[I]n 1860, to take a single year, various Baynards believed that they owned 781 people, while the Woodses — from whom I’m directly descended — claimed possession of 23 more....
Since before Reconstruction, Black Americans have thrown off “slave names,” but I had never read or heard about White people addressing our enslaver names....
I quickly realized that, though I could no longer bear my name — which I share with my Trump-supporting father, who died last year — I could not change it either. To change it would only continue the coverup that kept me from recognizing its reality. And any name I chose would probably be just as fraught as my own....
Seeking some way to acknowledge the past embedded in my name without continuing to honor it, I recalled the philosophical strategy of putting a word “under erasure.” It was a technique popularized by the French deconstructionist Jacques Derrida, who argued that certain words contain their own negation, which he signified by crossing them out. Such words, he suggested, are unavoidable tools for speaking and thinking, but they are also inadequate. As such, they had to be eliminated while also remaining legible....
I’m aware that such a gesture could be empty and even harmful, especially if followed too fervently. It could serve to make me feel better while adding extra work for someone else trying to figure out how to deal with the practical issues surrounding this idiosyncratic byline.
Absurdly, the name isn't crossed out as it sits atop this column.
This publication, for instance, doesn’t allow a strike-through command in the byline field. But when I am in control and when it is my choice, as on the cover of my new book, I choose to cross it out as a reminder of the white supremacy we still need to undo.
He has a new book — "Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness" — and he's publicizing it via WaPo, even though WaPo won't cross out his name and crossing out his name is his whole point.
The commenters over there are making fun of him.
Posts
62 comments:
On one hand he should rightly be ridiculed; but on the other, it’s too easy.
(Are we sure it’s not the Bee?)
I got Noah Rothman's The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives' War on Fun from Amazon today. About halfway through. This is just so on the nose.
Rothman's book is quite good btw. It's well researched and very even handed.
Jesus, pal. Go buy a dress.
My O forebears got to North America in 1634, landing in the Virginia colonies. They slowly moved west through the deep south over the next centuries, fighting in Alabama regiments in the Civil War and then right after moving to Texas, until my great-grandfather came to Southern California in the early 20th century, riding the rails to get here, with no family support at all, working on building piers along the coast and then farming in Venice.
The O's were slaveowners, in doing my genealogy I found pictures of receipts of slaves bought and sold. From what I learned from my father, my 3x grandfather was not a very good man, not a criminal, just kind of mean. His wife was a swearing, tobacco chewing, bitter woman, who moved to California when she became a widow.
I carry that history, with it's positives (that I didn't mention) and its negatives, which are highlighted in the article. Rather than some meaningless gesture (since few would know the meaning just by looking), my approach throughout is to be someone who helps empower and encourage others, taking the Christian path seriously as redemptive, both in my story and past and future.
My great-grandfather didn't seem to have any racism in him, and I suspect he came West to get an entirely new start. He farmed the fields of Japanese neighbors when they were put in camps during WW2, paying their bills so they wouldn't lose their farms. They had great land, which establishment politicians knew and wanted, good Christians of that time didn't let the land go to new owners for cheap prices.
The past is the past, something who forms us and for the rare few, something that funds us. Neither I nor my parents got any kind of inheritance, so there's no profit from the past. Just a kind of cool last name, and a strong work ethic and commitment to helping those around. I take that and make it my own, contributing to the calling and training that includes many descendants of slavery.
It's up to me to make the name what it is for my generation. My son will do so for his. To say that we have to reject the name we have because of our ancestors is simply moral cowardice and bloviating passivity.
Take the name, make it good, if you feel guilty about family wealth from tragic eras, sell all you have and give it to those in need. Empty gestures like the author's are just a way to virtue signal without actually doing or living in ways that are truly transformative, redemptive, and reconciling to self and others.
The Post closed the comments after only 7.
Isn't Guiltguy centering his white male (and possibly cisgender heterosexual) point of view, instead of stepping out of the spotlight -- Washington Post column! -- and letting a Person of Intersectionality promote their memoir?
