Home Blog Style 1 | Straightspeak

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

Photo: Fortune.com

“What caused Donald Trump?” Surprise! It’s not what you think

By DHughes|2016-10-19T15:03:16-04:00September 30th, 2016|Categories: trumpwatch, trumpwatchhome|Tags: Donald Trump, Ezra Klein, Gallup|

New data disproves the mainstream chatter and assumptions Gallup interviewed 87,428 Americans and were able to fine tune where support for Trump is coming from (who and where). It's the driving cause behind his rise Read more...

Ten leadership books most leaders probably haven’t read, but should

By DHughes|2016-12-10T00:40:51-05:00September 30th, 2016|Categories: trumpwatch, trumpwatchhome|Tags: Adam Smith, Bertrand Russell, Confucius, David Brooks, Machiavelli, Plato, Wealth of Nations, Will Durant|

A plethora of lessons, a dearth of leadership Six things you might not know: More than 11,000 business books are published annually.[1] Surprise, the top-ten books listed below are seldom on anybody's top-10 or Read more...

Comments Off

Picking a winner in the first Presidential debate will be easy – try this

By DHughes|2016-12-10T00:40:52-05:00September 25th, 2016|Categories: trumpwatch, trumpwatchhome|Tags: Daniel Goleman, Donald Trump, Dr. Elliott Jaques, Emotional Intelligence, Hillary Clinton, Presidential Debate|

The only three things you need to observe in comparing candidates Mental capability (as defined by Jaques & Cason) Emotional intelligence (as defined by Daniel Goleman) Knowledge (as defined by you or any objective person) Read more...

Photo: Fortune.com

“What caused Donald Trump?” Surprise! It’s not what you think

By DHughes|2016-10-19T15:03:16-04:00September 30th, 2016|Categories: trumpwatch, trumpwatchhome|Tags: Donald Trump, Ezra Klein, Gallup|

Ten leadership books most leaders probably haven’t read, but should

Comments Off

Picking a winner in the first Presidential debate will be easy – try this

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.