Race is a social construct. There’s no better way to understand what that really means than to look at history.

“So get this. Some of the eighteenth century founding fathers only thought English and Danish people were white. Even Swedes and Germans were “swarthy.” French certainly were. So Franklin would not have considered me white, since my family is French and German. We’re swarthy. We do have some Scottish, but if the Swedish are swarthy I suspect he thought the Scottish were, too. Since Coulter is in part Irish and German, Ben Franklin wouldn’t have accepted her as white, either, and was worried about the German part of her family acting like barbarians and interfering in elections. You can only imagine what he would have thought of German grifters like Donald Trump’s grandfather.“

Read More:

• Cole, Juan. “Dear Ann Coulter: Ben Franklin Wouldn’t Have Thought of You or Trump as White, Either“. Truthdig, Nov. 10, 2016.

I think everyone knows what it means when someone has the second sight. Collins Dictionary says, “If you say that someone has second sight, you mean that they seem to have the ability to know or see things that are going to happen in the future, or are happening in a different place.“

A cool thing to have. It’s also very Scots Irish. Not that there aren’t analogs in other cultures but in our American culture the idea is most common among the Scots Irish. It was an important part of our ancestors’ culture back in Scotland. In Gaelic, it’s called An Da Shealladh, the two sights.

I get just the briefest glimmer of it in my ancestry. My grandmother Vivian (Luce) Swanstrom remembered some childhood trips from Wyoming back to visit Elizabeth (Mallory) Wilson, her mother’s mother in Illinois. Grandma was only 8 when her grandmother died, but she remembered some bits and pieces. For example, she knew her grandmother was “Scotch-Irish”, and that she was a small woman, very short, with black hair and “snappy” black eyes. I don’t know what short means in this context. Grandma was 4’10” and her mother was 5’0″, so I’m thinking somewhere in that range.

Something else Grandma mentioned, just in passing, is that her grandmother had the Second Sight. If Grandma told me any stories, I don’t remember them. The only thing I remember is that she joked it skips a generation, so she might have gotten it, but if so she never noticed it. And now I might get it from her, but I shouldn’t count on it.

Barry McCain has an interesting article about the Second Sight in his family (The Second Sight among the Scots Irish). They have a very similar background to my own ancestors. “Several of them were in Daniel Boone’s party that crossed the Cumberland Gap in the 1770s. Their history is one of trailblazing adventures, ferocious battles with Indians, and eventually settling in southern Illinois by 1805.”

Great great grandma Wilson who had the Second Sight came from a family of Boonesborough pioneers, her mother’s first husband was killed in a skirmish with Indians, and the family were ultimately Illinois pioneers.

We don’t need to read too much into the similarities. It’s just the general story of this branch of the Scots Irish, including the Second Sight.

One little piece that intrigues me. McCain says one manifestation of the Second Sight is “knowing things about a person just by meeting them, such as their true nature and history“. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that, but if it’s truly part of the Second Sight, then I did indeed get it.

Some people are proud of their Confederate heritage. Personally I don’t see it.

Yes, it’s part of our heritage. Yes, those are our ancestors too. But they were traitors. And racists. Racist traitors.

It’s a complicated heritage. Mark Sumner (link below) provocatively argues it’s not our heritage; it’s our shame.

Ideally, we would want to be impartial observers as we research and write history. Albeit, admitting that it’s never possible to be entirely impartial about anything, and damn near impossible when it involves issues that still carry an emotional charge.

Recently, I was reading the probate record for Catherina (Helvey) Roberson (1781-1851), one of my ancestors. Some of the records involve her slaves, a woman and her three children. A casual division with all the thought given to their monetary value. My ancestor Rufus ended up with daughter Hannah, who was the same age as his daughter Rachel. Hannah died when she was 12 so he didn’t get the long-term value he expected.

It’s unbelievably distressing to read these things and have them personalized, not only the lives of particular slaves but also the lives of particular ancestors. This isn’t some distant, generalized history.

Mark Sumner brings it home in an unpleasant way, and that’s exactly what I like about this article. “It should be no more acceptable to wave a Confederate flag in the United States than it is to fly a swastika. No more acceptable to proclaim yourself sympathetic to the Confederate cause than to proclaim yourself a supporter of ISIS. There is no moral difference. None. These are the banners of the enemies of our nation and of our ideals”.

Heritage of Hate.

• Mark Sumner, The Confederacy is not our heritage (June 19, 2015), at DailyKos.