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I dont normally comment about ethnictity in Yanki land... Some of the stuff is quite infantile.. Here is a peice that I concurs with alot of what I know about Slavery in Yankidom..
Well they failed to mention that Washington had a child with the daughter a slave who was related to his wife and was probably his half sister !!!
I do recall when I menton that slaves prefered the tender mercy of the British Monarchy ratehr than Yanki freedom, I was called an idiot on there.
What this perice fails to address is that I beleive a third of Washington slaves joined the British during the first yanki Civil war...(It was a Civil war in through which yanki independence was won.. Was a bad idea then, and is still a bad idea...)
The 'blackest' name in America
By Jesse Washington 0 Comments
How Washington has become the most common African-American surname
IT IS officially the 'blackest' name in America. The surname shared by the first US president George Washington is inseparable from America - and not only from the nation's history, its people.
The 2000 US Census counted 163,036 people with the surname, 95 percent of them African-American. What's puzzling is the fact that a surname made famous by a white president has a far higher black percentage than any other name.
The story begins with slavery. Born 297 years ago on February 22, Washington inherited 10 human beings from his father, working them hard and under difficult conditions.
But over the decades he grew opposed to human bondage, recognising the contradiction with the freedoms of the new nation. In his final years on his Mount Vernon plantation, Washington said that "Nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union." He ordered that the younger black people be educated or taught a trade, providing a fund for the sick and aged.
Even before emancipation, many enslaved black people chose their own surnames to establish their identities. Now, historians theorise that large numbers of black people chose the name Washington in the process of asserting their freedom. Henry Wiencek, author of An imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, says many enslaved black people had surnames that went unrecorded or were kept secret, some choosing names as a mark of community identity.
“Keep in mind that after the Civil War, many of the big planters continued to be extremely powerful figures in their regions, so there was an advantage for a freed person to keep a link to a leading white family,” says Wiencek.
However, it’s a myth that all black slaves bore the last name of their owner. Only a handful of George Washington’s hundreds of slaves did, for example, and he recorded most as having just a first name, says Mary Thompson, the historian at Mount Vernon.
But it is undeniable that Washington had immense fame and respect at the time, which raises questions of whether the enslaved people felt inspired by Washington and were taking his name in tribute, seeing some benefits from the association, or if the newly freed people took the name as a mark of devotion to their country. The connection is too strong for some to ignore.
"There was a lot more consciousness and pride in American history among African-Americans and enslaved African-Americans than a lot of people give them credit for. They had a very strong sense of politics and history," says Adam Goodheart, a professor at Washington College and author of the forthcoming book, 1861: Civil War Awakening.
"They were thinking about how they could be Americans," Goodheart says. "That they would embrace the name of this person who was an imperfect hero shows there was a certain understanding of this country as an imperfect place, an imperfect experiment, and a willingness to embrace that tradition of liberty with all its contradictions.”
Many black people also took new names after the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the black power movement, says Ira Berlin, a University of Maryland history professor who has written books on the history of African-Americans.
"Names are the central way we think about ourselves," Berlin says. "Whenever we have these kinds of emancipatory moments, suddenly people can reinvent themselves, rethink themselves new, distinguish themselves from a past where they were denigrated and abused. New names are one of the ways they do it."
Although there isn’t direct evidence that the name is tied to George Washington, the statistics for the surname are stark. Washington was listed 138th when the Census Bureau published a list of the 1,000 most common American surnames from the 2000 survey, along with ethnic data. Jefferson was the second-blackest name, at 75 percent African-American. There were only 16,070 Lincolns, and only 14 percent were black people.
With a name so deeply tied with the first president and his vision of freedom for a new nation, it is surprising that in a modern day America, racism is very much alive and kicking for African-Americans who bear the name.
Marcus Washington, one of the few black people working in the overwhelmingly white William Morris talent agency, filed a $25 million lawsuit in December accusing William Morris of racial discrimination.
"I'm sure that for some people there, my name triggered the thought that I was African-American, and automatically triggered biases that resulted in me not being given a fair shot," he says.
One 2004 study conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business found that job applicants with names that sound white receive 50 percent more call backs than applicants with ‘black’ names.
The study responded to real employment ads with more than 5,000 fictitious résumés. Half the résumés were assigned names like Emily Walsh; the other half got names like Lakisha Washington. After calculating for the difference in résumé quality, the study concluded that "a white name yields as many more call backs as an additional eight years of experience on a résumé."
For many modern day black Washingtons, negativity and racial discrimination does not inhibit them from viewing the surname as a symbol of pride, making them more aware of the African struggle.
"It's a reflection of how far we've come more than anything. I most likely come from a family of slaves who were given or chose this name,” says New Yorker Shannon Washington.
As the creator of advertisements and events, she works with many Europeans who often ask how she got her name. She plans to keep it when she gets married, and likens her attachment to that of some black people for racist memorabilia like mammy dolls and Jim Crow signs.
“Growing up, I just knew that only black people had my last name. I don't exactly love it, but I have to respect it,” she says.
Ron Chernow, author of Washington: A life, adds: "I have to think that George Washington would be very pleased that so many black people have adopted his name."
"I find it touching that freed blacks wanted to identify with the American tradition and the American dream, it makes a powerful statement.”
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