Today, I learned about “Gay Super-Uncle Theory.”
Say whaaaaaaaa
Tag Archives: family
Lineage-based Fraternal Societies
Reading about Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the mixed-race oldest daughter of Strom Thurmond who he never publicly recognized in his 100-year life. I noticed that she tried unsuccessfully to join the United Daughters of the Confederacy through her father’s descent from Confederate soldiers, but emphasized the need for African-Americans to join more lineage-based fraternal societies in order to forge closer ties to the earlier United States. Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has also joined the Sons of the American Revolution by way of a free man of color who fought for Continental forces in the Revolutionary War.
This led me to the list of lineage-based fraternal societies in the United States, most of which are either based on participation in war, settlement of a state or region at a particular time, ethnicity, service in some military branch.
Most of these tend to be of the accidental, circumstantial type that would involve some catechism of honor to esteem the “honorable ancestors”, the sort of unchangeable accident of history involving some distant soldier guy (or nurse woman) who, if you were not reminded of it or cognizant of research, you would totally forget or ignore. Similar to this practice is the war or period reenactment culture (like RenFaire and Civil War reenactment).
The only African-American-oriented genealogical [NOT lineage] society which I can find right now is the AAHGS-Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, Inc. and their state chapters, which exist to “share resources and methodology for pursuing historical and genealogical research” and “to trace the historical ties that bind us one to another, mold the present, and shape the future.”
So it’s not exactly “Sons/Daughters of [whatever]”.
It seems to predominantly be a Euro-American thing. It’s hard for us to squeeze into most of these organizations.
Beyond vacuuming the water coming up into the carpet of Connie + Almaz’s house in #Ferguson and moving the furniture around, the only way I’m finding out about the devastation is through watching TV and reading Twitter. Compared to so many who’ve lost everything or are losing their lives, livelihoods and homes to a “quiet, creeping, devastasting” disaster across the city, or have been backed up for hours on I-55, I-44, and other highways, we in Ferguson experienced the least of this travesty. #Solidarity with those who have sandbagged, rescued, recovered, fed, housed, transported, boiled, and did a lot more for their communities than anyone should be forced to do. Solidarity with those who have lost so much. Solidarity with those who lost what little they had left. Survive. Together. #stlfloods #stlflood #moflooding
It was either yesterday or today last year when Connie sat us all down and told us that the doctors found an anomaly in the lining of her spinal cord and brain, and that she would have to go to surgery the next day. I don’t think we celebrated the holiday, or her birthday, that year. I remember the last time she grilled in the backyard, but it was probably a sweltering Memorial Day. I drove Brandon and RJ to go see the fireworks that night. We were late. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was the beginning of the end.
Memories of Connie in June
A year ago today, I was only less than a month into having moved to Indianhead Village on Fort Benning from Warner Robins.
I was watching anime, staying up all night, still very new to the area, getting settled into post-college life under someone else’s roof. Connie was highly regulated in when she had to be in bed, when to take cancer meds, etc. But at around this time, she would be in bed in the back room watching Lifetime, Oxygen, USA, HLN, BET or Hallmark Channel.
I noticed that she stayed awake for hours into the night with her eyes open, watching the TV; it was more occasional for me to find the TV watching her as she had dozed off. Mom was sleep in the front room, with the religious channels uttering the growls and wheezes of the fire-and-brimstone preachers. Brandon would be watching Naruto on my Roku box, RJ would be watching Disney channel (or the TV would be left running).
I would be in the extra room either reading, watching anime, or both. Even then, even while Connie battled the cancer, I paid as little mind to the cancer during these hours as possible.
Tomorrow, Connie could be driven to work at the post hospital, Mom could make another cake to sell to friends of Connie’s, RJ could go to summer school at SAS (and have another argument with Brandon when he got home), Brandon could sleep in, I could acquiesce to RJ nagging me to take him to the pool down the street.
But like right now, I would be watching the ceiling in the dark, perhaps wondering what will happen to us.
If only I had known of what Connie would tell us next month, on her birthday. If only I had known that this month would be the last month of any semblance of sanity. Would I have attempted, if I had known of it, to end my own life, just to not see what my sister would lose, what (and who, and how) my nephews, Mom, Wanda, Chris, Dad and my nieces would lose?
We dropped him off with his company just now, and we may see him onto the bus going to AIT in Fort Lee. The way I feel about Brandon right now is something I’ve felt since yesterday. His facade of emotional readiness is only shown to fellow service members. He has been tired and sullen all day, a far cry from January, and none of it is his fault. This is a bittersweet day, and I found it hard to look at him; he, Mom and I know the heavy significance of all of this. There was nothing to celebrate, only to mark. I fear for him.
2013 in Review
The past year had so much to remember.
My trip to FWA, my and Brandon’s graduation, my presidency of my alma mater’s GSA, hosting a drag show, two months of comparative post-graduation calm. But the past year began on a violently lurching note, from partying with Connie at Club Mix on New Year’s Eve to being told one or two days later that she would be dealing with cancer treatment for the rest of her life. The past year happened to be “her life”.
This year has begun differently. It began while I was working at Dominos, and I didn’t even notice until several minutes later. I don’t expect the nasty surprises of last year, the constant worries and fears over Connie’s life or health to plague us, or her, this time around.
Things will be different. We four are not how we were on 1/1/13. And I’m glad for that.
We got home on Monday night. On Tuesday, Me, Mom and Wanda talked about how I tend to repeat the events of 11/12/13 both mentally and vocally to those who may want to know about our state of affairs. I don’t know if I’ve become addicted to the reliving of this event. Is #catharsis so potent?
Apparently, we forgot that this was Thanksgiving week, so no school for the youngest in the house. And apparently, a battery that we had gotten for my car only months ago is now broken and can barely hold a charge. It came from WalMart.
My sister Connie was buried yesterday. I didn’t go.
At the repass, I did get to meet my niece/sister, Jaden Paddock, for the first time in over 20 years. We hugged, we ate, we took pics, I met her baby.
Drury Hotels near Lambert International was nice. My youngest nephew, at 11, is writing his own “will” on line paper. He wants to be buried with his toys in a plot in Ft. Benning. All of this gets a big fat “Ugh” from me.
Now commences the post-Connie period in my life, and a weird Thanksgiving.
I’m tired of this memorial/funeral/burial crap. My replay of 11/12/13 is grief enough for me.
Everyone else needs this process, but I have nothing to offer but recountings of that largely-eventless, normal day that ended at 5:30 pm.
It’s like a personal 9/11, in which a defining structure in our lives was compromised and, slowly, painfully, fell away. As a nation, we grieved, we relived through annual TV documentaries, but we stopped mourning and started rebuilding.
So I started. I’m still applying for jobs, just as I was doing on 11/12/13, just as she demanded for me to do for all these months. #catharsis #honesty #letsmoveon #frustration
