“Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race,” by Dr. Cartwright
DRAPETOMANIA, OR THE DISEASE CAUSING NEGROES TO RUN AWAY.
It is unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers…
In noticing a disease not heretofore classed among the long list of maladies that man is subject to, it was necessary to have a new term to express it. The cause in the most of cases, that induces the negro to run away from service, is as much a disease of the mind as any other species of mental alienation, and much more curable, as a general rule. With the advantages of proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many negroes have of running away, can be almost entirely prevented, although the slaves be located on the borders of a free state, within a stone’s throw of the abolitionists…
…If the white man attempts to oppose the Deity’s will, by trying to make the negro anything else than “the submissive knee-bender,” (which the Almighty declared he should be,) by trying to raise him to a level with himself, or by putting himself on an equality with the negro; or if he abuses the power which God has given him over his fellow-man, by being cruel to him, or punishing him in anger, or by neglecting to protect him from the wanton abuses of his fellow-servants and all others, or by denying him the usual comforts and necessaries of life, the negro will run away; but if he keeps him in the position that we learn from the Scriptures he was intended to occupy, that is, the position of submission; and if his master or overseer be kind and gracious in his hearing towards him, without condescension, and at the sane time ministers to his physical wants, and protects him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away…“
“The negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away.”
This disease is REAL!
afrospear.wordpress.com 
The “White Man” is NOT as omnipotent as some choose to believe. One thing he is, and that’s a student of human psychology.
He’s got black people beat on that one, but it’s not like we can’t easily catch up with him and surpass him if we made the decision to stop exalting him.
It seems that all that’s necessary for “the man” to do is to pull any kind of shit right out of his arse and call it truth, present it in an “authoritative” way, then leave the rest of us to grapple with it generation after generation.
I say simply sidestep the shit.
Bullshit from 1851.
We just recently here in New Orleans had an exhibition of the the original artifacts about this “disease” at the New Orleans African American Museum in Treme’.
http://www.thenoaam.org/
It was an engaging and intriguing look into the over the top, indescribable practice.
The Villa Treme Milleuer AA Museum is in the former “big house” located in the 2nd oldest community adjacent to the French Quarters where enslaved Africans created the bricks that built the French Quarters.
lt is an extraordinary place under the directions of Jonn Hankins as the preservation of events like “Drapetomania”.
I would highly recommend anyone who wants to research and see up close and personal should make at least one trip to New Orleans & this museum.
As I think of it, Harriet Tubman had a major case of this Drapetomania! There were a lot of black folks with this disease, too numerous to name them here.
I hope every black person at the ‘Spear has Drapetomania and I pray they do nothing to cure the “disease”!
Ha ha! 😀
The stupidity of some of our past racists boggles the mind. Our present day racists are making great strides in being as stupid as their forefathers and foremothers.
We ought to be crushing their rebellious, stupid natures, so as the keep them from multiplying!
They are such a burden–so hard to bear!
What? Huh? Harriet Tubman had a case of this. I truly hope those comments was a joke albeit in poor taste.
What the white folks were saying, I believe, is that black folks back in the days of slavery wanted freedom and were relestless unless they got it, especially when they were being mistreated. Some stupid white racist doctor decided to call this desire for freedom, Drapetomania, as though black folks wanting to be free was a sickness!
So they build this entire “psychological diagnosis” around this, because they, in their extreme paternalistic racism, felt that black folks were inhuman, therefore incapable of human desires, such as self determination. That’s why I called them the most stupid of the stupid. Blinded by THEIR OWN psychosis of paternalistic racism.
So if their definition stands, I, being sarcastic, said that Harriet Tubman and so many other freedom seekers and fighters of that slavery era had this false disease of Drapetomania! When we look at it properly, all it is is the desire to be a free and self determining human being. Harriet Tubman was self determining and she fought for others to have freedom as well.
No way would I disparage our freedom fighting ancestress, the great Harriet Tubman!!
That is why I was asking were this a joke or what. :=)
I am glad you clarified.
I actually did get to see the original documents and a battery of other information in this made up disease when the show was in New Orleans for the last several months. What was written here was a fraction of what is in the show and the methodology use to enforce a “cure”
Hi Jacquelyn! I have a weird way about me sometimes…. 🙂
But this show is one of those that I feel ambivilant towards. I feel that we have to move away from focusing on the negativity of our past, but at the same time I know we HAVE to know our history—the good the bad and the ugly!!
