Home Blog Style 1 | Straightspeak

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

Men should go to Mars, women should lead Earth

By DHughes|2016-12-14T08:13:37-05:00December 6th, 2016|Categories: business, community, politics, social|Tags: Carl Sagan, Daniel Kahneman, E.O. Wilson, John Gray, Richard Dawkins, Voltaire, Yuval Noah Harari|

It's time for leadership to move to a higher purpose Seven things you might not know One in four Americans think there is a greater likelihood that humans will colonize Mars rather than Read more...

Leadership and the power of emulation …

By DHughes|2016-12-10T00:40:48-05:00November 25th, 2016|Categories: business, community, communitywatch, politics, social, trumpwatch, trumpwatchhome|Tags: E.O. Wilson, genetics, James Buchanan Jr, Peter Richerson, Sydney Finkelstein, Trump, White House|

Could Trump's brand of leadership become a problem across generations of leaders? Four things you might not know, and one you do We all know Trump is "yuugh" on branding and basks in his Read more...

photo:groundzero

America got it right … well, a quarter of America got it half right

By DHughes|2017-03-23T14:37:17-04:00November 10th, 2016|Categories: politics, social, trumpwatch, trumpwatchhome|Tags: Abraham Lincoln, American democracy, Canada, Donald Trump, Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Hillary Clinton, Kahlil Gibran|

24% got it right and voted for change but is it the right change or Russian roulette? Four things you might not know Only 24% of Americans elected Donald Trump as President of Read more...

photo:zorachsblog

Empires decay from within, from the grassroots …

By DHughes|2016-12-10T00:40:49-05:00November 2nd, 2016|Categories: business, communitywatch, politics, social, trumpwatch, trumpwatchhome|Tags: Aristotle, Fernec Mate, Henry David Thoreau, Jane Jacobs, Niall Ferguson, Todd Buchholz|

and small towns are a window onto the state of the nation Three things you might not know By 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will be urban. Urbanites are hyper-susceptible to stress Read more...

Men should go to Mars, women should lead Earth

It's time for leadership to move to a higher purpose Seven things you might not know One in four Americans think there is a greater likelihood that humans will colonize Mars rather than Read more...

Leadership and the power of emulation …

Could Trump's brand of leadership become a problem across generations of leaders? Four things you might not know, and one you do We all know Trump is "yuugh" on branding and basks in his Read more...

photo:groundzero

America got it right … well, a quarter of America got it half right

24% got it right and voted for change but is it the right change or Russian roulette? Four things you might not know Only 24% of Americans elected Donald Trump as President of Read more...

photo:zorachsblog

Empires decay from within, from the grassroots …

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.