"I could no longer bear my name — which I share with my Trump-supporting father"
Unbearable. Worse than the link with "enslavers." Why does a person so burdened go on living?
As Joanne says, comments closed after only 7. As Althouse said, they were having fun in the comments. Can't have fun in the WaPo.
’And any name I chose would probably be just as fraught as my own...’
I fart in Baynard’s general direction.
My wife and I both have ancestors who fought and died to free slaves during the Civil War.
Do we get to underline our last name?
We have finally gotten safely away from the Civil War so far that idiots like this have no fear of being disowned or disinherited by the senior members of their families who actually knew the people that are being written out the story. This never would have happened fifty years ago. Everyone who really cared is now dead. This is stupid virtue signalling. If you want to read someone who confronted this in all its complexity, read William Faulkner.
There are lessons to be learned from the past. It is a mistake to attempt to erase it. As Faulkner said, the past is not dead. It's not even past.
This guy is totaled fucked in the head. I shouldn’t write this, but he could solve his problem by killing himself; not that I am suggesting that.
If he was white and poor this would not be on his radar. If he wants to, he can trade places with on of DC's poor black families and cover their freight. He can then kvell in his virtue. People like this almost want to make a Communist just to punish them for their virtual preening nonsense.
Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color bloc)-naming and shaming.
He should have changed his name to Bayard Rustin, Jr., and put stars around it.
Oh Lord, when is it enough to wash this sin from our souls?
We have abandoned Aunt Jemima. We have rid ourselves of the Land O' Lakes Indian. We have painted BLM on countless plywood sheets. And now, now, comes this courageous sinner willing to literally cross his name from the roll of sinners.
I shall make a burnt offering tonight if it be your pleasure.
I'm thinking Baby Back Ribs....
The commenters over there are making fun of him.
As they should. I have relatives who think anyone German should be ashamed of their ancestors because they are associated with Nazis. Doesn't matter if they came over here in the 18th century--they're still German and guilty by association. That's also ridiculous.
Its fairly straightforward from here:
1) Surrender all possessions to various local blacks
2) Beg forgiveness from all established leftist black organizations
3) End your life (preferably prior to producing progeny)
4) Hillary becomes President!
5) "Problem" "solved"
Oh, my. I simply wrap my fragile and feable mind around his story. But, I do feel his pain. I hear tell my 5x grandfather was a vicious human being, reportedly tipping windmills as dragons. The shame. I must erase my name!
jvb
Comments closed. The libs who run the WaPo can’t bear when a lib is criticized.
Christ, what a self absorbed jackass.
The commenters over there are making fun of him
As well they should. Holding his name responsible for the fact that his ancestors were successful in their community has got to be a new level of stupid poseur.
Like the woman who wrote an article in the Toronto Star about how she wouldn't call her husband "husband," people try to climb onto whatever bandwagon they think will get them their 15 minutes. Each stance a little dumber than the last. At its most basic level, they're not far removed from the teens planking in weird locations or doing the TidePod challenge. They just want to feel included.
Paddy O, or you could recognize it as the unimportant curiosity that it is and live your life.
We are all descended from slaves and slavers, rapists and rape victims, saints and monsters, kings and paupers. All of us. No exceptions. Just because you know about the darker side of your relatively recent family history doesn't say a thing about you or your name.
Just to be Clear, we're damning the child for the sins of the parents? Just Checking.
So, IF there was this kid, whose dad was a incestuous crack addicted grifter, that was working for the communist chinese...
A kid whose grandfather was a demented, sex assaulting, child smelling, chain wielding plagiarist; that was Destroying the USA...
Then, we should take it out, on the little kid? I think NOT.
i'm NOT just saying that because his mother is a pole dancing stripper; I'm saying that because we shouldn't
performative 'suicide'
The battle for virtue signal supremacy continues apace.
