Un-American History

** I didn't feel this was especially appropriate for links, so I just added those which would better convey the ideas and difficult issues.

               Yesterday, I went with the GSA to see the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington. My mom inquired that this was one of the perks of where I live, which she says is not America because it's too liberal and too diverse and too much of anything to be those. I don't think I disagree; however, I like living in un-America. Un-America lets me see that which makes my life; school sponsored trips to see drag queens and Bollywood dances. Un-America is a nice place to live.
                   Perhaps my family could attest to this Un-America. My mother's family's lived in DC for a very, very long time. My dad's family has lived in the country for a very, very, very long time. My grandmother's name is Meekins. My dad says that records in North Carolina (my grandma's from the Outer banks beach-town called Manteo) from the 1600's document a man of the same name, and his five slaves. My family was here before the country started. Of course then my dad (a history major) noted that slave trading ended in the 1800's, so many black families have roots in the country longer than most residents.
               I get my name from my father's father. The folklore of the Keys's, a huge family composed of most I have never known, is they've always been free. The town of which my grandfather originates, Jamesville, was that of freed blacks. My dad doesn't think this was always true. He says the oldest records date to the 1700's, and, though the Keys's have been free for much longer than most, they had once been slaves in Virginia. Then they were not. Those of Jamesville have Jamesville features; they're very light skinned, and they have straight hair.
              York and Rachel were going to move to California, it was the early 1900s, (19 o something) and they were black. York and Rachel lived in Red Springs North Carolina, and they had about eight children. Rachel didn't want to move, though, because of those Injuns, or Indians. It sounds a bit wrong to me, but York and Rachel lived in that America. Rachel died. York decided he would pack up his things with his sons, and he would give Mary, his two year old daughter a choice.

"Now you can stay here, in Red Springs, or you can come on with me to California. Tell me by tomorrow morning."
         
   York, Mary, and sons moved on to California, and Leticia, married, stayed. Leticia was my mother's great grandmother. John, her son was a piano player. John was smooth and exotic and modest, and he didn't have to go to war because the draft officers thought he would create too much drug havoc. Rhoda Mary Francis Harley fell in love with him.
             The Harley's had a complex. There are those black families in each city which breed among themselves to pass, or to look white. The Harley's were light skinned people, lighter than a paper bag, almost white, but just almost. There were to be no Harley's darker than that paper bag, but John Malachi was that bag completely rained upon, or maybe even chocolate.
            So when Rhoda Mary Francis had to marry John Malachi because she was knocked up and 16, there was disgrace, there was shame, there was no hope for the Harley's. And so the Harley's disowned her. Rhoda Mary Francis Harley Malachi didn't care, she loved John Malachi, and John loved her. Rhoda Mary Francis Harley Malachi was my mother's grandmother. She named my grandfather John Edward Malachi after true love. She had no teeth, and she was benevolent and very loud, and when John Malachi died she lasted ten years after.
             My grandmother's family was of DC and Maryland. Gramma witnessed Un-America. In the 1940's, when she was a child, there was Roland. Roland was a crossdresser. He stayed in his room, and read. Sometimes he would take my grandmother and her cousins out to shop for shoes. Roland's mother never called him so, and neither did my great grandmother. My grandma wondered why.
             Roland's best friend was a Queen named Chickedee. Both were introverted figures. Roland died, and when he did, he lay in his casket in a pink suit. It suddenly became clear to my grandmother why his mother would call him "Rosemary."
             Maybe my mother doesn't believe that we live in America because we never really have. My mother's father's family went to California, which was extremely uncommon for black families, or perhaps families at all during the time. My mother's mother's family housed a cross dresser and a queen, and yet the current black consent for gay marriage is dismal. That was in the 40's. My dad's family has lived in the United States since its inception, which means I'm only not African American (I'm far removed from the continent, I mean i have mostly African blood I guess but  I don't know where from in that vast land I am) I am American-American-American (not that I'd prefer that either). My dad's father's family was free.
             I don't think, if I could wake Leticia and Rhoda Mary Francis Harley Malachi, and the Meekins slaves that they would attend the gay man's chorus with me. I don't think Lenwood and Wima Meekins Keys, my grandparents, would even listen to such an idea, but I don't think they'd be totally opposed to it either. I'd think Roland would sit next to me, and Chickedee would smile, and at home all of my ancestors would say "This Un-America sure is something special."