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Ben Affleck learns about the Streisand Effect the hard way

Michchamp

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 4, 2011
Messages
33,983
Now everyone knows he has a slave owning ancestor.

I actually saw the episodes on Anderson Cooper & Ken Burns. both of them accepted the news. It's certainly horrible news to learn (well, for most normal people, at least...), but I'm not sure how burying it helps race relations in any way, and who - other than the relatively small number of Americans that actually watch PBS instead of crappy sitcoms or police procedurals on CBS, NBC, ABC, etc. - would even find out, but for this?

I find Henry Louis Gates' excuse less than compelling, given the emails the sony hack revealed.
 
I am Polish and Irish; all of my ancestors arrived here after slavery has been abolished.

And they would have been too broke dick poor to have owned slaves anyway.

That said, why would anybody give a shit about something the great-great-grandfather done?

And asked for Anderson Cooper-didn't his fucking ancestor land on the shores of Pennsylvania on with her rafter or something, with $.14 or whatever to his name, And get off the raft and build railroads or some shit like that?

What the fuck was Cornelius Vanderbilt doing ever owning slaves?
 
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I am Polish and Irish; all of my ancestors arrived here after slavery has been abolished.

And they would have been too broke dick poor to have owned slaves anyway.

That said, why would anybody give a shit about something the great-great-grandfather done?

And asked for Anderson Cooper-didn't his fucking ancestor land on the shores of Pennsylvania on with her rafter or something, with $.14 or whatever to his name, And get off the raft and build railroads or some shit like that?

What the fuck was Cornelius Vanderbilt doing ever owning slaves?

I don't think it was a Vanderbilt; he had some southern family. If I recall correctly, in the show, his great great grandfather or whatever was actually murdered by one of his slaves for mistreating him, and in turn that slave was summarily executed by the local "law" enforcement. it was a pretty bloody history.
 
...

That said, why would anybody give a shit about something the great-great-grandfather done?

...

Well, out of curiousity, I'd love to see what some of my ancestors did for a living & were like as people.

I only know my family tree as far back as my great grandparents & only half of them were still alive when I was born.
 
I'm quite sure my ancestors were broke dick peasants for the most part.

Although when I took me mother to Ireland, we discovered my Irish Catholic grandfather-her dad-had served in the service of the United Kingdom (Briitish) military: he was from county Armagh (which is actually Britain) and the neighboring county Monohan (which is Ireland; just outside of Britain, yet still one of the three Ireland counties that are part of the nine counties of Ulster).

Who would've thunk?

But nevertheless I guess he did a guess.

My mother used to tell me that she used to like to brag to the other Irish Catholic bitches she went to Catholic school with in Bensonhurst (it's now New Utrecht) that she was an "Ulster girl."
 
I'm quite sure my ancestors were broke dick peasants for the most part.

Although when I took me mother to Ireland, we discovered my Irish Catholic grandfather-her dad-had served in the service of the United Kingdom (Briitish) military: he was from county Armagh (which is actually Britain) and the neighboring county Monohan (which is Ireland; just outside of Britain, yet still one of the three Ireland counties that are part of the nine counties of Ulster).

Who would've thunk?

But nevertheless I guess he did a guess.

My mother used to tell me that she used to like to brag to the other Irish Catholic bitches she went to Catholic school with in Bensonhurst (it's now New Utrecht) that she was an "Ulster girl."

man, those Irish are a volatile bunch!

It's kinda crazy, but for a 100% catholic family in Detroit, we have no Irish blood, direct or via marriage. No one I'm related to married any Irish catholics.
 
I only know my family history back as far as great-grandparents, and even then I don't have the full story of most of them. Supposedly my uncle did more digging on family history, but he never shared his research with anyone.

basically, both sides of my family (Italian/mostly Sicilian & Polish) came to the U.S. because of WWI. Some had been here shortly before that. My maternal grandfather's father was actually born in Hamtramck, went back to Poland to try to claim his family farm, but got the hell back to Hamtramck when the Russians came through in 1914.

They were all lower middle class (cobblers, shoemakers, farmers, street merchants, etc.) and uneducated. Exactly half of my great grandparents were still alive when I was born, but I don't know much about what they did in the U.S. prior to the 1930's when my grandparents could relate some stories.

I guess my paternal great-grandfather (i.e. I have his last name) fought for Italy against the Turks in 1911, then @ the outbreak of WWI, his family shipped him to NYC so he wouldn't have to fight again. he eventually ended up in Detroit; I have no idea what he did for a living, but he supposedly hated both America and Italy, and lived unhappily in Detroit until he died in the 50's, I guess.
 
That said, why would anybody give a shit about something the great-great-grandfather done?

Thanks to my grandmother's-great-grandfather (I think that's accurate), I'm eligible to be a Son of the American Revolution. On the one hand it is a birth-right, so it is kind of important to pass it along, so I guess I should care about that to some extent...but I have never registered. I guess I give a shit enough to pass the info on to my descendants, but that's about it. I think everyone who researches their lineage finds people who they feel were important in some fashion.

At a minimum, we obviously would not be here without them, so it is important to have some respect for what they did in life; however, if someone feels overly guilty because an ancestor was a slave owner, that person has some mental issues that need to be shared with a professional. Same would apply to someone who discovers an ancestor was a member of the SS at a death camp, or a Spanish inquisitor, or countless other bad character types in Earth's history.
 
Thanks to my grandmother's-great-grandfather (I think that's accurate), I'm eligible to be a Son of the American Revolution. On the one hand it is a birth-right, so it is kind of important to pass it along, so I guess I should care about that to some extent...but I have never registered. I guess I give a shit enough to pass the info on to my descendants, but that's about it. I think everyone who researches their lineage finds people who they feel were important in some fashion.
...

that's pretty cool.

I've always wondered whether I have any notable ancestors, although, given that both sides of my family came from what at the time were some of the most conquered, poor, & fought over parts of Europe, and were impoverished enough that moving to a new continent without much more than the clothes on their backs was a viable economic option for them... it's unlikely.
 
that's pretty cool.

I've always wondered whether I have any notable ancestors, although, given that both sides of my family came from what at the time were some of the most conquered, poor, & fought over parts of Europe, and were impoverished enough that moving to a new continent without much more than the clothes on their backs was a viable economic option for them... it's unlikely.

My parents divorced when I was 3 and I didn't even know about this history until my 30s. From what I understand he was a Colonel under Washington. When Jefferson was President, he was granted a deed of land that was signed by Jefferson. The house he built still stands and I visited it. The deed hangs on the wall, got a photo of it among others. But for me the real connection is my grandmother was born and grew up there.

While that's pretty cool, I don't have any ownership in the house or anything so while I can acknowledge what he did, I don't feel like I'm better because of it, just like I wouldn't feel worse if I had an ancestral slave owner. It was his life, and I wouldn't be here without him, but I have to live my life with no attachment to his.
 
Oh, the one thing about the house I really enjoyed experiencing, the beds don't have box springs, they have ropes across under the mattress. Before going to bed, they would use a crank to make the ropes more taught, and this is where the phrase "Good Night, Sleep Tight" comes from. I enjoyed learning that, and figured others reading this thread might find it interesting too, so wanted to share.
 
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