It so emotional to learn of these inhumane things that our ancestors had to suffer through during slavery and even up to the present day.
Weird can be good :=)
There are people who would love if we “move away” from our painful past as in forget it, not because of any great concern for YOUR emotional well being, but so THEY do not have to feel the slightest discomfort over how they “earen” their privileges today.
Now saying that one should not dwell with no end result in sight. But we should, especially those who are young enough that what they know is the minimum required to qualify for Black History Month. :=)
I mean that somewhat tongue in cheek because despite of the suffering, we do need to remember and give dignity to these very amazing, extraordinary people who were stolen, exploited and tortured against their will;some how or another kept their humanity & continue to reach what all desires, freedom.
I was fortunate enough to know up until mny early teens a couple of my slave ancestors. Yes there were still living enslaved Africans around. They were quite in age by then. My grandmother who was born 15 years past Emancipation died in 1994 at the age of 107. HER mother died when I was about 13.
It gave me a look into although I did not know it at the time a uniques pattern of behavior from that life as well as some of the stories my great grandmother told me.
Again I say to people at some point in their life they need to come to New Orleans’ they also need to go to some of the river parishes.
There is the River Road A.A. Museum in Donaldsville,La that is packed with extraordinary artifacts, and history of enslaved Africans form the River Parish what life was like the good, bad and the ugly of our people…
I’ll accept that! 🙂 What a blessing to have known members of your family who lived during that period!! And lived to be over 100 years old!!! I imagine those people who lived into the new century past slavery as being some very spiritual, calm, seen so much and been through so much, and learned how to survive it, with the Lord, kind of people.
The spirit of the living God HAD to be with them, no matter what their religion! I guess that I feel a little fear because of the way our history usually is presented, showcasing the degradation, rather than the grace of bearing the suffering, surviving and even remaining full of dignity IN SPITE OF what they endured.
So many of us are still ashamed of what happened and attribute it to our being weak, as the oppressor have told us in their history books. I grew up in liberal San Francisco CA and even there, in high school, our history was two or three paragraphs, on one page in our American history book of 200 pages!!!
I remember how I felt so embarassed about that. Only one page, and that of how weak we were. That so affected me that when I started working at the SF Public Library about 2 years later, after high school, I discovered there was a black history section full of books–100s of books, but for an entire year I could not pick up one book for fear of what I’d find.
Finally I bit the bullet and found Maya Angelou!!! Need I say more? I was hooked like an addict! Until the present time!!
Excellent that you bit that bullet. Of course when you see the minimizing of any person(s) story it will present them as weak. That proverb that states “Until the lion’s story is told the hunt will glorify the hunter”.
There is always the other side… Our people never one time ever, even until today have ever given up the struggle.
Sometimes so-called linerals concern me as much as those who are outright racist, at least you KNOW where they stand.
There are some well-intentioned liberals who have struggle with facing their more benign sometime sneaky, paternalistic bigotry’ it does not jibe with how they see themselves.
I am at this point redundant, but I still say everyone who cares even a smidgen about their culture and those who want to expand their views should come to New Orleans especially not only to the two museums I mentioned previously but the Amistad Research Center housed at Tulane University that is the largest repository of anything about Africans in the Diaspora, African-Americans.
The storyline on the movie Amistad and a host of others are at the Center. I’ve actually have seen the papers that I believe Pres Adams sign “freeing” Cinque to return to Africa.
Samhe does not bring about change.. we need to stop shaming one another which is the extension of being a’shamed. Sadly that is an area where many folks have not brought themselves (yet) to reconcile.
Our humanity is huge…& despite it all there is much to be proud of.
I do not know if you read it, but if you can find a copy get Paula Giddings “From When & Where I Entered” I will forewarn you , you may throw the book a couple of times :=) It speaks volumes of the lives of black woman post-Reconstruction.
Keep reading.
FYI I spent 27 years in San Diego! :=)
You know, I had no idea that New Orleans has such a repository! And I always thought of avoiding the place because of Mardi Gras and other things I’ve heard!!!
You said “Sham(ing) is an extension of being ashamed” TRUE!! Our history is like those precious veins on gold or diamond ore, or any other precious metal—it’s deeply hidden in plain sight. We know our history is there, because it’s impossible to cover it up completely.
It’s just up to us to do the HARD HARD work of digging it up and enriching ourselves!!!
You know, I read Paul Giddings when I was a teen for a black history class, and don’t remember anything of what she taught. Too young to grasp it. Time to reread it.
