Episode 89: family history // Friday, July 3

 

I’ve never been into genealogies, mostly because there didn’t seem to be anything terribly interesting in mine. When my Texan Grandaddy was alive, he used to swear that we had Native American blood. My 97-year-old Grandmother recently told me that she thought it was actually true.

But last Christmas I got one of those ancestry DNA kits as a white elephant gift, and it confirmed what I’d suspected all along--that my Grandaddy’s stories were just that--stories. My genealogy is pretty much exactly what I expected. My ancestors were a bunch of white farmers who crossed the pond from Britain. The only surprise was just how white I am--72% from the UK--and the remaining 28% from Germany, Norway, and Sweden. 

But my fish and chips ancestry aside, genealogies never intrigued me, because there’s no story in a bunch of names and dates and lines. People are only interesting if you know their histories, their heartbreaks, their disappointment, and their dreams.

When I was in my twenties, I finally learned about a genealogy I could get behind: the Genogram. 

Genograms were developed by Monica McGoldrick and Randy Gerson in the 1980s as a way to discover more than just branches in your family tree. It gives you a visual tool for identifying things like chronic illness, divorce, separation, and the nature of family relationships. There’s no limit to what type of data can be included, so Genograms vary a lot, depending on what you’re trying to learn.

Nate and I were at a leadership retreat years ago when we were asked to create a Genogram together. At first we weren’t very excited. What we knew about our family histories was bland.

But as we mapped out our Genogram, our combined family history included tragic and mysterious deaths, forbidden biracial love affairs, an autoimmune disease, infant fatalities, suicide, prohibition bootlegers, bankruptcy, and lifelong separation of siblings, just to name a few. There were patterns, too, of addiction and depression, of heartbreak and estrangement. 

It was startling to see how broken our family histories were. But it also made us feel a little less alone in our own struggles. The challenges we faced were ones we could trace back through our family lines. We could learn from our ancestors who struggled well--and also from those who failed. 

Our Genogram launched us into a decade of conversations with aunts and uncles and cousins to learn what really happened. Over time, we’ve slowly formed a shared narrative about our history. It’s made our families more open about things like addiction and depression. It’s shaped the way we parent our kids. Sometimes those conversations are hard, but mostly, they’ve made us closer. Georges Erasmus, an Aboriginal leader from Canada who served as the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations once said, “Where common memory is lacking, where people do not share in the same past, there can be no real community. Where community is to be formed, common memory must be created.”

The Genogram gave our family a way to create a common memory. Even though we weren’t around for a lot of what happened in our family history, knowing about our past helps us make better decisions about our future. 

A friend asked me this week if I would do an episode about how to celebrate Independence Day in this time when there’s a lot of talk about our country’s family history. When skeletons are coming out of the closet, and that crazy uncle no one will talk about is finally getting his due.

So today, I’m turning for advice to someone who has thought a lot about creating a common memory. You might remember our Story Saturday with Independent Presidential Candidate Mark Charles, episode 72, which I titled A Common Memory. He mentioned that Georges Erasmus quote in our conversation, and he also wrote about it a few years back, in a piece he published called “The Dilemma of the Fourth of July.” 

Mark says of the Georges Erasmus quote,

“Those are wise words that get to the heart of our national problem regarding race. On days like Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July, the United States of America celebrates its history. But a majority of our citizens celebrate in ignorance. As a nation, the United States of America does not share a common memory, and therefore struggles to have true community.”

Mark tells the story of visiting a restaurant in Gallup, New Mexico, which has been called “the most Patriotic Small Town.” Gallup borders the Navaho Nation, and it’s where Mark grew up. In this particular restaurant, the Declaration of Independence hangs on the wall. Mark writes,

“When our server, who was also native, came to the table, I asked if I could show him something. I then stood up and pointed out that 30 lines below the famous quote “All men are created equal” the Declaration of Independence refers to Natives as “merciless Indian savages.”

This is something Mark talked a lot about in our conversation, about how most of us have not actually read the Declaration of Independence closely enough to notice that those words: “merciless Indian savages.” All of these years later, they’re still there. They’ve never been changed or taken out.

