Carrying War in Your Blood: When Ancestors Were Enemies
Episode notes
Some of us carry war in our blood. Not metaphorically. Literally. Our ancestors fought on opposite sides of conflicts. One lineage colonized. The other was colonized. One enslaved. The other was enslaved. One invaded. The other defended.
And now we exist—the living proof that those enemies eventually came together, willingly or not. We are the reconciliation that history never fully completed.
This is a specific pain that mixed-heritage people know intimately—when your lineages don't just differ, they oppose. They contradict. They carry historical harm toward each other. And you have to somehow hold both.
Topics covered:
- Historical conflicts encoded in your DNA
- Colonizer and colonized, enslaver and enslaved in one body
- Family gatherings as landmines of unresolved history
- Navigating family dynamics when sides oppose each other
- Can you be the healing? Being the bridge across violence
You are not the conflict. You are the hope that the conflict can end. And that's not easy. But it might be sacred.
🎧 Episode 13 of 15