radfam

operation queer radfam

blog post on queer genealogy with a reply from my mom

i sent this to my mom, and she replied with her version…

the fad of looking up your ancestors seems like the most innocent thing in the world. someone wants to know more about their family, so they look up some historical records and find out some new information. but there are some problematic patterns in how a lot of us white folks are doing genealogy right now, and i’m interested in thinking about alternatives.

my biological grandfather on my mother’s side (i have many other grandfathers) got into genealogy ten years ago. he gave us a lot of information about his dad’s dad’s dad, and many other men going back hundreds of years. nothing about women, and nothing about my grandmother’s side. she had died years earlier, and he had married someone new. there was nothing about the native americans who were mentioned now and then, or the african american slave who my mom said was mentioned in a very disturbingly brief and casual way. did my ancestors own slaves? i have no idea. but whether they did or not, slavery contributed directly to my opportunities as a white person, to the job i have now, and the spare time my comfortably retired grandfather uses to do genealogy research.

i am aware that white folks sometimes say we are related to native people and use that story to benefit us. i’m aware that i don’t know very much about who my biological ancestors were, and that my grandfather made choices to avoid difficult conversations.

but i think some genealogy can be really awesome. for people who have been historically oppressed it is a huge deal to reclaim the history that was stolen from them. i saw an amazing documentary years ago (forgot the name, wish i remembered it) made by a lesbian daughter about her dad and other queer ancestors. she had to do so much research to uncover their queerness.

i’m thinking now about my great aunt j., whose partner was a woman. i met her a few times when i was little and i remember she was a fashionista and she had a great smile.

and what about the hidden ancestors? the ones who were incarcerated and stigmatized, mentioned quickly or not at all?

b., my grandpa’s sister, was a strong, rebellious woman who was stigmatized and cut out of the family because she “slept around.” i stand with her in her rebellion and claim her as my ancestor, maybe closer to me than my grandfather, even though i never met her. 

my dad’s dad fled the pogroms in balin, ukraine in 1913. he was four years old. i emailed my dad today about our cousin s., who was incarcerated since he was a teenager. our other cousin a. used to visit him once a year.

my genealogy would be about the difficult conversations, but also the reclamation and queering of family. the concepts of heritage and blood have done so much damage. it’s like genealogy is a tool for congratulating ourselves and erasing the atrocities. 

to the radical genealogists out there: i’d love to join together in an anti-genealogy that shows how i am connected to you and holds our feet to the fire in the right way. the information we find will be resources for being the big queerfamilies we want to be.

and then my mom wrote: 

family planning is political in every way

just a few examples of how family planning is political in every way:

population activists use climate change to argue for restrictions on numbers of children per family in the global south.

different kinds of birth control is offered to different groups of people. in the US, there are records of forced sterilizations of native americans up until 1979. depo provera and other long term birth control was offered disproportionately to people of color (it probably still happens, but there was a lawsuit so it happens somewhat less now). in israel, the same thing is happening to ethiopian immigrants now. 

fat people who request reproductive health care are often assumed to have conditions related to obesity, regardless of whether their symptoms reflect this, and regardless of whether there is another condition present that provides a better explanation of symptoms. they often get the wrong treatment as a result.

thin, middle class white women who say they don’t want kids still face negative responses and repeated pressure from friends, family, and medical professionals.

for all families

the awesomeness of twin cities families can no longer be squelched! party to celebrate is tomorrow 5-8 pm at minnehaha free space.

on the bus

today i was on the bus and the driver said we needed to stop to wait for the police. a police car showed up, and two officers came into the bus, grabbed a woman and forced her off the bus. her kid screamed. then another police officer took her kid away. they said the woman had mentioned a gun or insinuated she might have a gun. i didn’t hear what was said.

i followed them and got the badge number of one of the police officers. the other passengers didn’t understand why i had a problem with it. they said he was doing his job. the police officer had tears in his eyes when i talked to him.

i’m thinking about civility. you know those people who love civility? they always talk about how great it is, and if everyone were civil the world would be a better place. the doctrine of civility says that woman was the threat, and the police were responding to remove the threat, they were helping us. when i was talking to people on the bus after this incident i was not being civil. i am not civil. like that woman, i will speak up to protect my family or someone else’s family against state violence.

looking back, i think i would have asked if she wanted me to come with her in the police car that took her away. i would have understood if she had said no, or said nothing, because she was in the middle of trying to get her kid back from them.

i hope over time i learn more ways to resist what’s wrong.