Mark writes,

“If the poster had labeled any other group of people as “savage”, or if the source of the words was anything else besides one of our country’s founding documents, the restaurant in question would have long ago been sued and the parties responsible for hanging the poster most likely disciplined.” 

“On July 4th the entire nation will celebrate the message of this poster and the signing of this Declaration. For we have declared it a national holiday complete with fireworks, parades and speeches. This is the dilemma that Native ‘Americans’ face every day. The foundations of the United States of America are blatantly unjust. This land was stolen. Native peoples, Africans and many other minority communities have long been recipients of systemic racism. And the roots of it are right there for the entire world to see, printed in many of our founding documents; like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and United States Supreme Court case rulings. We announce it. We flaunt it. We celebrate it.”

Mark goes onto say, “the reality is that the United States of America exists because this land was colonized by Europeans who used a Doctrine of Discovery to dehumanize, steal from, enslave and even commit cultural genocide against indigenous peoples from both the ‘New World’ and ‘Africa.”

Mark has written a lot about the Doctrine of Discovery. It’s something I’m still learning about, and it’s not easy to read about. The more I learn, the more I find myself agreeing with Mark. We need a common memory. We need to sit down and map out our family history as a country, and finally talk about all of those uncomfortable secrets, those patterns of pain that we’ll keep repeating if we can’t see them plainly.When Nate and I looked at our families all of those years ago, we thought we were doing okay. Sure, we had problems, but we wouldn’t trade our family for any other. 

When we began to understand how complex our combined histories were, it changed things. It was hard to learn those histories we’d never heard, to see plainly the pain that persisted. But ultimately, it made us feel closer to our families--even the family members we never knew. It gave us compassion for them, to know that their mistakes were part of a larger pattern. By then we’d made some of the same mistakes ourselves. It gave us a framework for breaking the pattern, for figuring out a way to do things for our children.

It’s the first first lesson we all learn when we go to counseling. To understand your present, you have to be willing to look at your past. Only when you can come to terms with the painful truths of your upbringing, and family history that predated you, can you learn to accept yourself and the mistakes you’ve made.

Mark says there’s a way to celebrate this holiday, that is sobering, but also much more hopeful. Because rather than pretending we don’t have a history to contend with, in looking back, we can create a common memory that gives us a foundation to move forward. Mark closes his story with these words:

“This Fourth of July, I invite every American to start their day by learning about the Doctrine of Discovery. Allowing the reality of the dehumanizing nature of this doctrine to temper your celebrations. You can still light your fireworks and eat your BBQ as you celebrate a hard fought victory over the British. But at the end of the day, I humbly ask you to conclude your celebrations with the following prayer:

“May God have mercy on the United States of America and give us the courage necessary to create a common memory.”

In my show notes for today, I’m including several resources for you to learn about the Doctrine of Discovery, including documentary videos and Unsettling Truths, the book Mark co-authored with Soong-Chan Rah.

My family and I will be grilling in the backyard tomorrow, but we’re also going to talk with our kids about our family history, to share with them how even as adults, we’re learning how to contend with that histor y. 

Before I go, I want to thank a few of our newest supporters of Shelter in Place.

Jenna Rentz, every now and then you have a moment in life when you understand harmony with another person. Singing with you over the years has given me that thrill over and over again, and being in community with you and listening to your brave, bold voice for justice has pushed me harmonize better in life, too. 

Nina LaCour, your artful approach to life is an inspiration: your writing, cooking, courage, and friendship, and courage have kept me going for more than fourteen years. You’ve championed my work even though you’ve witnessed my self-doubt almost as often as you’ve read my writing. Your faith in me is a deep comfort and an enduring gift. 

Robin Davis, our shared family history is one of your continued generosity, kindness, and gracious forgiveness of me again and again. Thank you for loving your daughter-in-law, who is stubborn and difficult far more often than she is pleasant, and for raising the man who loves me better than anyone else I’ve ever known.



Show notes: