My grandfather was born in 1947, his grandmother was born in 1905 and her grandfather was born in 1857 — you see where this is going?

It wasn't that long ago that members of my family were considered to be the property of other human beings. Knowing this has made me even more respectful and reverent of the many black people who were enslaved, because I, like many other black people my age, am not that many generations removed from it.

When I heard Kanye West make a comment in a recent TMZ interview suggesting that black people were enslaved by choice, or by perhaps even a lack of resistance, I couldn't even get angry. The statement was so ridiculous to me that I initially laughed.

American history would have us believe that enslaved Africans universally accepted their condition as slaves as their ultimate fate. Many people were made to believe that enslaved black people were too docile, too afraid and too ignorant to fight against their own captivity, and just waited until Abraham Lincoln came along and "freed" them.

Well, American history is a lie.

Black people have consistently resisted slavery and all subsequent forms of oppression in this country for over 400 years. Our ancestors ran away, they broke equipment on plantations, they'd poison their masters, they read and they'd plan massive rebellions.

Consider people who organized large scale rebellions like, Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey and Gabriel Prosser. Consider the countless black people who rose up in Bacon's Rebellion against Virginia's wealthy white planter's class in 1676.

Consider the Maroon people, blacks who escaped from slavery and settled in the Great Dismal Swamp region. Consider The Underground Railroad; consider Harriet Tubman.

Enslaved black people in America never collectively laid down and just allowed their humanity to be stripped away, and to even suggest such a thought is not only subtly anti-black, but it's incredibly disrespectful to our ancestors.

Of course, not every black person's ancestors led the rebellions, but many of them did something else which was also revolutionary: they survived.

They grew up, they had children, they made each other smile, they read, they laughed, they sang, they prayed, they loved each other all in a society which deemed them subhuman and sought to break their spirit.

Referring to slavery as a choice falls into the same school of thought (or lack thereof) as people who say poverty is a choice, or that women choose to be in abusive relationships. It blames individuals for the trauma which systems create and uphold, while those systems, in fact, minimize the individual's choices. Victim blaming 101.

When I study my family tree,and see how few generations I am from slavery, I often wonder what I would do if I were the one who was enslaved. Thanks to the sacrifices and the strength of my ancestors, I guess we'll never know.