It seems like a reasonable website. They use the term biracial and mixed race in the article enough to think they would change the term African American to a more historically correct term. I noticed the site features books on biracial/mixed race heritage as well. They might not be as extreme as rigged. If they were trying to kidnap they would probably use the term black instead of biracial to describe the mother. Maybe I'll send them an email.
The Jesuit leadership of the school was convinced that Healy was the most qualified person to lead the college, despite what one priest referred to as “the problem related to his background.” Healy’s “problem” was his mixed-race heritage. Healy was the son of a biracial mother and an Irish immigrant father. Author James O’Toole writes in his history of the Healy family, Passing for White, that Healy’s fair skin enabled him to evade the prevailing racism of the era.
Healy was born in Jones County, Ga., in 1834 to Michael Healy and Mary Eliza, a former slave. Georgia law prohibited interracial couples like Healy’s parents from marrying, so they entered into a common law marriage that lasted until their deaths in 1850. Consequently, Patrick and his nine siblings were considered illegitimate – preventing them from attending school in Georgia.
Patrick began his career at Georgetown in 1868 as Prefect of Studies. Although one-third of the student body hailed from former Confederate states, none of the students were aware of Father Healy’s mixed racial heritage. Because of prevailing racial prejudices, Father Healy – and those of his Jesuit brothers who were aware of his background – kept the details of his ancestry quiet.
It seems like a reasonable website. They use the term biracial and mixed race in the article enough to think they would change the term African American to a more historically correct term.
You miss the point. The evidence is overwhelming that the Healys (all of them) considered themselves White Irish-Americans, nothing more. They did not deny their African ancestry. But they most definiely considered themselves White nonethetless. In this they showed northern attitudes of the time, before the ODR had taken hold, as reflected in the "White" (NOT biracial) self-identity of the Hemings, the Isaacs, the Whartons, and countless others.
Indeed, Francis Healy's teen-aged nephew (the son of famed Coast Guard Captain Michael Healy, after whom the recently commissioned icebreaker C.G.S. Healy is named) once scratched his name on a remote rock above the Arctic Circle during one of his father's exploration voyages as “the first white boy” to have visited the region.
If they were alive today, I do not know whether they would go along with a "biracial" label. But they definitely rejected such a notion at the time. In their own eyes, and in the eyes of the great majority of society of the time (the ODR was just starting to spread) they were completely White.
I agree with A.D. To call them anything but "White" (which is how they saw themselves and were seen by society) is anachronistic projection of modern attitudes onto the past. It is, as A.D. puts it, "racial hijacking." It is as bad as someone labeling John James Audubon, Alexander Hamilton, Queen Eliabeth II, or for that matter 1/3 of the U.S. White-identified population as being "biracial" due to an invisible trace of distant African ancestry.
It seems like a reasonable website. They use the term biracial and mixed race in the article enough to think they would change the term African American to a more historically correct term.
You miss the point.
When I said reasonable it was with the thought that they may change the information.
I wonder if they would add/change the information to White identified.
Was the mother Mulattoe[1/2-1/2]?
The evidence is overwhelming that the Healys (all of them) considered themselves White Irish-Americans, nothing more. They did not deny their African ancestry. But they most definiely considered themselves White nonethetless. In this they showed northern attitudes of the time, before the ODR had taken hold, as reflected in the "White" (NOT biracial) self-identity of the Hemings, the Isaacs, the Whartons, and countless others.
Indeed, Francis Healy's teen-aged nephew (the son of famed Coast Guard Captain Michael Healy, after whom the recently commissioned icebreaker C.G.S. Healy is named) once scratched his name on a remote rock above the Arctic Circle during one of his father's exploration voyages as “the first white boy” to have visited the region.
If they were alive today, I do not know whether they would go along with a "biracial" label. But they definitely rejected such a notion at the time. In their own eyes, and in the eyes of the great majority of society of the time (the ODR was just starting to spread) they were completely White.
I agree with A.D. To call them anything but "White" (which is how they saw themselves and were seen by society) is anachronistic projection of modern attitudes onto the past. It is, as A.D. puts it, "racial hijacking." It is as bad as someone labeling John James Audubon, Alexander Hamilton, Queen Eliabeth II, or for that matter 1/3 of the U.S. White-identified population as being "biracial" due to an invisible trace of distant African ancestry.
Posted: Thu 07 Aug 2008 03:53 Post subject: The Healy Story
I tried to leave comments about the Healy story and none have appeared. Perhaps you will have better luck. There is also the possibility that some censorship is occuring.
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