We’re Adding New Categories!

Hi familia!

Several of you expressed your thoughts and feelings to me since I wrote that mini-documentary in response to the George Zimmerman verdict a few weeks ago. Some of you already wrote commentaries for Crossdiggers that I can’t wait to post in upcoming days and weeks.

All this buzz got me to thinking. Why not add a category designated for stories, commentaries and opinions about culture and social issues?

As soon as the light bulb blinked on in my head, I realized that among all the family/genealogy blogs I’ve read since managing Crossdiggers, none seem to delve head-on into those sticky, raw, in-your-face kitchen table discussions that are relevant to their unique families.

We Cross-Marrows don’t shy away from controversy (or a good fight). It’s in our blood. Our great-great (great-great) Grandmother Eliza Gilbert Cross, wife of Amos, confronted racism by joining a petition for Black Suffrage in mid-19^th century Connecticut.  Besides being a teaching missionary for newly emancipated slaves in North Carolina, our beloved Samuel Cross later became a clerk for a black Newspaper in South Carolina in the late 1800s. Betcha didn’t know that, did ya?

Since then, generations of us have been involved, in some way or other, in social justice issues. So, why hold back?

Crossdiggers is for everyone!

See, when I woke up one morning a little over a year ago and saw the vision of this blog – including its layout and content  -- I saw an online repository of family genealogy, history, profiles, pictures, movies, stories and anecdotes, not just an online family reunion. I figured the family facebook pages serve best as online reunions.

This is different. Besides being an online Cross-Marrow history book, it’s a gallery and a place for each member from each branch to showcase your loved ones, memories, points of view and, most of all, your voices. I envisioned that anyone and everyone could post articles and pictures relevant to us as a family and part of several larger communities.  

Just in case many of you haven’t read the “About” page, here’s the updated list of categories for Crossdiggers:

• Family History and Genealogy. Family history, research and the genealogy process.
• Historical Analysis. History and historical analysis. 
• Guest Posts. Expert articles on American, African-American and Native American  issues and history.
• Profiles.  Biographies of ancestors and living family members. 
• The View from Here. Young adult forum on family issues. 
• Gush Series: Full of Family Feelings.  Family anecdotes, stories, myths, legends and heart-felt Hallmark gushings. 
• Culture.  Cultural analysis (with a little anthropology … yum!) 
• Social Issues. Discussion of relevant societal issues and trends. 
• Opinion/Commentary. Personal opinion and commentary (within reason). 
• Family Secrets. Recipes and how-to’s passed down through the generations

 So, have at it. Write it and send it to me at crossdiggers@gmail.com. Give me a heads-up on Facebook. Looking forward to seeing your byline!!

--SDSC

Elisia Speaks: 'So Very Proud!'

Elisa Black is daughter of Duboise and Jeannett Ball, granddaughter of Elnora Cross Bullock and EVERYBODY's favorite cousin!

Vincent (Vinnie) A. Corpening, 24

At some point, when I was not paying attention, my nephew Vinnie went from a scrawny, little awkward boy to a tall, gorgeous young man with a fantastic job that sustains him.

Vinnie and fiance Arielle Miller, 24

  

In just a few months, he will take a perfectly-suited women, Arielle, to be his bride. I will be there to share in this special moment. I’m so very proud!

Chelsea R. Corpening, 23

My niece Chelsea is a force of nature. She walks in a room and exudes a confidence and warmth only matched by the likes of her mother (Sharon Corpening) and grandmother (Eleanor Shelton).   

She’s sassy with curves that she knows how to work (work it girl!). It’s the kind of strut that makes skinny bitches want to eat a biscuit. I’m so very proud!

 

Jennifer (Jenny) Bachan, daughter of Marsha & James Elliott

The fact that my niece Jenny answers to me when I call her “Jen-a-mack-fur,” although she stands at almost six feet tall, pretty much says it all. With a really dry sense of humor and a high powered sense of style that you only obtain from living in a metropolitan city, she is one in a million. 

Jenny,27, and husband Mike Bachan,27

She married a wonderful man who seems, from all accounts, to be her best friend. With a strong work ethic, she has risen to a management position and, once again, I’m so very proud!

