Can a genealogist be racist and be comfortable with DNA testing? [closed]

Question

There was a lot of media coverage about last week's violent attacks in Charlottesville, Virginia.  One article that you may want to read is Dick Eastman's blog post, "Advice to White Supremacists: You Might Not Want to Test Your DNA."

Note:  Those who did not click on the link to Dick Eastman's blog post may have missed the point of my question, so I added a few words to clarify it.  I do not believe that a genealogist can be racist (yes I understand the definition) and be comfortable with DNA testing.  Here are a couple of points from the post:

"A geneticist at the University of California at Los Angeles ran a project for months that culminated in the presentation of a paper in Montreal this week at the annual gathering of the American Sociological Association. It seems that DNA testing of many members of one white supremacy organization indicates that a number of those who were tested have mixed racial ancestry. In other words, these white supremacists are not 100% white."

"Geneticists and anthropologists will probably tell you that very few, if any, of the white populations in North America, Europe, or elsewhere are 100% white."

 

Comments

It is absurd for this post to have been flagged.  Are we outlawing a large part of the English language just because the words used to discuss completely legitimate topics have recently acquired negative valances when they are used in very different ways in current news items in the political arena?

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Thank you, Gaile.  I assumed readers would click on the link to the blog post.  I expanded my post to clarify the question and provide a couple of points from the blog post I referenced.

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I completely get your point Star!  

The genetic genealogy tests are very eye-opening for people with simplistic beliefs that they are "100% white" or "100% Irish," etc.

Like you, I see this as another benefit of genetic testing for genealogy.  It challenges people to be open-minded about their ethnic/racial origins.

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There is only ONE RACE< HUMAN.  Bible, started from 2 people, SCI. Eve in Africa,  Now a days no one is pure anything. Proud to be mixed anything.

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How about, the number of white supremacists there actually are is so insignificant that it barely bares mentioning. 50 clowns show up at a rally, that was actually about preserving historical statues ,& suddenly they are taking over the  country.

Answer 1

Lives Matter!

Color doesn't.

 

I wanted to take out a full page ad in every newspaper in the country, but for obvious reasons I can't

Comments

It's just a wrapper. Inside we're all the same color and have the same organs that function under the same rules. We are more alike than different!

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Would it be true that color doesn't matter. Tell that to the blacks that are gun downed by cops on a daily basis. It is a rare occasion if a cop is even indicted for murder for killing and unarmed person of color, and if indicted they are not charge

It is fact that NAZI's and persons of a KKK mentality are joining the police forces, and use their uniform and badge as a hunting license and get out of jail free card.

I've seen it too often, An armed white person gets talked down by the poloie, an unarmed black person that won't stop walking or running  gets shot in the back. Heck they don't have to do anything but sit in their car and advise the cop, as they are required by law, that they have a permit to carry a weapon..

Black Lives Matter is a complaint about an institutional prejudice, especially amongst police, that black lives don't matter.

Did you know that the original function of the militia  in America was to act as slave patrols and keep the blacks under control.?

There is over a 300 year history of the police, including the militia, harassing, arresting and even lynching blacks.

My 3rd great grandfather served in Copt Owen's company, 3rd Regiment, 2nd Draft Infantry Militia, Georgia.. not in the war of 1812 but in a slave patrol.and was the last in my direct line of descent to own a slave.

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I understand what you are saying, William, I do see it!  I experienced profiling in The Social Security office last week. I have Myasthenia Gravis, have been on disability since 2012 and had to turn in a document  in person  to straighten up a 2 year mistake on their part.

I was the only light skinned American in the office. The Security Guard was treating  everyone worse than  prisoners. It was deplorable, I will be reporting that office! One lady was about 80yrs old was in tears, breaking down. He was hollering at people like they were dogs or worse. They were all acting very polite! No one there deserved that treatment! If he and the other people working there don't like their jobs they should go work somewhere else! People would try to ask a simple question he would holler at them to sit down. So, I would go ask him for them, and he would answer me nicely! I almost lost it with him, except I was in a government office and the people needed help! That was profiling at the very worse! I see it on the news everyday, but not in person!

I plan to send a news crew in there undercover.... ridiculous and it broke my heart to say the least. I never thought in todays society I would see a human being being treated in such a way because of their race, skin color or because they were not American's or couldn't speak English!  They had interpreters in Hindi, Vietnamese, Russian, Spanish, Cantonese...barely heard the English or Spanish language as they called names with people filing for social security. The sad thing is the African American people, natural born citizens were being treated horrific over the other ones not natural born citizens. So, confusing.... Yes, I live in Houston, Texas... it's a melting pot of society.   

