Martin Luther King Day is one of two holidays celebrating Black heritage – the other is Juneteenth (June 19th), when news of liberation reached Texas slaves in 1865.  Despite having two of the only race-based holidays, most Black leaders would abolish Columbus Day tomorrow as they incorrectly blame him for first importing African slaves to the New World.

We know that the Christopher Columbus absolutely did not launch the Atlantic slave trade.  However, his son Diego has the distinct dishonor of presiding over the first Black slave rebellion in 1522 – 500 years ago.  It occurred on his sugar plantation in what is now the Dominican Republic.  

We devoted an entire issue of The Italic Way to Italian-Black relations in issue VII, 1989.  Our relations with Black America haven’t been as horrid as the media portrays them.  Our first encounter was probably after the Civil War when Sicilians immigrated to New Orleans, many taking to agriculture and competing with former slaves.  The Sicilians quickly rose in the economic order only to find themselves targets of nativist resentment and fear.  That fear culminated in the 1891 lynching of eleven innocent Italians by a nativist mob.  “Mafia-mania” was one reason for White fear, but nativists also resented that Italian merchants treated former slaves respectfully during the early Jim Crow period.  Italian musicians were also drawn to Negro jazz, a collaboration that lasts to this day.  (Our Senior Analyst Bill Dal Cerro co-authored a book on the subject: Bebop, Swing and Bella Musica)

In the north, Italian-Black conflicts revolved mainly around “block-busting.”  The media made a banquet out of violent confrontations like one in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (1989), readily smearing Italian neighborhoods as “insular.”  Black filmmaker Spike Lee cornered the market on Ital-bashing movies like Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, and Summer of Sam.

At some point, our interracial conflicts managed to displace the old southern bigotry themes in Hollywood and the media.  Bull Connor was replaced with the “New South” of racial harmony while “moolinyan” is still the byword for mob-riddled Italian bigotry in the North. 

Southern Whites were the prime-movers of Black subjugation in America.  Ironically, they may be the drivers of Black success today by virtue of their DNA.  “Afro-Saxons” (my term), are Blacks with Southern White genes who dominate Black history, the media, and progressive politics.  This is more than just an observation, and certainly nothing new.  Among Blacks, as with other racial and ethnic groups, there is a pecking order of skin tone and facial features.  But don’t discount Alpha personalities and talents that come along with physical attributes from the old rapacious slave masters.

Likewise, three thousand years of ethnic mixing produced us.  We can be any combination of Italic, Hellenic, Etruscan, Germanic, Albanian, Celtic, or Semitic, to name some of the DNA that has enriched Italy.

I’ve often mentioned the PBS series Finding Your Roots, hosted by Dr. Louis Gates.  Invariably, every Black subject he traces has White DNA.  Last week, one very vocal civil rights leader was found to be 14.5% European, many Blacks on the program before her commonly ranged between 20% – 50% European.  And their shades of Black varied accordingly, as assuredly their personalities.

We often ascribe character traits in ourselves or other family members to an older generation.  I recall meeting my father’s cousin Dominic Lamonica after we launched The Italic Way Magazine in 1988.  I couldn’t trace my deep interest in creative writing to any relative at that time, that is, until I met Dom.  I discovered he was the editor of Atlantica Magazine in the 1930s. Here was the branch of the family (my paternal grandmother) that seeded my literary pursuits!

For Black Americans, having Anglo DNA and surnames must be a source of varying emotions.  Perhaps shame as evidence of a distant rape; perhaps pride in genetic diversity.  Dr. Gates is 50% Irish, Frederick Douglas was also 50% White, Booker T. Washington was highly mixed, and Malcolm X had red hair and clearly part White.  Which DNA accounted for their special gifts?

The older crowd knows that Roy Campanella (baseball) and Franco Harris (football) were half Italian.  Today, singer Alicia Keys shares our roots (mother: Augello), as does athlete/protester Colin Kaepernick (mother: Russo) and FOX News pundit Dan Bongino.

Bongino reveals his cultural roots by often using his thumb and two fingers to signal “3” – veramente italiano. -JLM