Ivana (Ivy) Elliott, 24, middle Elliott

Ivy is as sweet inside as she is pretty outside. The beauty of Ivy is that her beauty isn't of much importance to her but her deeds certainly are. She -- like Chelsea, Sharon C, Aunt El and Aunt Henrietta -- is a natural nurturer. Her July 4^th cakes are legendary and she has met a wonderful man that loves her and he better marry her soon. (YEAH I SAID IT DAN!!) She also will follow a family tradition by beginning her professional career in teaching this summer. I’m so very proud!

James Elliott, Jr., 22, youngest Elliott

James,Jr. is the not the spoiled, entitled young man you would expect being the youngest boy of an established family. Not my nephew! He is one of the most socially conscious young men I know. 

He has a passion for hip hop and writing and, now “Love and Hip Hop” (don’t  judge him, I watch it too). He is opinionated as all get out (a family trait) and, now that he has graduated from the University of Chicago and returned to New York, I’m excited to see what he will do next. I’m so very proud!

Sorry, Sharon. I know this is a blog not a book but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my sister Marsha Elliott, her hubby James, Sr., and my cousin Sharon C. Ladies and gentleman you did it, you raised wonderful Black men not the stereotype of our black men and confident strong women. Please take a bow!!

You, too, Lisa! 

Lisa's son, Erik (Scoop) Smith, Jr. (alias, EJ), 28, was recently discharged from active duty in the U.S. Air Force and is now a service engineer for Mazak Corporation in Dallas, TX. He's married to Tiffany and is the courageous father of two boys, Erik, Jr. and Major.

He and his cousins -- including Morgan Miller, Ashon Miller, Ashley Young, Vicky Miller, Taylor Shelton, Erik Shelton, Jr., Sean Shelton, Ella Shelton, Iyana Ball, Mark and Jerrell Ball  -- are, collectively, the reason all our generation of Cross-Bullocks are so very proud!  

2013 Cross-Bullock Family Reunion in Virginia Beach

My cousin, Mark Ball, son of Dubois and Jeannette Bullock Ball hosted the first ever Cross-Bullock family reunion in Virginia Beach for the July 4th holiday this year. It's the first time all the grandchildren and great-grand children have been together since our beloved Aunt Jeannette went to be with the Lord in 2001. Until then, she hosted our family get-togethers every Fourth of July. This year, Mark and his wife, Tracy, carried on the tradition. The long-awaited event was graced by Aunt Lillian Bullock Miller, Elnora Cross Bullock's daughter, Camillia Turner, granddaughter of Henrietta Cross Hatton Clark, and Nat and Anne Miller. 

We're all offspring -- children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren -- of Herman Bullock and Elnora Cross Bullock, eldest daughter of Anderson Cross and Harriet Terry Cross. Not all of us could make it, but we were nosy enough to bug everybody for blow-by-blows!

Photo collage by Chelsea R. Corpening

Why Whites Can't See

By most accounts, Trayvon Martin was no saint. In the past 18 months we’ve learned he got into more than a few brawls during his brief lifetime. Trial coverage revealed he had THC – the chemical compound found in marijuana – in his system when he died.

Martin wasn’t a graduating merit scholar or high achieving student headed toward a career in biophysics that was cut down before he could join the ranks of the American professional class. If his parents’ public pleas for justice are an indication, he probably didn’t speak English with the preferred neutral voice – devoid of any accent or tell-tale twang associated with "Black English."

Therefore, Martin wasn’t – by some White societal standards – typical. He was, through many White lenses, stereotypical. He embodied the well-known caricature of a young Black “buck”: wild-eyed, unpredictable, opportunistic, prone to random violence and theft, sneaky and lawless. In the eyes of some, he held a social and moral status that wasn’t much higher than that of vermin. So, for some people in this country, he justifiably earned his death sentence. And, the rest of us – especially our men and boys -- bear yet another burden by association.

So, it didn’t matter that 17 year-old Martin was walking home through his father’s neighborhood, unarmed and with a pocket full of ice tea and skittles. It didn’t matter that George Zimmerman, an armed volunteer neighborhood watchman, approached the teen after local police told him not to. What mattered is that, in the eyes of a portion of our nation, he was guilty – like so many of us are – of being a stereotype.

Prejudice is a human trait?

Minorities in America, Europe and Latin America have pleaded with the White majority to see something so obvious to everybody but them. Something embedded within their culture or nature, perhaps, triggers a thalamic response against all others that don’t look like them.

