The Mental Stupidities That We Create Around Facts
The genomics-ancestry hobby and our common origins.
Why are we focused on what divides us rather than what unites us?
For me, there is no bigger idiocy than categorizing people by color. White, black, yellow, brown, and red are the primary colors of the imbecility and if we want to be more idiotic, we mix in nuances for precision and therefore expand our stupidity. Because it’s so easy to use our vision as a scientific instrument, for over hundreds of years it has remained a common human categorization.
There have been attempts in the past to apply hard science to make human categorizations (please repeat ironically) “genuine, accurate, and unbiased”. Phrenology is an example. Developed around 1800 by a German neuroanatomist, it’s an old pseudoscientific theory invalid today. With caliper in hand, wielded by “scientists”, an individual’s character, personality, and criminal tendencies could be determined from skull measurements.
Another common categorization uses our sense of hearing to determine the language or accents of a speaker and thus assign that individual a culture to belong to, with associated “advantages” and “disadvantages” in behavior and skills.
Rachel Dolezal, daughter of white parents with Swedish and German backgrounds, rose to the highest echelons of African American activism in the United States after changing her clothing and physical appearance and proclaiming African-American descent. I don’t see anything wrong with embracing a culture you were not born into and without the associated “color”. Evil is lying in doing so and on the way climbing a leadership ladder with falsehoods.
“In June 2015, Dolezal drew media attention when her US European parents publicly declared that Dolezal was a white woman passing as black. Their statement followed police reports to local media that Dolezal had reported being a victim of nine hate crimes; however, a subsequent police investigation did not support Dolezal’s allegations. Dolezal critics argue that she has committed cultural appropriation and fraud; Dolezal and her supporters argue that her racial identity is genuine, while not based on biology or ancestry. In a television interview in November 2015, Dolezal said publicly for the first time since the controversy began that she was born white but identify as black. “— Wikipedia
We can imitate language and mannerisms thus appropriating a culture. We can put on new clothes, change makeup, perform cosmetic surgery, tint hair and style differently, and with “nuanced” skin instead of a primary color, take the racial identity that you want to belong to.
To the “rescue” comes our DNA and the science of genomics with the truth.
There’s an app for it
But our genetic makeup is impossible to manufacture, imitate, tint, redress, or change its makeup. To the extent that the price of mapping a human genome continues to go down — recently a $69 Christmas special — and in some cases none, if you have a medical plan to cover the cost, it has become a popular way to learn more about the geographic regions in which our ancestors lived thousands of years ago after leaving Africa.
It has become increasingly easy to spit into a vial received two days after placing the order and in four to six weeks later receive a scientifically accurate assessment of your own genetic fabric for viewing with an app. Companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com provide a list of countries or regions indicating in percentage terms your genetic traits matching people who lived there 10 generations ago.
Our African roots
We all come from Africa. The human race, our species Homo sapiens originated in Africa before emigrating and spreading to the rest of the World. It’s a fact adopted worldwide by scientists who have investigated and those of us that take science to mean an insistence on paying attention to facts that others have gathered even when they conflict with the way I want the world to be; it’s a reluctance to make excuses or “spin” it.
“Advanced DNA testing combined with recent findings reinforce the belief that if you look back far enough, all living humans are descended from a small, innovative and ambitious group from Africa. With the mapping of the human genome in 2003, combined with thousands of people around the world who send their DNA for testing, there is now stronger physical evidence that we all started in Africa before migrating to the World.” — Errol Barnett, CNN
Our individual genetic distribution is a fact. It’s a marketing fallacy that the distribution has something to do with culture.
For example, the dissent music artist who in his genetic roots video documentary seeks to know more about the music of his remote ancestors. The beautifully photographed documentary takes us to three countries and cultures in Asia and Africa where each contributes (as he says) about 6% of his ancestral genome, wilfully ignoring where the rest of the “blood” flowing through his veins comes from. Because he never mentions the remaining 70–80% of the corresponding geographies to reach 100%. I think he does it because he was born on a Caribbean island and his marketable dissent is the 16th and 17th centuries European conquest and the current US invasion. The first invasion physically and culturally removed the island’s natives, replacing them with African slaves. The second invasion from the island’s current political owner is trying since 1898 to replace the customs, identity, and Hispanic-African language with its “odious” white Anglo-Saxon equivalents. Musical albums and videos that protest and speak with gallantry and pride only about cultures running through his veins and marginalized by the modern world sell. But it’s not marketable and appealing to his public to mention the other percentages in his blood (over which he has absolutely no control), possibly from colonial masters.
