Damone Wilson,
Milwaukee, WI
As a kid, I remember coming home from school & telling my grandmother about what I learned for black history month. That’s when she told me “boy you are not black you are Cherokee indian & creole”.. so I went to my mom and told her this new found info about us being indians &she told me “BOY U ARE BLACK”. So hearing that from my mom shut down my interest in my history…until I was in my 20s. Fast forward, Moving to Miami showed me that I was cultureless other than forcefed indoctrination on being “black” and descendants of “slaves”. Seeing the many cultures, from Haitian to Cubans, I was exposed to their way of heritage, traditions & culture. Then the words from my granny resurfaced in my brain. This made me start digging for info in the most important place, my families passed down knowledge. To my surprise, my family all knew that we were Cherokee. My great uncle told me how my granny (his mother)was a light brown skinned (full blooded) Cherokee woman with long straight black hair. So I asked my uncle “do we have any african” and he said “NOOO! THEY AFRICANS WERE ALWAYS JEALOUS OF US”…on another note I asked my granddad on my dads side of the family and they showed me pics of our great great grandfather and grandmother, both black foot Indians. When I ask them about this topic it’s almost like they’ve suppressed this knowledge, a instant joy is seen in their face. It’s puzzling to know that they know this but still go by “black” which is nothing but darkness, isn’t backed by a nation, a flag, nothing. Now I realize we are the only unidentified ppl that I can think of😂
And we are constantly reclassified lol it’s like a fairy tale…What’s worse is when I bring this topic up to white ppl they try to redirect you to propagated false info. Makes me wonder if it’s on purpose & if it’s a technic to keep the America landmass for themselves, keep the indigenous down & not fighting or even looking for the truth, which is that America was taken from us. The Indians who they claim were wiped out were really reclassified as black
