Kit Carson is my relative! because it was the only famous name I knew that was associated with us. My high school boyfriend told me to read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee if I wanted to learn about my relative. He guessed my opinion would change, and I would no longer wish to link myself to such a person.

There was a grainy photograph of Goochland, the plantation; sepia photos of the baseball player. In my mother's kitchen in Chicagoland is a table that was built by slaves, the burned outline of an iron on its burnished surface.

My father's family came to America in 1916 from Italy, soon after Italy declared war on the Austro-Hungarian empire. My grandfather was the first generation born on North American soil.

What a privilege to be able to trace my ancestry back so many generations. What privilege that is built upon the blood of others, how I make my home on stolen land.

There are many of us who would love to forget we were born from such people, who wish (isn't this the American Dream) to be forged anew, free our our pasts, the sins of our fathers, etcetera.

I think about how many of my relatives are deeply proud of this heritage--have stories about how the government stole the plantation, how I could petition to be a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution--which from its peppy webpage, tells me these women  "all share a common bond of having an ancestor who helped contribute to securing the independence of the United States of America. Any woman 18 years or older, regardless of race, religion or ethnic background, who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution is eligible to join."

Regardless of race or ethnic background. I suspect that is a recent addition, though I don't know for sure. I am sure my family tree includes many who are invisible, who are victims of rape and chattel slavery. Etcetera.  Oh, of course I want to be different--better--innocent than those who wish only to believe this version of American history.  I want to be the white woman who is THE MOST WOKE, who isn't problematic, who gets it.

If you believe that is you--well, friend, let me tell you something. Let me tell me something.

 But I also wish to be someone who does better, and you can only do better when you fully understand and reckon with the truth. Name it. Own it. 

I am here because these people did atrocious things. Because these ancestors dehumanized countless people and stole land and forced people into chattel slavery and benefited and supported white supremacy in all its forms. Yes--even those relatives who escaped the horrors of WWI. Yes, even you,friend, if you are white. While I am not guilty of the sins of my fathers, I am responsible for understanding the advantages they gave me. And--this is the hard part, my white friends--doing everything in my power to dismantle these systems that benefited me at the cost of others.

At any rate. There was an insurrection at the Capitol. I know we (because I assume if you are here, reading this, you are part of a we) are all nervously eyeing the Inauguration for further violence. Our state capitals are boarded up, the National Guard deployed all over the country. COVID cases continue to rise, deaths continue to rise (400,000 by the end of the month!), and though Biden is yes, a fuckton a lot better than the White Supremacist in Chief we have now, we do not have the luxury of believing the worst is over and we no longer have to fight. 

Every day, J and i walk the olden dog and talk--often about politics. He's a socialist, and regularly schools me on gender essentialism and prison abolition and the abolition the carceral state, the moral imperative for a basic income, for rejoining and doing better than the Paris Climate Accord, the need to not look away from our past while we build a better future.


My first thought as I fell down the genealogy rabbit hole was jesus christ, this is all traced through men and what about the women? though there were women's names listed. I know how to be a White Feminist, having learned that kind of resistance my entire adult life. My history teacher in college once said that teaching the history of a woman is like teaching the history of a dog to my question about why we didn't discuss the lives of Medieval women. What I think he meant is: we don't consider the stories or the humanity of those we deem less than us. History is always about who won, a boy said to me once in high school and it made me angry, but I couldn't then articulate why.


This is disjointed. Perhaps no one needs yet another white woman attempting to reckon with her privilege, but every goddamned white woman MUST reckon with her privilege, friend. We don't have a choice.

 There are rats in the chicken run, squeezing their round bodies through tiny holes in the mesh to scavenge for food, burrowing tunnels beneath the fence, beneath the coop. Sometimes the chickens chase them if they are brave enough to show their faces in the light of day, the birds chattering angrily at the intruder, sometimes even attempting to peck a rat to death.  The air outside smells of rain, the sharp cold edge of winter, incense cedar. And all night we hear ambulances sirening up to the hospital, the windows lit up all night, the morgue full.

My ancestors woke one morning in Wales in the 14th century and had an idea of something. Here I am at the edge of the West, the Antifa captial (how the fuck can someone NOT be anti-facist? my son asks on our walks, what kind of a stupid monster is that?).



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