What do you think of Luisah Teish, Jambalaya? (I know you read it, sis!) 🙂
No I had not read Luisah Teish, Jambalaya.. but I will make it a point to look it up now! :=)
@ Jacquelyn, San Diego is where I was born and grew up! Glad to be outta there now though. How long have you been away from SD?
Questions for both you and Anna Renee.
Have either of you ever explored considered the amount of “Black” people that were never transported from Africa that were enslaved here?
New Orleans is a magical place, I can feel a similar vibe in San Diego and the Bay. Speaking of New Orleans, what are your thoughts on the wealthy “Black” family’s that were never enslaved that participated in the liberating “Black” people?
How can we be sure that some of us were not amoung the wealthy families, that may have lost their wealth during the destruction of Jim Crow?
We have had years of learning about our strength during the sufferiing of slavery. Wouldn’t you say it’s high time we focus on those of our people that excelled and gained economic independence? And, either escaped slavery, purchased their freedom or were never enslaved?
What you say, brother? The free blacks? Oh MAN!!
I haven’t done much research on this aspect of our history at all. But I will! Oh yes I WILL!
Yes we should focus on our free black folks! We may learn a thing or two from them.
Don’t get me started! Or I’ll have to quit my job and devote ALL my time to doing black history and culture research!!!
In truth, I wish I could do this for real! I need a patron to finance me! 😀
The short answer is YES! I absolutely think we should.
Let me give you a brief example. My great-great grandfather who we called Papa Almwood was born into slavery. Post Civil War, he through a whole lot pf perserverance and work accquire land, became successful…
I never got to meet him as he died before I was born, but my older sisters have vivid memories of him. From what I know our family was doing just fine. (remember theis was before I was born.
My grandfather, Pop Alex who married Papa Almwood’s granddaughter Sally, he and his brothers were successful shopowners in the French Quarters. He died when I was 4. My grandmother remarried much later to a man who also had been born just before Emancipation who again through hard work and perserverance left her quite set.
Now saying that why not wealthy by today’s standards, they were not hurting in fact by that time were doing pretty good…
My comments earlier was not in regards to anyone wallowing in grief & sadness but to again see the humanity. That while victimized our people did extraordinary things in extraordinary times.
Life does not have to be either/or. We do not need to brush off or discount the trial of our ancestors and “move on” (I hate that overused phrase).
I do believe we have been moving. I understand that some like to believe we are not but there is movement; maybe not as much as we like or how one may think we should, but we do move!
Knowing our past should disallow us from being the best possible. In fact I think it is required (to be).
Oh, to answer you other question, I left San Diego in 1997. I have a couple of grandkids that live in PB and other relatives scattered there abouts…
Thank you ladies for your responses.
Jacquelyn, I was not pointing at your comment in particular and I agree with you. But, this is actually what is commonly believed amoung our people today. So much so, that almost all African Americans refer to themselves as descendents of slaves when most of us only assume we were all enslaved. I think we need to reverse this thinking.
On SD, I left in 1995.
Anna Renee, you can start with this link.
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3275800/
Oh I did not take your remarks as anything directed toward my remarks….
I did what I do speak from what has been real & trued for me; with my own experiences or knowledge. I used my family as an example rather the more vague “they”.
In fact, a few weeks ago I commented to my mother as I continue along learning more and more of my family history, in a moment of wistful thinking, how I wished her mother/my grandmother, the 1st born outside of slavery had lived long enough to see at least in this particular branch of the family, several college grads.
Papa Almwood born into slavery, his daughter Alma, likewise. Granddaughter Sally (born 1885) barely a 6th grade education;great-granddaughter Eleanor (born 1914,my mother)went to 10th grade/return to school in her 50’s for a GED; great-great granddaughter (moi) college; great-great great granddaughters (and son) college grads and pending grad, one now working on second Masters & great-great-great-great granddaughters (2) attending college & one great-great-great-great grandson leaving for college in the fall.
I cite this to say my family has always been 6-7 living generations. Sally and ALma always routinely stressed education and doing something. I vivdly remember them both when I was in my early teens of their wish that I would become a school teacher or a nurse. Be mindful at that time, that was the highest aspiration from their lives a colored girl could be.
We went beyond that & I think Mama (Sally) would have been thrilled.
I totally agree with you that a lot of the thinking needs to be changed. I also think we can embraced both sides; the vast majority of ancestors were kidnapped souls forced into servitude; that was a large number that cannot be ignored that was not.
