As more learn of genetic makeup, African roots emerge
AS MORE Americans take advantage of genetic testing to pinpoint the makeup of their DNA, the technology is coming head-to-head with the country’s deep-rooted obsession with race and racial myths. This is perhaps no more true than for the growing number of selfidentified European-Americans who learn they are actually part African.
For those who are surprised by their genetic heritage, the new information can often set into motion a complicated recalibration of how they view their identity.
Nicole Persley, who grew up in Nokesville, Virginia, was stunned to learn that she is part African. Her youth could not have been whiter.
In the 1970s and ‘80s in her rural home town, she went to school with farmers’ kids who listened to country music and sometimes made racist jokes. She was, as she recalls, “basically raised a Southern white girl.”
But as a student at the University of Michigan: “My roommate was black. My friends were black. I was dating a black man.” And they saw something different in her facial features and hair.
“I was constantly being asked, ‘What are you? What’s your ethnic background?’ “
While African-Americans generally assume that they may carry non-African DNA dating back to sexual relations between masters and slaves, many white Americans like Persley grow up believing that their ancestry is fully European, a belief manifested in things from kitschy “100 per cent Irish” T-shirts to more-sinister racial “purity” affiliations.
Now, for under US$100, it has become increasingly easy to spit into a vial and receive a scientifically accurate assessment of one’s genetic makeup. Companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry.com provide a list of countries or regions where the predominant genetic traits match those of one’s forebears.
In recent years, multiracial Americans have increasingly entered the national consciousness. Between 1970 and 2013, the portion of babies living with two parents of different races rose from one to 10 per cent, the Pew Research Centre found. When the mixing happened several generations back, it can take people by surprise. While little data exists comparing people’s perceptions with the reality of their ethnic makeup, a 2014 study of 23andMe customers found that around 5,200, or roughly 3.5 per cent, of 148,789 self-identified EuropeanAmericans had one per cent or more African ancestry.
For some, white identity trumps DNA. If the test result is too disruptive to their sense of self, they may rationalise it away. One white supremacist who discovered he had African DNA claimed on the white nationalist website Stormfront.com that the testing company was part of a Jewish conspiracy to “defame, confuse and deracinate young whites on a mass level.”