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These tests are cool for personal gratification, but they are socially insignificant at the present time.
My doctor definitely took my genetic test seriously enough to include a copy in my file, especially because the test decoded my entire genome and can be downloaded in raw data. That information is 100% accurate, but perhaps for some it may be inconvenient.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
According to my family history, I have a Commanche great-great-grandmother, which should be enough to make me a member of the Commanche nation. I even have her picture with my great-great-grandfather. However, that marriage was not recorded in the official Commanche nation records, and it's utterly irrelevant to them what a DNA test reveals--they will only accept their own records. The Commanche nation doesn't care about the results of a DNA test, so there's no more point to me getting too excited about it now than it was 63 years ago when I was born with only my great-great-grandmother's picture in my family's possession.
In the same, way, a DNA test would reveal that my son is less than 50% African but at least 50% Polynesian. Makes absolutely zero social different, because he has been and will be treated by US society as African American. That's something he came to accept while he was still a teenager. Claiming to be "***-Talian" (a black American reference you may not be old enough to catch) is useless at the present time.
In the US at the present time, what you "are" is socially dictated by what the dominant white American judges you to be by your appearance. How they treat you when you interview for a job, when you apply for an apartment, when the cop pulls you over, when the school principal brings you in for misconduct, when the car salesman considers your offer...all that is based on what you look like to them at that particular moment. They don't care about "no steenkin' DNA test." They don't care if you call yourself a "***-Talian."
If any part of their decision is based on racial prejudice, they will make make it based on what you look like to them, not on DNA test results you wave in their faces. I expect in twenty or thirty years that will change--after we Boomers are safely dead or we all have Altzheimers. But not at this moment while we Boomers are still in control of industry and government. I had thought we Boomers were the transitional generation from the racist apartheid we were born into into a post-racial generation, but the last six years have shown me that we Boomers are still the product of our apartheid childhood.
Just as I suspected from the start, your attempt to downplay the genetic tests is tied to identity politics and a desire to not see the traditional "race"-based identities in the United States affected, especially when it comes to the debunked one-drop-rule and the self-deception to which conspicuously mixed people have been forced to accept.
The reality is that genetic testing is bringing to the limelight the identity fraud and self-deception that millions of Americans have been subjected to for generations. These tests simply add more evidence in favor of this (see video) and some people who would like for the national self-deception to continue don't like it, hence the negation of what is essentially undeniable, especially once a person's genome has been decoded.
Everyone has a right to feel whichever way they want about any topic and if a mixed race person wants to continue with the traditional self-deception, it is their right to do so even when the cold hard truth is brought to the limelight in a way that is simply hard to ignore. However, any mixed race person that wants to be true to themselves, that want to simply accept themselves for what they really are and not what they, their friends, or some traditional people/society greatly wish they should had been is the complete right of said mixed race person and no one can deny them that or hide them from themselves or continue to deceive them about their genetic reality.
Society changes when people force it to change, as is clearly evident in the USA's history. Change must be based on the truth, on an objective identity built upon reality and not wishful thinking or make believe.
"Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted." -William Hazzlitt
"All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things." -Robert Southey
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." -Buddha
"The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is." -Winston Churchill
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." -Arthur Schopenhauer
My doctor definitely took my genetic test seriously enough to include a copy in my file, especially because the test decoded my entire genome and can be downloaded in raw data. That information is 100% accurate, but perhaps for some it may be inconvenient.
Just as I suspected from the start, your attempt to downplay the genetic tests is tied to identity politics and a desire to not see the traditional "race"-based identities in the United States affected, especially when it comes to the debunked one-drop-rule and the self-deception to which conspicuously mixed people have been forced to accept.
The reality is that genetic testing is bringing to the limelight the identity fraud and self-deception that millions of Americans have been subjected to for generations. These tests simply add more evidence in favor of this (see video) and some people who would like for the national self-deception to continue don't like it, hence the negation of what is essentially undeniable, especially once a person's genome has been decoded.
Yes, the science behind the test shatters the old US identity politics. Not only that, this new scientific knowledge comes at a point when American itself has become increasingly diverse. Many people from other parts of the world did not have an one drop world and it's more common for people to acknowledge coming from a mixed racial background.
My doctor definitely took my genetic test seriously enough to include a copy in my file, especially because the test decoded my entire genome and can be downloaded in raw data.
Vanessa Williams has talked about the medical applications of what she learned about her family history. Her brother had a rather blood disorder common among Italians. When the doctors asked the mother if they were part Italian, the mothered answered no. A dna profile of Vanessa Williams confirmed that they are part Italian.
One's ethnic background is the totality of who you are and can be important in many ways.
My doctor definitely took my genetic test seriously enough to include a copy in my file, especially because the test decoded my entire genome and can be downloaded in raw data. That information is 100% accurate, but perhaps for some it may be inconvenient.
Just as I suspected from the start, your attempt to downplay the genetic tests is tied to identity politics and a desire to not see the traditional "race"-based identities in the United States affected, especially when it comes to the debunked one-drop-rule and the self-deception to which conspicuously mixed people have been forced to accept.
The reality is that genetic testing is bringing to the limelight the identity fraud and self-deception that millions of Americans have been subjected to for generations. These tests simply add more evidence in favor of this (see video) and some people who would like for the national self-deception to continue don't like it, hence the negation of what is essentially undeniable, especially once a person's genome has been decoded.
Nothing is 100% accurate, especially with regard to health predicitons. Companies like 23andMe the health is reported based on Europeans.
The correction on you said: "because the test decoded my entire genome." You are misinformed. Currently, no company (DTC) does a full genome sequencing. Maybe in the future. The report you received is a tiny fraction of your DNA, non-coding regions (selected few locus), which means these areas do not make protein.
Last edited by AppalachianGumbo; 04-24-2014 at 01:31 PM..
Nothing is 100% accurate, especially with regard to health predicitons. Companies like 23andMe the health is reported based on Europeans.
The correction on you said: "because the test decoded my entire genome." You are misinformed. Currently, no company (DTC) does a full genome sequencing. Maybe in the future. The report you received is a tiny fraction of your DNA, non-coding regions (selected few locus), which means these areas do not make protein.
"We found 19 labs offering this service with prices from $1,500.00 to $6,995.00 per sample."
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