My family history includes slave owners, slave traders, and confederate officers: Union officers, WW1 heroes, WW2 heroes, Korean War heroes, and Vietnam heroes; vagabonds, ruffians, two internationally renowned physicians - and grinding poverty within living memory. I am none of those, but I am the product of them all. I can no more claim credit for discovering the vectors for two global plagues than I can accept blame for a deadly race riot or an aborted attempt to transport slaves to Galveston near the end of the civil war. But I won’t deny or abnegate any of them.
The author of the referenced piece is merely a flagellant - an irrational narcissist, deserving nothing but contempt.
This poor schmo is letting the past define who he is today. Never a good idea.
It looks like he already changed his name once. His father was John Baynard Woods Sr. That must make him John Baynard Woods Jr. So he dropped his first name to keep the two slaveowner names, but now he doesn't like what he decided.
My suggestion: Keep the John and let an "X" cancel out the two slaveowner names and represent your lost innocent identity. So -- John X. Alternatively, keep your name but identify it with a Baynard and a Woods who weren't slaveowners.
Or just accept that it's an imperfect world and if you go back far enough in your ancestry something will make you feel guilty, ashamed, or embarrassed. Your name is what you make of it.
I'm with Paddy O. There's so many things wrong right now that there's plenty to work right here and now on in place of talking about the what someone did wrong in the past.
You don't get any particular credit if your ancestors fought on the Union side. You shouldn't get any particular credit if they fought on the Confederate side.....He's going pretty far out of his way to feel superior to white supremacists. Chip off the old block. Superior white people. Always treated the darkies well. Not like those white trash underlings who never showed proper respect for breeding and refinement back in the old days.
My mother's mother's father, my namesake, signed up with Wilson's 16/21 Tennessee Cavalry Ragiment (CSA) in 1863, as a 17 year old, along with his little brother. They were paroled in Alabama in 1865 from Forrest's command. Another ancestor went along with his Secesh kids and was a lt. in the infantry at Shiloh, after which he resigned. Some of them died in Georgia, fighting around Atlanta.
I don't know whether my Confederate ancestors owned or craved slaves (I'll find out soon probably) but either way I like my names and will keep them.
(Narr is a nom de net only and is not found in my family trees that I know of.)
And any name I chose would probably be just as fraught as my own....
Which just goes to show the whole concept is pure bullshit. Dude, you're not crossing out your name, you're highlighting it.
If you feel like you have something to make up for, then go do something to make up for it. Do good for people, but do it privately, anonymously and don't brag about it.
This crossing out while not crossing out your name does absolutely nothing for anyone but you. It's wanking.
The notion that we can inherit sin is interesting. I think a whole new pagan religion is emerging from the atheism of the late 20th early 21st century.
You are not your ancestors. Mine were Portuguese, which means they were probably Celtic, Norse, Latin (damn Legionnaires), and anything else that washed up on the Iberian shores. I'm not about to take responsibility for the actions of such people.
None of us came from saints. No people or culture made it through history without blood on their hands. Let's stop pretending that the non-Western world was working from a place of moral superiority.
Here's a bit of trivia.
What current VIP is descended from slave owners?
Yep, that's right. The soon-to-be President Harris.
A society that either fails to recognize or coddles performative mental illness like this is... well, it's something.
What about free ex-slaves that owned slaves?
That would be inconvenient...
Paddy O - right on.
Baynard Woods is a loathsome drama queen looking to cash in on his ancestry in the most contemptible manner imaginable. Fuck him, even hereditary monarchs have taken a coronation oath since the dawn of Christendom.
Quaestor is honor bound to call maximum bullshit on Missy Woods. If he/she/it is truly conscience-ridden over his/her/its ancestry the only sincere expiation is a 9mm hollow-point fired through the roof of the mouth.
Why stop at American slavery? Who knows what asshole relatives you had in medieval Europe? You're probably even related to some jerk caveman who clubbed someone over the head. Way back you might even be related to a selfish amoeba that engulfed another amoeba. What a line of lowlifes!
Only those who are related exclusively to people who, from the beginning of time, behaved acceptably by today's standards should have names.
Joe Smith writes, "What about free ex-slaves that owned slaves?"
