DNA tests to learn your complete ethnic ancestry are all the rage these days. Record numbers of people are jumping for joy at the discovered proof of their heritage. However, others are dropping their jaws in shock to learn that their racial background is not necessarily what they always believed it to be.
Science
Ancestry DNA, 23andMe, and a few other companies have led the way in providing missing pieces of the puzzle to hundreds of thousands of curiosity seekers looking for answers regarding their roots. Through a simple DNA test of spitting in a vial then mailing it in, these companies have provided evidence of ethnic history that has included actual photographs of distant ancestors and other historical gems. However, these companies have also provided a surprising number of self-identified European Americans with the shocking news that they are actually part African.
Most African-Americans grow up assuming that they carry non-African DNA due to the rape of African slaves by white slave traders and owners. However, most White-Americans grow up being taught and believing that their ancestry is fully European and “pure.” Those beliefs are usually encouraged by garish “100 percent Irish” T-shirts or racial “purity” affiliations. Now, these $99 DNA tests are delivering the unsuspecting news that perceived white purity may not be so “pure” after all.
Racial mixing is considered extremely common today. However, many erroneously believe that it was rare or even non-existent during previous generations. A 2014 study of 23andMe customers found that around 5,200, or roughly 3.5% of 148,789 self-identified European Americans had at least 1% or perhaps more African ancestry, meaning they had a black ancestor going back about 6 generations or less.
Given the history of slavery and racism in America, this discovery has elicited a range of emotions. While some have celebrated the discovery, many others have felt vulnerable and even defensive.
At the DNA Discussion Project, an initiative at West Chester University in Pennsylvania that surveys people about their perceptions of their genetic makeup before and after DNA tests, 80% of roughly 3,000 people surveyed self-identify as white. Of those, two-thirds saw themselves as only one race and were upset with proof of African ancestry. Interestingly, many have been so disgusted by the news that their pure white history comes with a little “black” in it, that they have stooped to rationalizing it away.
One white supremacist who discovered he had African DNA took to the white nationalist website Stormfront.com to claim that the testing company (and therefore his own test results) was part of a Jewish conspiracy to “defame, confuse and deracinate young whites on a mass level.” Additionally, members of white nationalist groups have advised those who discover non-Aryan heritage to rely more on genealogy or the “mirror test.” As one member put it: “When you look in the mirror, do you see a jew? If not, you’re good.”
“For me, the number one takeaway is how easily people reject science,” said Anita Foeman, a professor of communication studies who also co-directs the DNA Discussion Project near Philadelphia. (In a sample of 217 self-identified European Americans from the project, 22% learned that they had African DNA.)
“Many whites would get a new story and say, ‘I’m still going to call myself ‘white,’ or ‘I’m still going to call myself ‘Italian,’ ” Foeman said. “They started to less see race as genetic and more a question of culture and physical appearance.”
Science
For 18-year-old Brendan Lordan of Wallingford, Pa., he grew up believing he was German and Irish. However, he was surprised when his own DNA test came back with proof that he is 4% African.
“The rule in the Old South was a drop of African blood makes you African,” he said. But now that the drops can be measured, “it sort of made race seem a lot more arbitrary. You’d never think I had African heritage just by looking at me. . . . It’s sort of made me disregard race more.”
Nicole Persley, who grew up in Nokesville, Va., was stunned to learn that she is part African. During the 1970s and ’80s in her rural hometown, she couldn’t have lived a more “white” life. She went to school with farmers’ kids who listened to country music and sometimes made racist jokes. According to her, she was “basically raised a Southern white girl.”
Following a DNA test, Persley discovered an interesting history: her own grandfather — whom she believed to be white — was actually black! After moving from his native Georgia to Michigan, he started a new life passing as white. He then married a white woman, who bore Persley’s father.
“That was a bombshell revelation for me and my family,” Persley said. She also doubts her father knew the truth. “My father had already passed away, so I could not ask him. It would have been, I think, a very difficult conversation to have with him, and I don’t think he would have been pleased. … I’m absolutely proud of my genealogy and my heritage, but I think my father would have thought I was dishonoring his father because it was a secret and I dug it up.”
As for Persley’s mother, she was flabbergasted.
“Her jaw dropped,” Persley stated. “She said, ‘Oh my gosh, I was married to a black man and I didn’t even know it!’ ”
For some whites, even a smidgen of African ancestry was commonly referred to as “the taint,” said Harvard University African and African-American studies professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. “That said it all: that it was something to be ashamed of, something dark and dirty.”
Gates, whose PBS show “Finding Your Roots” helped actor Ty Burrell and singer Carly Simon discover their own African ancestry, said he hopes that mounting awareness of the complexity of DNA will help lead to greater understanding across racial and ethnic lines.
“One of the pleasures I get from doing ‘Finding Your Roots’ is to show that we’re all mixed and that for 50,000 years everybody’s been sleeping with everybody — and that makes me blissfully happy because my enemy is racism,” he said.
The technology of DNA testing has come head to head with the country’s deep-rooted obsession regarding race and racial myths. Fortunately (unfortunately for some), the tests have set into motion a complicated recalibration of how Americans view their own identity.
For most African-Americans, DNA tests have been used as a welcomed lifeline that answered lingering questions surrounding an ethnic history that had previously been eradicated by slavery. However, for many White-Americans, DNA tests have been used as validation that they are as “pure” and as European and white as the driven snow.
Too bad (for them) DNA test results have been ruining some “purity” parties with the news that there’s an African in the ancestry!
“One of the pleasures I get from doing ‘Finding Your Roots’ is to show that we’re all mixed and that for 50,000 years everybody’s been sleeping with everybody — and that makes me blissfully happy because my enemy is RACISM.” – Henry Louis Gates Jr.
BINGO!!! That certainly sums up the way I feel about this matter.
Very good post DJ. Thanks for covering this topic.