Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Negro History Week: Chauncey DeVega’s Pre-History Part 2

In part one of my pre-history we explored my father's life stories. We now turn our attention to mother Chauncey...

Did you know that Chauncey DeVega's mother:

...Learned how to drive at 10 years old. Apparently, she was too short to see over the dashboard of the 55 Buick her uncle would let her drive in exchange for doing errands. Chauncey's mother, a petite woman, would have to sit on a pillow in order to navigate the back country roads where she lived.

...Once tried to run over the neighborhood meth-head. This woman was riding a bicycle and dared to call Chauncey's mother out of her name. In retaliation mother Chauncey pursued this "fat bitch"--my mothers language not mine--with her car and pushed the back wheel of the bicycle with the front bumper of our Plymouth Grand Fury until the PWT careened out of control. We had a running feud with this family which involved numerous fights, general chaos, and episodes of random violence over the course of several decades.

... Is the first cousin of the boxer Floyd Patterson. This is ironic because Muhammad Ali is one of my personal heroes and the great Ali whooped Floyd Patterson's butt.

...Firmly believes that the actor Philip Michael Thomas (the light skinned guy from the TV series Miami Vice) is a relative. She, like black people everywhere, are obsessed with having "Indian" blood and has concocted a story where one of our family ran away from the South to be famous in Hollywood. This fictive relative was never seen again, but Mr. Thomas bears an incredibly strong resemblance to this man. Thus, my mother has claimed Miami Vice's Philip Michael Thomas as a relative.

...When asked about Doctor King and The Civil Rights movement said that King was "half-crazy and half-brave." When pressed about her participation in the Civil Rights Movement my mother said that she didn't want someone putting hoses on her, isn't capable of turning the other cheek, and that if some racist cop put his hands on her that she would kill him. So much for non-violence in my family.

...Has an eccentric first cousin who is a millionaire that owns 500 acres of land. This cousin also does not believe in the necessity of indoor plumbing and still maintains (and uses) an outhouse.

...Has a family with interesting and tragic roots. One of the patriarchs of our family was the product of a taboo relationship between a white, Jewish woman and a black man. Apparently, they were getting their groove on and this woman came up pregnant. The white people in town didn't take kindly to this crossing of the racial divide (even with a questionably "white" Jewish person) and formed a lynch mob to kill this woman and her lover. Unfortunately, these hate mongers were successful and killed the couple. Their love child was secretly taken in by my mother's clan and raised as one of the family.

...Like Gordon Gartrelle's family, we too have a black male relative who couldn't resist the temptations of white women and subsequently paid a high price for sharing his black love. Apparently, sometime around the turn of the 20th century one of my mom's people was philandering with a white man's wife in the Southern town where they lived. Said woman's husband found out and confronted my cousin who in turn killed this white man. In telling the story my mother observed that, "u know that's what black men do" meaning they can't resist sleeping with white women. I said that isn't fair. She replied, "it is the truth"--



At least there was a good outcome as my white woman seducing cousin ran up North and disappeared never to be seen again...as opposed to running further down South.

...Aunt raised 13 children, most of which were not her own. My great Aunt, a woman with a 3rd grade education and without the aid of the State, i.e. welfare, social workers, and all that other mess which the undeserving breeding ignt's receive today (as opposed to the "deserving poor," i.e. people who have been laid off, downsized, are ill, elderly etc. and do not live in a cycle of dependency and ghetto underclass culture) mentored, encouraged, and raised a group of people whom would go on to be doctors, lawyers, and ministers.



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