To all those in Canada and Mexico who read this, please accept my sincerest apologies. What is going on here in America is not normal and not representative of the majority of Americans. You see, first, only 64% of eligible voters voted in the last election, about 155 million out of 246 million. So only 77 million out of 246 million voted for Trump. So 31% of the people voted to support the convicted felon that won the election.
This 31% really are not representative of the folks here in the U.S. Most Americans are not fearful, hateful racists who blame their neighbors for all their problems.
But I wanted to apologize to both my Canadian kin and my Mexican kin. I am an American that has roots in Canada and kin in Mexico. You all, whether you know it or not, have had a huge hand in shaping me. Your kindness and tolerance has helped me as an American become the person that I am.
Let me start with the Canadian kin. I am a descendant of Mathieu Da Costa. Da Costa was the first African man to set foot in Canada. He helped the French settle in Quebec. He was indispensable to the French settlers as an interpreter with the Native Americans. His children married into the early families of Canada. So he and his descendants helped settle Canada. His descendants later helped settle the Louisiana Territory when it was under French control.
My ancestors in Louisiana historically did well, that is until hateful Anglos bought and moved into the Louisiana Territory in 1803. They did not like the racially tolerant society that the French and the Spanish let flourish in Louisiana. They especially didn’t like the fact that Spanish did not see slavery as a permanent condition and provided for several legal ways out of slavery. The French and Spanish were largely Catholics, and Anglos that came to Louisiana did not like the Catholic doctrine of one human race. “The human race is rooted in the loving, creative act of God, who made us and called us to be a family, one human family, made in God’s image and likeness. There is no basis to sustain that some are made more in the image of God than others.” Church doctrine contributed to its acceptance of free people of color and the practice of liberating slaves.
Even in the 1800s, America had fearful hateful Anglos who did not believe in basic human freedom, tolerance and equal rights.
This is where my Mexican kin come in. In Mexico, their first Afro-Mexican president Vicente Guerrero outlawed slavery in 1829 without a shot being fired. They elected an Afro-Mexican president nearly 200 years before the first Afro-American president was elected here.
After abolition in Mexico, my ancestors in Louisiana made a radical decision in the 1830s. With increasing racist and legislative pressure placed upon free people of color by Louisiana’s new Anglos and the U.S. government, they made the decision to leave the U.S. and move to Mexico.
Things were difficult at first for my relatives and other Creoles who moved to Mexico. Mexico was having its own battle against the French and internal battles for power. But within a generation my Creole of color ancestors were accepted and entered the mainstream of Mexican society.
Despite the problems that Mexico has had, my relatives seamlessly moved into Mexican society. They have become doctors, engineers, accountants, and so on. By all measures socially and economically, they have done well for themselves.
What is going on here in the U.S. is all the more embarrassing for me because both Canada and Mexico have been more than tolerant and kind to my ancestors and kin. My kin have fully become Mexican and Canadian citizens in every sense of the word. They have been allowed every advantage available to citizens of the country. Never once have I heard Canadians or my Mexican kin blame the U.S. for their problems.
So let me formally apologize again.
The racist convicted felon and current presidential administration in the U.S. do not represent the majority of the people here in any way. The people who voted them in are a minority. We will work to get them out as soon as possible and I want to apologize personally to you for our mistake in the meantime.
