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My DNA results weren't really surprising if you look at me. What was surprising is that I don't have very much of a DNA connection to the branch of the family I know the most about and identify with and carry the surname of. It's seems I'm a Scottish Viking with an Italian last name.
I look like a very dark Puerto Rican but have no known roots there.
Never had a DNA test. The mixed bag I know I am from word-of-mouth is fine. I'm me. Not an ancestor.
The author of the article did an ancestry test with her DNA. Contrary to the claim by word of mouth that she was part native American, she is 31% white and 0.6% Native American.
Of all the emotions which materialized from the results, the two strongest were disorient and shame. I thought the results would simply confirm what I was told by my family; instead they discredited their allegations.
This has apparently turned her world upside down for now.
It’s as if I’ve obscured the one thing which has guided me since I was nine years old… my heritage. Even back then I believed in Black power, creating drawings in art class titled “A Strong Black Nation”, featuring black construction paper hands reaching for the sky. Along with being a millennial and being a woman, being Black enlivens me. I’m personally and professionally compelled to clarify misconceptions and elevate all three of my squads. As inappropriate (but honest) as it sounds, I’d discovered I had the so-called “superior” race running through my veins, and never before had I felt so inferior.
She ends the article well claiming that the world is a melting pot, and it is better because of it.
While I’m no Rachel Dolezal, I must accept the fact I do have White ancestors. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but quite honestly, the road to acceptance will not be an easy one for me to travel.
I appreciate the honest assessment of her plight. I guess this is where a lifestyle based on identity has failed her, because her identity isn't what she thought it was.
To me, it's much easier to take people as individuals. There are good and not-so-good people in all races.
That lady just needs to get a grip: at least she looks "Black" enough to be accepted by the Black community. Sheesh!
This Huffington Post black journalist said she may be embarrassed to have a 31% white ancestry. God forbid a white journalist said that s/he was embarrassed to have some black ancestors after a 23 and me DNA test. That white journalist would be drawn and quartered.....on Huffington Post.
Most African-Americans have white ancestry. It's one of the great paradoxes of their narrative that whites should feel shame because of their ancestry.
The author of the article did an ancestry test with her DNA. Contrary to the claim by word of mouth that she was part native American, she is 31% white and 0.6% Native American.
Of all the emotions which materialized from the results, the two strongest were disorient and shame. I thought the results would simply confirm what I was told by my family; instead they discredited their allegations.
This has apparently turned her world upside down for now.
It’s as if I’ve obscured the one thing which has guided me since I was nine years old… my heritage. Even back then I believed in Black power, creating drawings in art class titled “A Strong Black Nation”, featuring black construction paper hands reaching for the sky. Along with being a millennial and being a woman, being Black enlivens me. I’m personally and professionally compelled to clarify misconceptions and elevate all three of my squads. As inappropriate (but honest) as it sounds, I’d discovered I had the so-called “superior” race running through my veins, and never before had I felt so inferior.
She ends the article well claiming that the world is a melting pot, and it is better because of it.
While I’m no Rachel Dolezal, I must accept the fact I do have White ancestors. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but quite honestly, the road to acceptance will not be an easy one for me to travel.
I appreciate the honest assessment of her plight. I guess this is where a lifestyle based on identity has failed her, because her identity isn't what she thought it was.
To me, it's much easier to take people as individuals. There are good and not-so-good people in all races.
I personally I'm probably upwards of 99% African. My mom side I can trace and my mom has a great aunt that was pushing 50% white. My Dad's side on the other hand is Ijaw, which is one of the first ethnic groups to come into contact with whites. While I doubt I am more than 2-3% non African due to how dark I am (currently the darkest one in my family of 40+), due to my dad having several sisters who are naturally as light/lighter than this woman https://www.instagram.com/tontolet/?hl=en , and my grandmother on his side is really light so who knows I might be a bit British or Portuguese or even North African. But my point is I honestly don't care either way, It would be cool to know just to know, I understand lots of people have an agenda they want to push and some just want bragging rights, but I think it is unfair to assume that these black posters just want to know because they want to know.
She's upset by it because she wants to be black no more so than you want to be white! She's stupid for being so naive, but these things happen when your heritage is nebulous and records are poor.
She is black. 67% black. Read the article. She thought she had more native amerian than white.
After completing my home-based saliva collection kit I quickly received my results:
Sub-Saharan African: 67.2%
European: 31.5%
East Asian & Native American: 0.6%
Unassigned: 0.6%
" I thought the results would simply confirm what I was told by my family; instead they discredited their allegations.
In college, my father told me our family was Native American and Black."
I haven't read this whole thread but will say I believe hearing a few years back that the average black American (not including the more recent African, Carribbean, or South American immigrants) genetically has about 30% European ancestry as a result of the slave era, and also what continued to occur post-Civil War. I can understand how that might not be welcome news at a couple levels to some blacks. Most importantly I imagine it would be painful to think about how that mixed ancestry came about. Maybe it is time this became more general knowledge. The truth, painful as it may be, can be liberating.
As an amateur genealogist myself I think the strides made in black genealogies is excellent. Knowing where you came from helps you understand who you are. I have no slave ownership in my background back to the very beginnings of Quebec, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and New Amsterdam but my mother-in-law's family goes back to colonial Virginia and the Carolinas. They all were slaveholders, some just a few and others with many. I have copies of Wills divying up the slaves along with the farm tools and furniture. I also have documentation of two slave owners having fathered children by slaves, and a letter from my mother-in-laws Uncle that mentions bastard black children in the family from his father's generation (late 1800's). These are the unspoken secrets in many slaveholder families. One of the Wills I have freed just one slave and her mother and ordered the oldest son & heir to build them a house on the property and to provide for them. It is obvious the slave girl was his daughter. The other was documented by the boy born of such a relationship and passed down/recorded by his descendants. He didn't get his freedom however until the Civil War when he was already middle aged. His father was one of the owner's sons. I have contemplated trying to find modern day descendants of those two slave children.
Unless you are a recent immigrant from Africa - you are almost guaranteed to be part white. The average black person is about 24 to 30% white and a little bit Native American.
It is nothing to be ashamed of, as I said, virtually all black Americans are about that much white. If it makes you feel better, many whites have some black ancestry and don't know it....and then tragically find out...
America is a melting pot. Perhaps shared family lines can be healing?!?!
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