I suspect that some that want to insist on we were all in bondage and that is the only way may be somewhat guilty of cultural laziness; a “one size fits most” mentality. The danger in that is it keeps us in danger of being our own worst enemy.
African people are not monolithic, never was before enslavement, during or afterward.
Well, thank you my brother!! I think I WILL start here! Free “mulatto” women of color in Charleston SC! (I’m going to think of a better word to describe mixed race black people. Mulatto is antiquated and reminds me of an animal or something.)
One thing is for sure: the implications of this is great for my own research and there seems to be a coming full circle from my post on the Gullah Geechee people of SC, FL and that region. Maybe those maroon Gullah Africans branched out and there’s a connection between them and these ladies!!
Anna I am not sure if the Gullah’s branched out this for to Louisiana unless via a sale. Primarily here in La, are Sene-Gambia people because of the ability in refining sugar and cotton.
My father’s people originated in Alabama. I just found out a few years ago I was related to the women of Gee’s Bend who you may recall were the small island in Alabama that was cut off from the rest of the world even through the 1970 & which by this segregation maintain a rich cultural history in quilts & traditions. In fact, the mules that carried Dr. King came from this area.
Mullato was a slave term used to designated how much white blood had been been “mixed” into African blood. The higher the amount the more privilege & standing one had.
But remember they were still SLAVE.
My grandmother would have been considered a octoroon under those designations.
Also mixed race people are indeed black people. There’s a difference between nationality & race. And it is all artificially contrived for people to have a false sense of being.
Brava for you for doing the research and learning about the Gullahs. I am probably preaching to the choir here :=) but you know the likelihood was that Gullah people were from Angola.
Keep research; keep learning and discovering the wealth and the bounty that one can receive & the wisdom to apply it in its proper context!
WTG!
Great conversation and a lot of knowledge was gained. We need to focus on our people and what WE feel is best for us and let all else fall to the wayside. Agree?
No question on that. I think our discussion is all about that. I think the more that is shared is information gathered.
There is no either/or.
We have a shared history, a commonality, but can be different about many things & can see much in those variations/shadings of our collective history! :=)
There’s a vividness to your descriptions of your family members! You remind me of Alex Haley….
Are you writing down your family stories?
Your page is so relaxing – makes a person feel like they are living carefree. Loving our first introduction to angela bofill!
How kind of you Anna!
Yes I am. I think every family has a griot. It seems I am it for mine. Although I have nieces that are the children of my older sisters who also have interest in the family history. Just in the last few months we have been comparing and sharing info.
Their mothers are old enough to be MY parents and have more recollections of say Papa Almwood as they used to during the summer go out to his farms. And they remember our respective great-grandmother and grandmother in their younger years.
I for whatever reasons why who recalled many of the stories as my aging great-grandmother was bedridden when I was about 11 and I used to sit and comb her hair and she told me stories of back in the day.
Even then in the early 1960’s there was still a lot of hush hush, don’t talk about it. Those 3 generations I understand now as I’ve matured, it was too painful in many ways to speak of a time past & often very shameful to them.
Lots of people no matter what the truama, want to wish something away; it is hard to face things understandably.
Shaming is horrible, being ashamed which something I still believe we as a community don’t really wish to speak about but carry it in our collective DNA.
It is human & normal.
Jane Solomon was the African who was the cook from whom my family came from on the maternal side. She was enslaved on one of the former U.S. Presidents plantation. She was the cook. My grandmother told me of a time when she and her mother walked from the big house to the quarters (understand this was after Emancipation) and as they past through the woods a “haint” appeared and they could not go by & had to find another way.
My grandmother was about 5-6 years old. Jane did not live too long dying around that time and Sally went to her older brother’s home to live and then went to Papa Almwood’s daughters home.
Imagine my shock to find out that Alma was not (I thought) my blood great-grandmother! When my great uncle Ned could no longer care for my grandmother, she was given to Alma who could not have children of her own. We never knew my grandmother’s actual birth date, but Alma gave her Dec 25th as it was the best birthday present she ever got.
I was an adult before learning that Alma WAS indeed related to us; Jane Solomon was her sister but we still call her our great-grandmother. We were blessed to have 2 maternal Great-grandmothers. :=)
There are still some areas I am trying to fill in. I was able to determine when my grandmother was born based on her marriage license & the birth of my mother give or take a year or two.
