{"id":48393,"date":"2016-07-24T00:35:22","date_gmt":"2016-07-24T00:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48393"},"modified":"2016-07-24T00:35:22","modified_gmt":"2016-07-24T00:35:22","slug":"i-occupy-the-uneasy-limbo-between-exploiter-and-exploited-i-an-african-american-woman-am-every-bit-as-much-a-debtor-to-my-race-as-any-descendant-of-%ef%bb%bfjohn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48393","title":{"rendered":"I occupy the uneasy limbo between exploiter and exploited. I, an African-American woman, am every bit as much a \u201cdebtor\u201d to my \u201crace\u201d as any descendant of \ufeffJohn C. Calhoun\u2019s or indeed as Georgetown University itself."},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>I live the paradox that though my brown skin has excluded me from so called white privilege, all my life I have benefited from the plunder of privileged whites. From the time I read <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Makepeace_Thackeray\" target=\"_blank\">Thackeray\u2019s<\/a> novel \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Vanity_Fair_(novel)\" target=\"_blank\">Vanity Fair<\/a>\u201d as a teenager, I have been fascinated by the character of Rhoda Swartz, the \u201cwoolly-haired <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=451\" target=\"_blank\">mulatto<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Saint_Kitts\" target=\"_blank\">St. Kitts<\/a>,\u201d a mixed race heiress to a lucrative plantation, and real-life figures like her. Now I know why: Their stories are mine, and like them, I occupy the uneasy limbo between exploiter and exploited. I, an African-American woman, am every bit as much a \u201cdebtor\u201d to my \u201crace\u201d as any descendant of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_C._Calhoun\" target=\"_blank\">John C. Calhoun\u2019s<\/a> or indeed as Georgetown University itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Susan Fales-Hill, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48385\" target=\"_blank\">I Named My Mixed-Race Daughter for a Slave-Trading Town<\/a>,\u201d <em>The New York Times<\/em>, July 16, 2016. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/07\/17\/opinion\/sunday\/i-named-my-mixed-race-daughter-for-a-slave-trading-town.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/07\/17\/opinion\/sunday\/i-named-my-mixed-race-daughter-for-a-slave-trading-town.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I live the paradox that though my brown skin has excluded me from so called white privilege, all my life I have benefited from the plunder of privileged whites. From the time I read Thackeray\u2019s novel \u201cVanity Fair\u201d as a teenager, I have been fascinated by the character of Rhoda Swartz, the \u201cwoolly-haired mulatto from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2640,24564,2327],"class_list":["post-48393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-new-york-times","tag-susan-fales-hill","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48394,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48393\/revisions\/48394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}