"Your great-great grandfather was a Jew from Israel. He emigrated to Pickens, Mississippi, in the [late 1830's] & he married a Choctaw woman -- a Choctaw-Indian woman." (Late) Artee Fleming, retired attorney-at-law, July 1967, Chicago, IL.

Granddad Fleming narrated to me much of the family history during that summer, in an attempt to help me understand why [the Flemings & Turners] all looked (and acted) so differently (he looked Semitic-Caucasian) and that not all of it, especially the first North American generation of his family, had occurred through kidnapping and rape or/and incest. My grandfather explained, too, that his choice to remain affiliated with other ["Moxhaccine"] and African-Americans had been both "politically" and ethically-based.

It took at least another 20 years (and marriage to a Caucasian Canadian Celtic-Bavarian "throwback") to realize probably I, too, am a genetic "throw-back". There were and are sound reasons that, even during my earliest years, I self-identified as tan and "[mixed-race]".

My mother's family was primarily Cherokee/Choctaw and European. My father's family was primarily black African, mixed with Muskogee/Seminole, Cherokee, and Blackfoot; I represent the 5th generation of " 'brown, tan, & pink' multiracials". Mother's maternal grandfather was a redhaired Barcelonan. Mother, very Indigenous-American/"Meztisa" in appearance, had 2 red-haired and 1 blonde Caucasian-looking sisters, and 2 others of Mediterranean/Cuban appearance (all six from the same two parents!).

Mother told me she had pleaded with Granddad Fleming (her father) not to tell me. She said she and my father decided to raise me & my sister (whom I will call "Farlea") as African-Americans so that we would not "grow up 'confused' ". However, like many ambitious (very) dark-brown Afro-North American males, Father had married a woman whose appearance was as close as possible to the (blonde European) Denzel Washington’s (Army Master Sergeant) character married in the [1980’s] film "Distance", while remaining hazel-eyed and Meztisa/Eurasian in appearance.

Simply, had my sister and I been told at the beginning, that while most of our ancestors were a combination of [Aboriginal] Americans, enslaved Africans, European and Jewish immigrants or refugees (and a Caucasian slaveholder or 2), that in the [USA] all [Aboriginal] Americans left alive were confined to reservations (or threatened with "scalping"), that anyone having an Oriental ancestor was allowed to reside only in "Chinatown" or [an internment camp], Jews were tolerated (only) because Jesus ("born a Jew") was "saved" due to "Christianization" and, anyone suspected of having an African ancestor, unless she or he acknowledged the [inherent] "[burden of sin]" by "submitting" to others’ false and ignorant [labeling], e.g.. "mulatto/quad/ octo/ colored (negro=black)" could be persecuted at will (and still "Cain-marked" for target practice -- "submissive", "pseudo-rebellious" or otherwise) -- it would have been much less "confusing" for both of us!!!

I hardly blame Christianity (or any of the planet’s seven major religions); their stories and interpretations were developed by homosapiens. Only enlightened human beings can solve the problems religions have been used to invent.

On Sept. 11 ’01 at 10:59 PM, I thought, "Blind-Obedience, the extreme opposite of Blind-Justice is exactly the same all over the world and throughout history." I recalled the words of the "North of 60" Grandmother Sawchi character: "People have small minds and short memories." North of 60" (A-Channel, Mon., Aug. 13 ’01, 1-1:30pm ).

It sums up much of my life, most of which was spent either proactively protecting myself (or otherwise "recovering") from the evils of systemic sexism and racism, acted out both covertly in most instances, and more overtly by "blacks" since "blacks" (and "browns" of various hues) inhabited much of my childhood/adolescent sphere. When, by behavior or word, I failed sufficiently to imitate "black" "negro" "colored" "good (or ‘bad’ ‘yellow-skinned’) nigra" female= ("gansta-gal"/donkey-domestic /breeding-machine/ "exotica" /second-class or lower-than ) it was made clear I would be punished. Whether this was to be by verbal slurs, emotional-mental abuses, razor-strappings, ruler-whackings, backhandings, rapes, other tortures/ violations, subsequent murder, or enforced-ghettoization (residentially or socio-economically) would be simply "[my own fault]". Having lived north of Canada’s border over 30 years simply has meant I experience these systemic enforcings more "covertly".

