Why We Matter

My grandmother used to tell me growing up whenever the question of race and self-identity arose, baby, we are all sooners. I would look at her puzzled and ask, "what's a sooner, Grammy?" and she would reply "we're sooner to be one thing or another." I never knew the importance of that statement until I got older. Hello, my name is Stephanie Morton, and I am a heterosexual multi-racial/cultural woman living in America. Now, what do I check on the demographic boxes? Honestly, it depends on what form it is. However, mostly I choose Black.

I use the term multi-racial/cultural because I feel it is important to acknowledge all parts of myself and to only acknowledge one part of me would not be doing that. You might ask why I mark Black only on certain demographics boxes? I understand that certain (most) statistical information is based on how those boxes are checked. Understanding this, I choose not to select “Black/African-American” for anything that has the potential to negatively impact the Black community. Clearly, the Black side is the part of me that I resonate most with.

I come from a diverse family. My maternal grandmother (Grammy) comes from a strong native American, Black, and White background. Her grandfather Robert Vann and her father Charlie Vann were Freedmen listed on the Dawes Roll and settled in Cherokee Nation/Territory in Oklahoma. In case you are wondering a Freedmen is a slave of a Native American slave owner. After the forced removal from their homelands, my great-great grandfather and great-grandfather along with other relatives made their way on the Trail of Tears and settled in Oklahoma. The Cherokee Indians freed their slaves first and allowed them tribal citizenship. My grandmother’s mother Hartence Vann (maiden name Kernel) is also Black and Native American with her family listed on the Creek Dawes Roll. However, somewhere along the way there was some romantic mingling. Hence, why I am 3% Native American.

My maternal grandfather and all his ancestors come from and inhabit the Fredericksburg, VA area. We are more familiar with Spotsylvania County and Orange County. From my calculations of family history, it is more than likely that his family background were slaves. Hence, the last name Morton. Not too much is known about my grandfather’s ancestors outside of that. The ancestry from my paternal side is recognized as Creole with ties to the Louisiana area from my paternal grandfather and some European/Black roots from my maternal grandmother in the Philadelphia region.

Growing up we did not have any cultural celebrations. We lived in nice neighborhoods and celebrated traditional American holidays. It was not until I got older, much older, and had kids that I no longer wanted to participate in the traditional American holidays. I had the opportunity to read further than history books and once I realized the true struggles that Black people/African Americans went through, Black men, women, and children, how could I? Understanding how these events came to be and celebrating them just does not seem right.

The fact that Black/African-American women were used for the advancement of gynecological medicine without anesthesia, having to use separate bathrooms and receiving the poorest of treatment, not being able to vote, or our Black/African-American men being lynched for simply looking at a white woman. Supporting these holidays is supporting their foundation. Their foundations do not support us. I look at how Black/African American people are treated today and even though we have come a long way we are still not where we need to be. We must realize that that the Civil Rights Movement was only 56 years ago. Interracial marriage has only been legalized since 1967, with Alabama being the last state to officially change their constitution’s verbiage in 2000 officially legalizing interracial marriage.

No matter how many doctors, lawyers, judges, politicians, entertainers, teachers, businesswomen/men, entrepreneurs that Black people have in America we are a race that will always be viewed as inferior. There are good people and bad people in every race and culture of people. However, the not so good of Black people appear to be spotlighted. So, when I cannot mark a box, I feel will reflect Black people positively for demographics and statistics I mark “other”.

I acknowledge all races and cultures that have contributed to my existence, but I cannot help but to feel extremely compelled to represent my blackness. Through all the greatest achievements we have accomplished that people of all ethnicities and cultures benefit from i.e., the stop light, hair care products, home security system, the pacemaker, the invention on how our shoes are put together, the mechanism for opening and closing elevator doors, through cancer cell research we are still criticized in the media, racially profiled by those that took an oath to protect and serve us, stereotyped, criticized, and lied on.

Black people are tired. Black people are sick and tired of constantly being ridiculed. Common sense should tell us that there are good and bad people in every race, but for some reason the media, people on social media are constantly highlighting the people of our race that don’t contribute much to society. At the end of the day we Black people have helped build this country with free labor, sacrificed our lives for this country’s war, we have helped advance the world in technology, health care, entertainment, civil rights, and modernization. We’ve have been killed, tortured, experimented on, beat, raped, lynched, spit on, our black men have had their wives and children stolen in front of them, our women have had our husbands and sons demasculinized in front them, and our family systems have been broken down, our “wall streets” and financial structures have been stolen from us, . Yet, we cannot live and reap all the “freedoms” this land is supposed to a lot us. We live in a country where it is systematically setup for us to fail. It is systematically setup for us to fail and we STILL breakdown those walls and achieve what is supposed to be the impossible. We work twice, if not, three times as hard to prove ourselves with the nation and within our own community. Black people are strong, we are fighters, and I am proud to be Black. For this reason, Black Lives Matter.