I have sorrow not know much about my Creole grandfather Alexander who died when I was about 4-5 years old. My grandmother was very hush-hush about his whereabouts. I know my mother searched for him for years finding him a couple of years before I was born & cared for him until the day he died. My only recollection of him was a handsome smiling man leaning over and handing me a toy violin.
(I later played the violin in grade school).
My mother is now 95 years old and every once in awhile, I can get her to give me a nugget or two, but carefully. I suspect much will go with her to her grave. There are things I think were too painful to speak about. It is understandable & I don’t press her often or for long.
Imagine my daughters when they were expecting their children how blown away their doctors were when they could give them family medical history going back several generations!
So I’ve become ad hoc keeper of the maternal/paternal family history, mystery & secrets… :=)
I did not know if I said this, but I am an artist by trade and many of my imagery is based on the stories, not only of my family, but many times the dynamics in what we (community) tell and more importantly what we don’t tell.
Oh I forgot to say I hope MY children & grandchildren appreciate my documenting their ancestral history. I have pictures dates names for the day when they really want to know & when it is my time not to be with them any longer.
I just thought of this when one of my grandsons had to do a family tree for school last year & his teacher was flabbergasted… Lol
Thanks for telling some of your family stories! You’ve done us (me) a big service, in a sort of giving of permission to feel free about our own family stories. Some of us don’t know much at all about our families, which in itself can be shameful. It seems that the elders just were so very quiet about things. This is the case in my own family from Erath, Abbeville, Baton Rouge and New Orleans in Louisiana. I don’t know much about my father’s side from New Orleans and he’s passed. I know more about my mother’s side from Erath and Baton Rouge. But I remember when my mother and Aunt who came to California and settled in together would start talking about “hoo doo” and I’d walk in the room they’d hush up, making me all the more curious, but I dared not to ask them to clarify “that scary stuff” Plus, they felt alot of shame about those old ways and beliefs since they were now in the big city of SF, California. Live as the Californians do, not as the old country folks who believed in voo doo and things.
Later, I could never get them to talk about those beliefs except to act as though they stopped believing once they moved to Cali, which may or may not have been true. I can’t bring myself to ask them about these rich treasures of culture because they just will not go there.
Oh please Anna, ask the questions. They (your elders) maybe dying to tell the stories.
I can help a bit with the “why’s” of the secretiveness.
I can be two-fold. Lousianians, both white & black are prone toward this. It is built into the culture going again back to a very excruciatingly,shame-filled painful life/legacy in La. Sadly, remnants of that attitude still prevail today.
As we all know there was a north bound migration from the South to Chicago. However there was indeed a second migration, especially from La & Tx to Cali, especially “the other L.A.” :=)
Those who went first during WWII wanted in many ways, understandably so, wanted to wipe away memories & tried to do so.
My family was among some in that migration, however my mother came back to La, eventually met my father and married. However with their split she took us & returned to L.A.
It was horrible for me & my siblings as we were a reminder to those (at that point) had been in Los Angeles 2-3 generations and did not want reminders.
Funny thing is Los Angeles has the highest population still today of people from Louisiana!
I say this as a background during slavery, other states could make their rebellious slaves toe the line more by threatening to sell them to La. Stories be told the average enslaved person live 2 years upon coming here it was so brutal.
LSU has in the research area a fully intact slave quarters including the overseer’s home , tools & farming equipment, demonstrate how sugar was made and tons of info on slave life in La, same as the River Road African American Museum in Donaldsonville.
It is mind-boggling to comprehend how brutal the life was, but it is also awesome to know we are the descendents of amazing people.
“Hoo doo” was not something that permeates La.; that is a common & unfortunate, mis-informed Hollywood lacquared fable about Louisiana. Make no mistake, Vudan did exist, but not the way it was shown to the world.
I would suspect you may later regret if you don’t ask. If you do broach them be kind, non-judgmental allow them to talk when they feel like it and don’t when they won’t. It may take quite awhile as they have to dredge up memories they soon forget, or perhaps some personal history they may be to embarrassed to speak of.
You also have to be prepare to see family members in a different light then you know them to be.
And people want to assume things or judge things by 2011 standards about the 18th/19th century standards. It is imperative to let them tell their story, in what ever way they need. Then you will play detective, will find ways to connect dots.
It is amazing what can be learned & then at some point completely get it. It is powerful stuff.
I learned a lot about my mother, more then she thinks & it helped me to see her whole humanity.
Her mother passe blanc for a number of years & to this day there is still a part of my mother that holds sorrow as she did not have her mother & also being tormented for what my grandmother apparently had no choice in.
