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Home Blog Style 1DHughes2016-12-10T09:32:56-05:00

Thank you Bill O’Reilly – sort of, kind of …

By DHughes|2017-04-24T16:12:29-04:00April 24th, 2017|Categories: business, politics, social, trumpwatch|Tags: Aaron James, DaBill O'Reilly, Donald Trump, Jared Diamond, Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Warren Buffett|

at least you've reminded us of our Darwinian downside Three things you might not know Genetically, we humans are only 1.2% different than chimpanzees.[1] Research finds that male chimpanzees that wage a campaign of Read more...

Great leaders understand three things: Memes, genes and tribalism …

By DHughes|2017-04-11T09:13:51-04:00April 6th, 2017|Categories: business, politics, social|Tags: Charile Munger, Charles Darwin, Claude Levi Strauss, cultural memes, Daniel Dennett, Daniel Quinn, Edward O. Wislon, Richard Dawkins, tribalism|

... which explains why we have so few great leaders Three things you might not know In order to understand why a tribe of homo sapiens, often called a company or the electorate, behaves Read more...

The foxes will never fix the hen house of democracy …

By DHughes|2017-03-16T10:38:15-04:00March 15th, 2017|Categories: community, communitywatch, politics, social|Tags: Cobourg, Plato, Port Hope, Socrates, Trudeau, Trump|

and the hens will never stop being a bunch of chickens Three things you might not know Why did the turkey cross the road? To prove he wasn't a chicken. But being a bunch Read more...

The hypocrisy of democracy is the elephant in the room

By DHughes|2017-03-11T14:29:00-05:00March 8th, 2017|Categories: business, politics, social|Tags: Donald Trump, Edward O. Wilson, George Orwell, Marquis de Condorcet, The Economist|

and its demise is accelerating in the absence of integrity, principles, patriotic guts and genetic mutation Three things you might not know The Economist Intelligence Unit's "Democracy Index 2016," ranks the USA 21st among Read more...

Thank you Bill O’Reilly – sort of, kind of …

Great leaders understand three things: Memes, genes and tribalism …

... which explains why we have so few great leaders Three things you might not know In order to understand why a tribe of homo sapiens, often called a company or the electorate, behaves Read more...

The foxes will never fix the hen house of democracy …

By DHughes|2017-03-16T10:38:15-04:00March 15th, 2017|Categories: community, communitywatch, politics, social|Tags: Cobourg, Plato, Port Hope, Socrates, Trudeau, Trump|

and the hens will never stop being a bunch of chickens Three things you might not know Why did the turkey cross the road? To prove he wasn't a chicken. But being a bunch Read more...

The hypocrisy of democracy is the elephant in the room

By DHughes|2017-03-11T14:29:00-05:00March 8th, 2017|Categories: business, politics, social|Tags: Donald Trump, Edward O. Wilson, George Orwell, Marquis de Condorcet, The Economist|

Home Blog Style 1

My personal history is the stuff they write books about. And that's what I am doing. The working title, "Chains of My Father: Marry White."

"The ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds." - Barack Obama

This perspicacious line from the Prologue of Barack Obama's "Dream from My Father" wrenched my aspiration into action. I started writing, furiously. Unlike Obama's perspective, my pain had been for the opposite reason: I was not seen by whites as a "tragic mulatto," rather I lived every day of my childhood hoping whites were not "searching my eyes for some telltale sign" that I WAS mulatto. This is my story.

It's historical fiction because I cannot find enough records to substantiate all facets of the story. I've combed the genealogy, traveled to my father and grandmothers' birthplace, walked the graveyards, searched the churches and ... well, all the facts aren't there. I have written three books based on the genealogy of other families but my ancestors emerged from a journey that left too few records – slavery.

My paternal, great grandmother was a "freed slave." My grandmother, Amelia, was born to a mixed race slave named Mary (we do not know her last name) and a white, French plantation owner, the Count de Poullain, in Grenada, West Indies. Amelia was raised in the "Big House" and in adulthood, in an attempt to escape her black heritage disowned her mother, telling her, "Get out and never come back." Amelia, as a mother of twelve children, enshrined into the family commandments, "Marry white." Many did, including my father. My mother was a lovely, white, Anglo-Saxon protestant born in England. They met in Canada where my dad studied and became a doctor.

It has taken five generations for the descendants of Mary to free themselves from the stigma of their black heritage but today my children embrace it. Unfortunately, the past 250 years have been a wasteland of bigotry, racism and bullying. But, on closer look, we see not only the brutality, fear, violence, and murder but also the self-respect, dignity, love, kindness, perseverance and indomitable spirit.

As of the spring of 2025, the depth of historic perspective and the sweeping inspiration of oppressed people has created a two-volume duology of which I have only arrived at the middle of the 19th century. 1840 is the year my great grandfather was born, the beginning of Volume II, and he's pushing me to make sure our story is published by the summer of 2026.