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Lisa Weed's avatar

I am also a descendant of Jonas Weed. Hi Brad! My sister and I and several cousins are also Indigenous. One of our deepest conversations have been of our lineage and how it feels like a war within us. We know what it did to our mother's mothers And the pain we carry in our blood has yet to be healed. We try to be the two sides that came together as one. As long ago as this was is as deep as the pain is in our blood. One side ashamed and hated,one side hurt and betrayed. As you wrote this during black history month I thought I would leave a little comment for you. Have pride but arrogance isn't pride. Have a good day cousin.

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Brad Weed's avatar

Hi cousin — thank you for this generous and powerful message. It means a lot that you took the time to write, especially given how personal and painful these histories are. I’m honored and humbled to be in conversation with you.

The “war within” you describe echoes something I’ve been grappling with in my own way — the reckoning between ancestry and accountability, pride and grief. I don’t feel pride in Jonas Weed as a figure of achievement, but rather a responsibility to name and unearth what was buried or sanitized in our family line. Writing about him was less an act of celebration than of confrontation — to surface the contradictions and silences that our shared inheritance carries. It’s a lineage bound up with both survival and domination, both roots and wounds.

Your words remind me that these legacies aren’t just abstract historical puzzles — they’re living, embodied realities. Blood doesn’t forget what maps erase. The fact that we share ancestry and yet hold such different lineages in our bodies is exactly the tension this country continues to avoid naming. I’m grateful that you and your sister and cousins are holding that complexity with such strength and care. Trying to be “the two sides that came together as one” is no easy path — it’s the deepest kind of labor.

Thank you again for speaking truth with such clarity. I’ll carry your words with me, especially as I continue writing about these entangled histories. I hope our paths cross again.

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Preston's avatar

Very well done, Brad.

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Brad Weed's avatar

Thank you, Preston. I guess Weeds really do have a way of popping up where you don't expect them.

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Brad Weed's avatar

My sister turned me on to a fascinating and relevant article written almost a year ago to date.

Thank you! 🙏

It's an excerpt from a book that explores many of the same themes I touch on in this piece.

https://religionandpolitics.org/2020/02/18/city-on-a-hill-and-the-making-of-an-american-origin-story/

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