OpenSorceress
Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read

I’m mixed. My dad’s mother’s side of the fam came to Virginia because they were Quakers — exiled from England for their religion, but wealthy and noble so they showed up with a land grant from King George to a thousand acres in what became Virginia.

They built an brick house before Boston existed and the entire river valley ended up named after them. By the time of the American Revolution, right around when the first census was deliberately corrupting data to avoid acknowledging Black humanity (or white inhumanity, let’s be completely honest for once) their tobacco plantation had grown to collectively encompass most of two counties.

But they were Quakers, and Quakers had this thing about interfering with the will of God. They determined that enslaving a human being was the most evil of all sins, even worse than murder, because enslavement directly prevented the slave from freely choosing anything, including God. So my fam took it upon themselves to _do something_ about this “hideous blot” — once a month all the men would draw straws to see who was getting excommunicated that month. And whoever drew short took a cart and a wagon to nearby Lynchburg and bought as many people at the auction as they could carry. And then they brought everyone back to the plantation, and set them all free with papers and wrote down everyone’s name (these were necessary steps to reentering the family.) And because slaving was a thing, every one was offered a job, and they were all paid wages.

So if you’re going to be offended by anybody’s family, be offended by mine showing that people like your family had no excuse and knew exactly what they were doing and did it any goddamn way.

OpenSorceress

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I hacked NASA with a toaster