The show, , hosted by Harvard professor Louis Henry Gates, Jr is billed as "a journey back in time, examining [their] roots using genealogy and family histories." Guests, that is family tree forangers, in the 10-part series, include Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick, Jr, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Condoliza Rice, Samuel L. Jackson, Barbara Walters, Robert Downey, jr. Sanjay Gupta Rabbi Angela Buchdhl. and, Springfield, Ohio's own John Legend.
A couple of days ago Politico ran a feature on Finding Your Roots which included a quote from Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker, another "guest:"
People can try to pervert the truth of other people’s past and twist it for their own petty, political benefit, and that’s always going to be a concern and a risk,” Booker said. “But I think, ultimately, by revealing the majesty of each other’s histories … you see how connected we all are.
Booker is obviously referring to race and rightly so. Forgetting the current birther movement for a minute, changing people's histories to serve political ends is hardly anything new in the US. One of the easiest ways to change history (outside of re-writing history books like they do in Texas) is manipulation of birth certificate information.. Less than 100 years ago, for instance, the racial designation of thousands of Virginians, for reasons of race and eugenics, was changed on birth certificates, I wrote about this here.
The largest class of people though, whose official government birth documents have been tampered with to change history are adoptees. Not only are the birth names of adoptees and those who give birth to them removed from birth certificates and replacead with new names when an adoption takes place, but in some states (fortunately not Ohio) the date and even place of birth is hanged.; thus, legally erasing any trace of our original selves and replacing us with new state-created identities.
While politicians and policy makers can look at what happenead in Virginia with disgust and horror today, the fact that 6 million adoptptees have had their own names and histories erased and replaced with state-created constructed idetities and lies, doesn't phrase them That's different. We're different.
It wil be interesting to see who is the coprorate sponsor of Finding Your Roots. Who Do You Think You Are? is clearly an hour-long infomercial for ancestry.com. ancestry.com is part of the Mormon conglomoraote which includdes L-d-S Social Services, one of the biggest and more influential loggies i nthe US to keep original birth certificaes sealed.
Unfortunately no adoptees, (that we know of), get a free search and reunion or a platform to discuss sealed records.
No comments:
Post a Comment