Another example is the repetitive TV ad promoting the joy of buying a genomic analysis and finding of your “genuine cultural roots”. The ignorant ad features a modern American male who all his life had embraced his German ancestry with music and traditional costumes. His genome analysis, however, indicated that his highest percentage comes from Scotland, and before us, happily and doubtless, changes his favorite music and dons a Scottish kilt. Because DNA science told him and it’s reliable. Actually, if you think a bit, the ad’s message, apart from playing with the ignorance of many, it’s either funny or malicious. It depends on your point of view. You can imagine the hero growing in a home where his father and mother told stories about their respective German ancestries, not knowing that one or the other concealed a Scottish affair.
All lies.
But the drop that spilled the cup, and the reason that prompted me to write on this subject, the straw that broke the camel’s back, was this headline:
They considered themselves white, but DNA tests told a more complex story
As more Americans take advantage of genetic testing technology to determine the composition of their DNA, they come face to face with deeply rooted obsessions about country of origin, race, and racial myths. This is perhaps no truer than for the growing number of self-identified European-Americans who learn that they are actually part of Africa. — Tara Bahrampour
It’s the story of Nicole Persley, “a white girl from the South” (her words), who was surprised to learn that she also was part of Africa. She grew up in the 1970s and 80s surrounded by racist jokes, white as white can be. She researched her roots and learned that a grand-uncle had been a celebrated African American architect in Georgia.
It’s also the story of a white supremacist whose result showed African descent and rationalized it as a Jewish conspiracy.
It’s the mirror test, used by those anxious about the result of their “purity test” who for advice go to social media. The advice? “When you look in the mirror, do you see a Jew or an African? If not, you’re fine”.
But there’s also a promise of understanding and clarity
It’s the stories of many white persons who find about their genetic variety and move on to support racial diversity and strengthen their cultural identity when they realize that feeling Russian, Italian, Dutch, German, Irish, or Norwegian, among some examples, is a cultural identity we choose and not a biological predetermination.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. is a professor of African and African-American studies at Harvard University who has a PBS TV show called Finding Your Roots where famous guests have previously consented to a genomic analysis. Dr. Gates discusses their results for the first time, elegantly explained and with historical records (photos, documents) relevant to their hitherto unknown genetic roots.
“One of the pleasures I get from doing Finding Your Roots is to show that we are all mixed and that for 50,000 years everyone has been sleeping with everyone — and that makes me completely happy because my enemy is racism” — Henry Louis Gates Jr
In conclusion
We are not sons or daughters of a culture related to a geographic region that our genome says we have a higher percentage. Our “blood” doesn’t tell us how to interact with others. We are, in fact, a son or daughter of our biological father and mother and as adults belong to the culture we want to be part of. Genetic test results don’t determine culture, our belonging, or our decisions. Nor our experiences, feelings, and beliefs. Nor the family who helps us and we want to help in return. Nor the people who embrace us and we want to embrace back. Nor what makes us feel good and what we do to make others feel as well as we do.
The ancestors game and genomic analysis involve manipulating the timeline. We can intuit our ancestors from 300, 1,000, 2,000, 10,000, or tens of thousands years ago, as far back as we want and even to the start of life itself. The fact of the matter is that our origins as descendants of African Homo Sapiens are irrefutable. Everything that happened after that was a reflection of the momentum created by migration and human curiosity to conquer everything in our path and survive. Climatic and geographical barriers were not an impediment. Centuries of isolation created what we call different cultures but it is ignorance that divides us. And that’s what the genome analysis merchants take advantage of to sell what is simply a curiosity. Of course, I’m curious and wouldn’t mind getting my genome-ancestry analyzed, but as you may have understood by now, dear reader, I find it difficult to justify spending money just on a curiosity, even if it’s only $69 during Christmas special.
Homo Sapiens is curious, an intrinsic genomic legacy common in all of us and to all cultures, and more relevant than our geographical and cultural origins. Let’s accept curiosity but reject ignorance if we want a better world to live in.
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