An un-Hollywood study of Unites States vs. The Amistad is enlightening. African slavery in the New World would not have existed if it were not for African greed for European manfactures, chiefly muskets and bayonets.
PS. A little pronoun advice, slaves and former slaves are persons deserving of who rather than that.
Joe Smith writes, "What about free ex-slaves that owned slaves?"
An un-Hollywood study of Unites States vs. The Amistad is enlightening. African slavery in the New World would not have existed if it were not for African greed for European manfactures, chiefly muskets and bayonets.
PS. A little pronoun advice, slaves and former slaves are persons deserving of who rather than that.
One hopes this is some brilliant parody because if it isn't, he might well be the biggest dumbass on the planet.
However, if he wants to walk the walk, he should give all his money and property away to the descendents of his ancestors' slaves. I suspect he would do no such thing.
We're supposed to move on from the voting irregularities in last election two years ago because that's history now but continue to obsess over the effects of slavery, which ended around 175 years ago? Is that about right?
What current VIP is descended from slave owners?
Obama, too, from Kenya proper, Britain colonial, and state-side. We are well represented by privilege.
Keep this in mind:
All of his friends and acquaintances likely think him brave, selfless, and properly representing the ideal New Man.
They're called Democrats. They represent the beginning of the end of western civ.
ha ha ha
The Washington Post is a Confederate monument too!
One day they will say, "Oh shit! Look at the name of our city!"
It's going to be an unhappy day when he looks at his money.
"Oh shit! They paid me in slave-owner money!"
What you should do, obviously, is give it away.
I will take Washingtons, but I hear Jackson was worse.
Come on, give me your slave-owner money. You'll feel so much better!
Also, I have some freedom-fighter money. So if you happen to have a Madison ($5,000 bill, no longer in circulation), I will trade you 10 Benjamin Franklins and, I am not kidding, an Abraham Lincoln.
Dr. Seuss wrote the definitive account of race, and race hucksters.
So if you need a new name, pilgrim, I would suggest Sylvester McMonkey McBean.
The past is an interesting place to visit. Some unfortunate people insist on living there.
When I saw the headline of this post, I thought someone was making a joke.
I guess I should have known better.
I was at Hilton Head last week and saw a sign indicating something called "The Baynard Ruins" on a walking path. Didn't see any ruins so I went back to the house and looked it up. Sure enough, a mile or so away was a mostly destroyed home from the 1800's and a few foundations of what used to be slave quarters. The "concrete" they used to build them was called "tabby", and consisted of 90% oyster shells (I guess in place of gravel). Took a nice walk around the grounds, hard to imagine the lives they led in contrast to today.
He needs to end the complete bloodline of his family. It’s truly the only intellectually honest thing to do.
I don't much like some of my living relatives. I don't have the energy to hate dead ones.
He could just delete the 'n' and reimagine himself named after the great Bayard Rustin.
Good Teacher, what shall I do so that I may inherit eternal life?” But Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not give false testimony, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to Him, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth.” Looking at him, Jesus showed love to him and said to him, “One thing you lack: from now on sign your name with a line drawn through your surname, as a sign of repentance and contrition over deeds done by other people a century before even your Trump loving father was born.” Now he was overjoyed by these words, and he went away rejoicing; for he was one who was more than happy to make a meaningless gesture in order to avoid actually having to help the less fortunate by selling all he has and giving it to the poor.
Mark 10, reimagined.
"Tabby" was used in the construction of some of the finest homes in Savannah GA, and I suppose all along the coast.
There were some pretty dastardly Nazi bigwigs who shared my surname, and may well have been related to me in some degree for all I know, but my father (son of German immigrants) got shot at while doing his part to defeat them.
What Mason G said.
Confederate monuments are being maintained by the US government in the multiple national military parks. Need to get rid of these eyesores, which would likely offend someone. The parks can allow Union monuments to remain.
Perhaps that would solve this fellow's problem
Don't give them any ideas, Spaceman.
St. Hairshirt.
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