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Just about every other race, culture and ethnicity in this world has been a victim of this unnamed and unidentified trait. Nazi Germany revealed how destructive that trait is if unchecked, unmonitored and unbalanced. Because of it, some non-White peoples – such as some Native American tribes – have been decimated to near extinction.

It’s not that just about all cultures haven’t historically demonstrated genocide, racial and ethnic bias and exclusion. Many Asian cultures are notorious for it. And, despite Arab Muslim arguments against prevailing racism in the West, they have a long history of enslaving Black Africans. African-Americans have been particularly brazen in their backlash against White people in recent years, although we tend to justify it as anger for years of oppression and exclusion. In my opinion, such blind rage leads to killing a canary with a cannon, thus unnecessarily wounding the innocent.

"Young Lady With Reflection" by adamr

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Two years ago, Belgian researchers, Arne Roets and Alain Van Heil, concluded that prejudice results from a human psychological need to simplify an overwhelmingly complicated world.  According to the Psychological Science. org press release, “People who are prejudiced feel a much stronger need to make quick and firm judgments and decisions in order to reduce ambiguity.”

So, I’m not arguing that racial bias is an exclusively European trait. Many studies have proven that people gravitate toward their own cultural or social groups. Seems we humans like to see ourselves reflected in others' faces.

While I take issue with that way of thinking, I can understand and accept the premise. But when bias goes one step further and devalues people’s lives – thus justifying killing them on the basis of their difference -- then that’s something else entirely.

My question is, where does it come from?

No empathy for dark skin

While researchers around the world have studied the perplexing issue of race and racism for decades, two social neuroscientists at the University of Toronto unveiled something I find a bit disturbing. In a study of White participants, they discovered a difference in brain activity when observing people of different races, Science Daily reported in 2010.

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While hooked up to EEG (electroencephalogram) monitors, participants watched videos wherein men of a variety of races – White, Black, South Asian and East Asian – simply sipped a glass of water. The article reports that most people – when observing someone else doing the same task – experience the same involuntary muscle movements as if they are doing it, too. It’s an indication of the motor cortex, the part of the brain that coordinates visual and motor function.  We humans are wired to respond empathetically to someone else’s movement at a subconscious level.

But, when participants observed minorities doing the same task, their brains barely fired an empathetic muscular reaction whereas they fired normally when watching someone of their own race.

According to researcher Jennifer Gutsell: “Previous research shows people are less likely to feel connected to people outside their own ethnic groups, and we wanted to know why. What we found is that there is a basic difference in the way peoples' brains react to those from other ethnic backgrounds. Observing someone of a different race produced significantly less motor-cortex activity than observing a person of one's own race. In other words, people were less likely to mentally simulate the actions of other-race than same-race people."

The response revealed a lack of human connection and empathy for people of other races at a neurological level.  Science Daily reported that researchers pre-tested participants for subtle racism and those who scored high showed even more pronounced disassociation.

"The so-called mirror-neuron-system is thought to be an important building block for empathy by allowing people to 'mirror' other people's actions and emotions; our research indicates that this basic building block is less reactive to people who belong to a different race than you," Science Daily quoted  research team member, Assistant Professor Dr. Michael Inzlicht.

Hope lies in connection

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Researchers of social psychology and race have all discovered one simple fact: when people have first-hand positive experiences with someone of a different race, they tend to see them as a part of their group. They no longer associate them as the “other.” All of us who dearly love our non-Black family and friends know that phenomenon well. It’s a strange thing. Our friends become our family when we see them from the heart. The superficial dividing differences seem to disappear. We just don’t make those connections often enough. Maybe it’s time to come out our comfort zone, resist the familiar and offer friendships with others unlike ourselves for our own sakes as well as theirs.

So, while science has proven prejudice exists on a neurological level, it has also revealed circumstances when there’s an absence of prejudice. It’s no mystery. We humans are proven capable of judging and treating each other as Martin Luther King predicted: “not by the color of our skins but by the content of our characters.” All our lives depend on it.

Sources:

“Research States That Prejudice Comes From a Basic Human Need and Way of Thinking,” Association for Psychological Science.  http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/research-states-that-prejudice-comes-from-a-basic-human-need-and-way-of-thinking.html

“Human Brain Recognizes and Reacts to Race,” Science Daily http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100426113108.htm

https://ose.utsc.utoronto.ca/ose/story.php?id=2135