Thursday 9 August 2018

"Beyonce's family tree reveals her great-great-great grandfather was a wealthy white merchant who married a slave in a 'love match'"

It doesn't take much imagination to re-write the Daily Mail's rehashed spin.

The whole thing is about how her black female ancestors were slaves bought and exploited by wicked white men.

For sure they were, but you might as well say that she is descended from wicked white men who forced themselves on female slaves.

Or, she might accept that whatever happened two centuries ago is pretty irrelevant to her.

For example, one of my grand-dads was a quartermaster in the British Army in India 'handing out underpants' as he liked to say; the other developed photographs for Luftwaffe reconnaissance on the Eastern Front. The bit I'm proud of is that neither fired a shot in anger, and my German grand-dad actually deserted a few days before the Russians overran them (a superbly brave thing to do in the circumstances, as the SS were routinely murdering deserters on the spot). But nobody should take the credit or the blame for what their ancestors did.

5 comments:

Dinero said...

The strictly correct syntax for the headline is - one of the great great great Grandmothers. - A person can have 16.
Also many descendants = average number of descendant children that reproduce per generation to the power of 5.

Sobers said...

Its just claiming a bit more victim status. Beyonce is black, so gets victim status points for that, plus is a woman so some more there. But she is incredibly wealthy and powerful as well, which negates a lot of the victim credit, so needs to up her account with a bit of ancestor victim claiming as well. A few slaves in the mix, with an obligatory rape in there and she's good to defend her massive fortune and status from the SJWs, were they to turn on her, as they will at some point, they always do.

Striebs said...

I doubt Obama's sincerity including whether he was really serious about expanding healthcare .

He certainly was not a man of the people or a champion of the downtrodden .

Anyway , it's hard to find anyone who is apparently so self obsessed with his ancestry and ashamed of the amount of white blood running through his veins that he has to change his name .

Watching early footage on youtube one is never sure whether he is just playing to the camera/audience or is authentically wrestling with issue .

Perhaps it's just another example of middle class self loathing ?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Din, excellent points.

S, yes of course, it's victimhoid poker.

Str, Obama was completely white, brought up by white grand parents and white mum who just once shagged an African while on holiday.

Bayard said...

"The bit I'm proud of is that neither fired a shot in anger"

Nor did one of my grandfathers, despite being on active service in the Navy throughout both world wars and at sea for all of WWI.