Especially in certain unnamable regions, as much as possible, the intent is to keep women "anti" or at least non-intellectually socialized, shackled to "hands, hips, . . . babies" mentalities. Hence the popular proliferation of so-called "earth-centered" and "evangelist -fundamentalist" [doctrines], as well as fascist- oriented pseudo-theologies, e.g. "your soul chose this [existence]"[!?]. That homosapiens can only regress under these conditions (vs. actually progress) never has been important to the "regressive" members of the "ruling elite". The ways in which females as a group have been manipulated and/or dominated for the purpose of expanding various forms of slavery is evident when history, economics and anthropology are studied accurately (Gwyn Dyer and I are on some of the same pages, at least).

As a descendant of Cherokee-Choctaw, Muskogee/Seminole, and of Blackfoot who appreciates many elements of aboriginal spirituality, still I reject blind obedience to beliefs or practices of any kind (e.g.. "human sacrifice", once also practiced by Europeans and Asians) that I believe contradict basic human decency and justice. (One of my few unchanged, since childhood, inclinations). While the word "love" has been so historically popular, it should be linked to spirituality/faith/ religion only when its users actually promote human decency and justice.

A clear memory from age four is of a train trip from Ohio to Illinois, a significant portion of which I spent pointing and nudging -- as children often still do -- to various individuals, asking my parents, "Is that person 'white'? Is that person ['colored']?" After several answers from either parent, which did not compute within my inquiring (reading already at Grade One level) brain, I asked (the forbidden!!) -- "Well, Daddy, why is Mommy 'white', [if] you are 'black' "?

At that point, I was warned not to mention the topic again in public ever (on pain of worse than a sound thrashing) and promised it would be duly explained when we arrived home.

As the Isley Brothers sang: "You broke my heart, because I couldn't dance-- you didn't even want me around " -- and now I'm back to let you know . . . that stereotype no longer has to apply to those primarily of sub-Saharan African descent, not to mention the remainder of us! (Even we who wanted to acquire "rhythm" and had to work very hard at it!)

One of my paternal cousins, James ("Jimmy") Johnson was among the first 5 African-American pages to serve in the U.S. White House; I was told that he was supposed to be the "first", but there was a political "error" (to the embarrassment of any "advanced promoters"). There seem to have been quite a few black, brown, tan, and almost-ivory newsprint figures, both patrilineally and matrilineally, a group I seemed to have little enough "drive" to join. The pressure nemesis I faced throughout my life was finding an environment just to “fit in” (somewhere between a “guest-appearance” on the Whitman College Sigma Chi 1966 “Sweetheart Court” and 1964 Civil Rights Demonstrations??).^{1, 2} Until AMEA, and the re-surfacing of our Multiracial community, that also eluded me.

For those having problems with acceptance of my Moxhaccine (or “Meztisa-Creole”) Multiracial heritage, the problem indeed is theirs, since “that which we resist, persists” (like it or not, it works both ways!) . . . It is their non-acceptance of it, and therefore only they are accountable for it.

It was the pages of Mairuth Hodge Sarsfield’s No Crystal Stair that caused me to realize actually, I had been raised as an “Afro-European Creole American”.³ Even during my earliest years, I self-identified as tan/ mixed-race. When I looked into a mirror, even as a pre-teen, I saw my Aboriginal heritage staring straight into my eyes, gasping for breath between my father’s African-American and mother’s Meztisa-Creole/Semitic histories. Although I could not articulate what I saw that made me so different from what I was ordered to be, I could not escape it’s presence.

While most members of the North American Creole middle-classes spoke English, French, Creole-patois and often Spanish and Latin as well, it was equally common that many African-American academics and intelligentsia spoke two or three languages in addition to American-English and Latin. Almost no one speaks Latin any longer and I’ve met only two persons within the past 15 years who admitted to formally studying it -- both librarians, one a man who actually majored in Latin! Although I rebelled against studying it in university, I agreed even then that studying what now is almost as extinct as hieroglyphics can help understand the roots of many languages, including my own second language, Spanish, that I began studying at age ten from an old textbook of my father’s (and in which I am woefully “rusty” nevertheless! . . . use it not enough we lose it !). A Toastmaster and adept public-speaker, “[Senor]” Turner fluently spoke, read and wrote Latin, Castillian (and “folk”) Spanish, and French (and Quebecois). However, “[Senora]” Fleming Turner, madre mia, shared neither the same level of interest or talent in languages. When it was convenient for my father, it was he with whom I conversed at home, through formal Spanish studies in high school (and in which I earned) “[straight-A’s]”⁴ and university (in which I could earn “C+” without studying!) . . . I still believe it is better to study!

