Black People : The dangers of DNA testing

In the Spirit of Sankofa- Beautiful Sister and Brother!

Zulile said:
:heart:

I came across this article because I am.. well, I cant say 'troubled'.. but.. baffled is a better word - at some the responses and questions about Obama and his 'Blackness' - and I cant help but ask 'who the heck are YOU to question?' :lol: Do you even know?

the final quote in this article is: "The question ultimately is, are you who you say you are, or are you who you are genetically?"

Perhaps, people dismiss him as Black because his white roots are too recent ;) Have we instigated our own version of the 'one drop rule' to a 'time' rule of sorts?

I'd like to know what makes one Black. Lifestyle? clearly it isnt based on colour tone... standing against a colour pallet at a paint shop?.. or is it?

outside of that, I enjoyed the article and feel very fortunate as I know my direct roots for ever and back again. I have adopted siblings are are not as lucky - in fact, one had his mother find and contact him a couple years ago and she was no race we ever imagined. The man has never been the same since. smh.


Zulile,

I hear you and feel you sister! Excellent find producing great dialogue!




omowalejabali,

Keep teaching Brother, keep teaching!

 
Back to the Article...

Zulile said:
Black Like I Thought I Was

By Erin Aubry Kaplan, LA Weekly

October 7, 2003

Wayne Joseph is a 51-year-old high school principal in Chino whose
family emigrated from the segregated parishes of Louisiana to central
Los Angeles in the 1950s, as did mine. Like me, he is of Creole stock
and is therefore on the lighter end of the black color spectrum, a
common enough circumstance in the South that predates the
multicultural movement by centuries. And like most other black folk,
Joseph grew up with an unequivocal sense of his heritage and of
himself; he tends toward black advocacy and has published thoughtful
opinion pieces on racial issues in magazines like Newsweek. When
Joseph decided on a whim to take a new ethnic DNA test he saw
described on a 60 Minutes segment last year, it was only to indulge a
casual curiosity about the exact percentage of black blood; virtually
all black Americans are mixed with something, he knew, but he figured
it would be interesting to make himself a guinea pig for this new
testing process, which is offered by a Florida-based company called
DNA Print Genomics Inc. The experience would at least be fodder for
another essay for Newsweek. He got his kit in the mail, swabbed his
mouth per the instructions and sent off the DNA samples for analysis.

Read more: http://www.alternet.org/story/16917/

Uponding this article I noticed it made reference to a movie entitled "The Human Stain". Living in Los Angeles, I then remembered when Sister Erin first ran this as a cover story in the L.A. Weekly. I never did see the movie but it supposedly was actually written based on the experience of this man,

Anatole Broyard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatole_Broyard

I also remember seeing an episode of Law and Order where a similar character was portrayed. It was about a black man who for years passed as white and he married a white woman who had killed one of his children because she found out that her husband was really a "negro".

The wiki article on Broyard has some interesting external links, some being articles written by his children.

Again, I think the point is still being missed by the wiki article. When it speaks to these "Creole" families tending to "intermarry" as opposed to marrying into darker or more heavily "African" families, it had more to do with "lineage", where they in-bred among those who were considered "Afro-Louisiane" or "Afro-European".

This is something that was so prevalent that even defore the civil war era, and especially after, a number of "Creole families, "light and dark" migrated out of New Orleans and into East Texas, or up to Chicago, or across to Los Angeles.

And those in East Texas and northern Louisiana (Lafayette up to Shreveport) are the same who created a musical genre known as ZYDECO.

I have been to several Bayou festivals or Zydeco festivals where they had the Creole Indian Line Dancers and steppers from Alabama, and their skin color crosses the spectrum.

In fact, brother Sun Ship oce did a forum here after the death of jazz vocalist and drum-maker Juno Lewis, who no doubt was recognized as one of the few vocalists who could sing the "Creole dialect" as it was taught by his Elders. And brother Juno was close to the same skin complexion as Flava Flav.

http://www.jazzhouse.org/gone/lastpost2.php3?edit=1019634677

Juno is credited for writing the song "Kulu Se Mama" as performed by John Coltrane.
 
My Own Lesson from DNA Testing and Genealogy Research

omowalejabali said:
Uponding this article I noticed it made reference to a movie entitled "The Human Stain". Living in Los Angeles, I then remembered when Sister Erin first ran this as a cover story in the L.A. Weekly. I never did see the movie but it supposedly was actually written based on the experience of this man,

Anatole Broyard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatole_Broyard

I also remember seeing an episode of Law and Order where a similar character was portrayed. It was about a black man who for years passed as white and he married a white woman who had killed one of his children because she found out that her husband was really a "negro".

The wiki article on Broyard has some interesting external links, some being articles written by his children.

Again, I think the point is still being missed by the wiki article. When it speaks to these "Creole" families tending to "intermarry" as opposed to marrying into darker or more heavily "African" families, it had more to do with "lineage", where they in-bred among those who were considered "Afro-Louisiane" or "Afro-European".

This is something that was so prevalent that even defore the civil war era, and especially after, a number of "Creole families, "light and dark" migrated out of New Orleans and into East Texas, or up to Chicago, or across to Los Angeles.

And those in East Texas and northern Louisiana (Lafayette up to Shreveport) are the same who created a musical genre known as ZYDECO.

I have been to several Bayou festivals or Zydeco festivals where they had the Creole Indian Line Dancers and steppers from Alabama, and their skin color crosses the spectrum.

In fact, brother Sun Ship oce did a forum here after the death of jazz vocalist and drum-maker Juno Lewis, who no doubt was recognized as one of the few vocalists who could sing the "Creole dialect" as it was taught by his Elders. And brother Juno was close to the same skin complexion as Flava Flav.

http://www.jazzhouse.org/gone/lastpost2.php3?edit=1019634677

Juno is credited for writing the song "Kulu Se Mama" as performed by John Coltrane.


I have been involved in intensive and extensive research in this area since 1988. Having to come to grips with my own African, Indigenous and "European" ancestry. Dealing with my own R1b genetic haplotype and Type "A" blood grouping.

Through it all, my own participation is limited since both parents and all grand-parents are deceased. They did leave me with a "blueprint" to follow as my Dad before me conducted his own family research. Life has taught me some hard truths that I don't expect others to accept. The important thing for me is knowing who I am and where I come from, in spite of all criticism. I cannot change who I am, or where my ancestors came from. All I can do is make the best of my situation. While reading between the "white lies".

At various point I abandoned this research because it was difficult to accept some of my own findings. But now I try to keep an open mind and assist others who find it important to search their own roots.

This is why studying and performing as a musician has played such an important part in my life. I have learned more from Black men such as Don Cherry and Juno Lewis than I ever will in an internet forum.

I have relatives who used the catholic faith to go out in the bayou country and worship Shango and mami Wata and those Black Saints which sustained our ancestors for centuries disguising African spirituality while at the same time teaching those "survivalisms" to successive generations. I know this don't make no sense for some, but to others, it has been what has sustained some of us through the worst of times. Through it all, I continue to relate to Afrikan people and Afrikan culture. First.

Peace.
 

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