I mean what would any of us do say in 1900 if you were a near white looking black woman? Again we cannot judge by 2011 standards, 1900.
I hope this helps! :=)
I appreciate y’all for this conversation.
All this from Drapetomania. That single foolish and dangerous fallacy caused a lot of damage & the strains are still here today, both white & black…It just took a different name…
You are welcome Anna Renee. Additionally, mullato was probably used by different people under different circumstances and at different times, as Jacquelyn states
“Mullato was a slave term used to designated how much white blood had been been “mixed” into African blood. The higher the amount the more privilege & standing one had.”
Additionally, Europeans during the 1600’s used the word mullato to indicate a person of Indigenous (Indian) American blood and African blood. In Haiti, mullato was designated for anyone of lighter skin tone regardless of ancestry.
On Gullah and Geechee. I have found that the terms may not be interchangable. Gullah people are typically those that are in South Carolina and as Jacquelyn noted may be from Angola, though I have also found that the Gullah trace some lineage to Ibo people of what is now Nigeria. Geechee people however, are the Indigenous Americans (Black people) that once inhabited the area near and around the Ogeechee river in Georgia. Geechee being an Indigenous American word.
I hope this will assist on your research. I have additional information concerning free people of color, I will have to email it to you. Just let me know what email address and I will forward to you. This will blow your mind.
Thanks for all of this, Wise Woman! OK, Im going to ask my Aunt Mabel, who is 90 years young (literally–still carrying her groceries up hills to her apartment, still feisty, a little hard headed) She’s a wonder and a QVC addict! 🙂 My Mom is 78 and I doubt she will talk about it AT ALL! Aunt Mabel might, though! Thanks for your inspiration!
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Thank Victor! You have a repository of info your own self!!!
You know, my husband is Igbo and would probably be interested in the Gullah people’s lineage history!
Our black history is so rich and varied, and the differing aspects so intertwined and it’s almost impossible to break it down to its component parts, but it’s worth it to try to get as far into the details as possible!
I got your email and will start my studies ASAP! Thanks again, Professor! 🙂
Amenta, I would love to also see your information on free people! When I have my presentations on the history of quilting which is my primary medium of art, I always tie in as many stories and history as a secondary learning experience.
There is so much to learn! I hae many friends living in and around N. Charleston, SC & in fact, I will be there in May for an event. A good friend of mine lived among the Gullahs & I find all the history captivating. rich & multi-layered.
I had to really concentrate to learn how to pronounce Daufuskie !
Is there a way to contact you, if you don’t mind?
Anna Renee, I just sent it to your Nachalooman email. Very long but highly interesing.
Anna Renee, Come back home to the South, you may find this part of the U.S. is really your “country.” Maybe Jacquelyn can atest to this “feeling” since she has returned to the South.
Oh I indeed can! I have had the tugs & pulls to come home while I was still living in San Diego as early as the mid 80’s. I finally made the leap in 1997, had a short return to SD in 2002 after evacuating a hurrincane (not Katrina). I then came back in 2003.
This time ironically, I moved to another parish that I did not know until right before I left that parish, was less then an hour from where my grands, greats were enslaved!
I had not even yet been “there” I want to, but at that time in 2003 I was not sure if I was prepared to walk that soil (for a host of reasons).
However, I had indeed struggles adjusting to being home, not major ones, but struggles. It was painful to some degree to see (still) some of the generational things being passed down. Not all bad or negative.
But it was home… I could feel it cellualrly although some still (here) call me “that California girl”. I have to say I stopped being a girl long time ago…
It was some that did not view me as a home-girl; in some cases it was just a whisper from being viewed as a betrayal in the leaving although I had little to say about the California migration as I was an adolescent.
Even those days when I want to say that’s it..I had enough, the very next minute, I find still another thing to fall in love with (again).
I have a blog called “Burnt Toast Sweet Tea & Mine” :http://burnttoastsweetteathyme.blogspot.com/ that from time to time I write about my experience strictly on my return to New Orleans.
Oh, incidentally y’all I know I am wordy; its a gift/ curse, depending on who you speak to, I inherited from my father :=)
New Orleanians as a general rule are storytellers.
Perhaps that is the griot genes popping through?
Jacquelyn email me. ensaynreality@gmail.com
Thank you so much for the wisdom! WOW! ……..WOW!……We need to collectively take a break as a people so that we can get our bearings you know?
As the slogan go;” You (we) deserve a break today” :=)
Much Respect!
Back at ya! :=)