5 My spouse and I had been together for just over seven years when we discovered during supper at a local Chinese restaurant, that we both had been baptized and christened in the “Anglican” church (High Episcopal, in the United States). I still remember the beautiful stained glass windows and warm oak and mahogany woodwork. At university, when I read that the second officially Christianized kingdom in history was that of Ethiopia’s King Ezana in 335 A.D., I was not overly surprised. Although I was raised in the Lutheran Church (my Methodist paternal uncle, also an attorney-at-law, lived one block away, and my aunt and first cousin were members of that particular congregation), always I felt very comfortable at Anglican services, during Roman Catholic (both Latin and contemporary folk-gospel) mass and (oddly??) during my very few visits to synagogues (admittedly, I identify more with a faith wherein a woman also would qualify for Pope or Cantor. Thusly and forever I support “separation of church and state”!).

In a single unique way, while in fact one of many, I might be the first & only (not the last?) admitted Moxhaccine (Melange in Europe) of public record. Like Atom Ergoyan, I too, made a conscious decision to revisit and reveal [in my case, our “Moxhaccine” heritage]:

“ ’had I been raised [Moxhaccine] I, Iike filmmaker Ergoyan (a Canadian of Armenian heritage) would probably not have such a sense of mission.’ “ ("Atomic Vision" [commentary on writer/director Atom Ergoyan’s “Ararat” & other works], David Spaner (Southam News Services-The Vancouver Province), Edmonton Journal, Thursday, December 5, 2002, p. C 1.)

My (paternal) grandmother, said my father, hid them in a closet [she was posted against the door with a rifle]. On the front porch, my (paternal) grandfather, his 2 oldest sons & one of their uncles (each also armed with rifles), confronted members of the North American Ku Klux Klan. It was “illegal“ for anyone having any known African blood (or any heritage other than "white") to aim any type of weapon at an American Caucasian; but these people were freed sons and daughters of "free 'Black Indians' ". They never really had surrendered.

Although I was never told really how they managed to survive and thrive after that particular incident, I wrote too:

. . . I'm old enough or nearly, though I wasn't when the thought first sparked. . . . . . . [bandaged] I’m [confined] between a lake & a parking lot -- catching up, Cerebrally.

² Seven Fisk University female students, including myself, when arrested during our 2nd participation in a 1964 non-violent Afro-American civil rights protest, were legally “under-age” and placed in “juvenile detention”. (Another story, another time).

³ For the record, all I have ever heard from, or about, Ms. Sarsfield indicated she would not be a supporter of our Multiracial community, certainly not the goals and objectives of MOXHCA/AMEA, as I believe she finds us “politically ‘incorrect’.” That she rejects my experiences, does not mean her experiences as an actual “black” Canadian (norteamericano) are suddenly “invalid”.

⁴ The public school system in Illinois used the “S=superior, E=excellent, G=good, F=fair, D=didnotpass!” system, at that time; here I have used the more widely recognized mark “A”.

5.) Gaskins, Pearl Fuyo [et.al]. What Are You? Voices of mixed-race young people. Henry Holt & Company, 1999 (c) P. F. Gaskins.

6.) ‘Going Beyond “Race” is Past Due’, a public review by TDL Turner of Charles Michael Byrd’s Beyond Race: The Bhagavad-Gita in Black and White (amazon.com reviews, December 10, 2002).

7.) Acknowledgments and appreciation also to Marion I. Ferreira : “Creole Americans and multiracial Americans are no more African-American than a 2002 Mercedes Benz is a 2002 Chevrolet.” (“Mother Henriette Delille & The One-Drop Rule -- Alive and Well?”, Marion I. Ferreira, Interracial Voice, January-February 2003) -- for contributing to a rebirth of our mixed-race communities’ self-identification.