Family Trees & Black Sheep

This will be the best holiday season ever. Imagine this group at the table sharing dried up turkey.

Lynne Cheney says that, based on her genealogical trace of her family tree, her husband, Darth Cheney, is a cousin of Barack Obama. Senator Barry & VP Dick are related! Damn that miscegenation got us again! Lynne Cheney: VP and Obama are ‘cousins’ – USATODAY.com. Guess which one I think is the black sheep? I’m actually surprised she would even mention it, but I guess it is mildly interesting. Lesson of the day: A gene can spliced for good and evil.

They are actually eighth cousins and I’m not sure what that means to anyone. I’m not generalizing, but I personally have a lot of white friends who barely even know their first cousins, let alone cousins removed. Although I’ve noticed among my white friends from the Midwest and the South, the family unit reaches out farther than in other regions. I think this geneology craze has caused a lot of people to seek out their more distant relatives.

My family is full of race mixers, so I have several white, black and bi-racial cousins. My first cousins are like my sisters and brothers. Most black folks I know generally know their 1st, 2nd & 3rd cousins and a few play cousins; you know those kids you didn’t find out you weren’t actually related to in any way until you were like 16 year olds. But 8th is a stretch.

Oh and for all you overly-sensitive people, I’m being sarcastic so calm down & take a breath.