I was ill when I went in there and I felt worse when I left, not to mention, the people that were before me were still waiting when I left. One young lady had total kidney failure, she was still waiting with her mother!!!

My family came over in the 1600's, some were Quaker's, some were French Huguenots and some were Royal's bringing their wealth and English slaves to America. They took the land from the American Indians, sadly purchased other slaves, owned large Plantations, some migrated  to Mississippi . The Quaker lineage didn't have slaves and migrated to Texas, but left the religion to fight in The Civil War protecting Texas.

 I did go through some sadness as I was reading the wills and saw how they willed human beings as property. Those Ancestor's  paid back a little with lost lives and lost Plantations. Personally, I feel The American Indian's are still owed more. I'm also of American Indian Heritage per DNA testing at least 3 grandparents 1700's. Somehow, that was left out of the two published genealogy books.

History keeps repeating.....  what will it take to stop this racial  madness? We are all human beings, most all humans/ Americans DNA have some African lineage. I proudly check other on applications now.

Answer 2

I think we need to go to the dictionary on this one:

Definition of racism

1. 1 :  a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2. 2a :  a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles b :  a political or social system founded on racism

3. 3 :  racial prejudice or discrimination

People keep flinging around words like racist, misogynist, etc simply because they disagree with an opinion that has been voiced.  They don't look for facts or the truth, they just give into feelings and hysteria that is formented by groups (i.e. the msm) to divide and separate groups of people. 

So, please tell me how in the world that a genealogist, one that is just dealing with facts and sources relating to their family history, a racist?  Is that person suppressing another individual(s) because of their "race" (by the way, there is only one race, that is the human race.  We are all homo sapiens, though at the moment I would be ashamed to admit it) through genealogy?  Or are they just discovering their family in order to discover more of what makes them them?  (I've said before, that one can't really know where one is going unless one knows where one has been).  Is professing a bit of pride in the family accomplishments racist?  I suppose if those family accomplishments were in themselves racists (denying someone advancement or opportunities because of the color of their skin) then yes, I suppose you could say that. 

On the whole, no.  I don't think genealogy or one who is a genealogist is a racist simply because they are a genealogist.  Not all racists are genealogists and not all genealogists are racists. 

 

Comments

Cindy, I am sorry you misunderstood my post.  If you had clicked on the link to Dick Eastman's blog post you would have understood my point.

Answer 3

Using strict guidelines for English language usages, Can a genealogist be racist, yes they can, BUT it serves no purpose so they should not be.

The only time I even look at the race of a person on records is when I know that there are people with like sounding names in a close area and only then because sometimes if you have a different race listed you could tell if the record belongs to the person you are searching for.

Comments

Of course I agree that a genealogist can be racist - a genealogist is, after all, a person, no different from any other person and can have any of the traits/attributes/feelings/beliefs/thoughts/ideas/hobbies/WHATEVER that any person can have.  A genealogist can also claim membership in any group that exists to participate in and/or promote his/her interests ... whether an athletic team, a movie star fan club, a genealogical society, a religious sect, a political group, etc.

In this situation, however, a group that bases its membership on race exclusivity and has, as it's raison d'etre, the goal of proselytizing superiority of the race of its members has been found to have many members whose ancestry includes some members of the race labeled inferior by the group.  They've been brought out of their closet and exposed to the light of day!

To me, that is nothing more than poetic justice - when their claim to racial purity is proven false, that should silence these hate mongers and the stupidity they spew.

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Galie Thank you.Your courage to speak the truth always amazes me."To me, that is nothing more than poetic justice - when their claim to racial purity is proven false, that should silence these hate mongers and the stupidity they spew." Sadly, even proving them wrong rarely shuts them up.You cant fix stupid.

Answer 4

Irrational behavior is a part of human nature, Many people struggle because of:

• Politics
• Religion
• Races
• Borders
• Usages

​Even because of sport teams or TV shows.

I'd like to recall the words of Mexican President Benito Juárez.

He was of poor, rural, indigenous origins, but he became a well-educated, urban professional and politician, who married a socially prominent white woman of Oaxaca City.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Ju%C3%A1rez)

He said:

"Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others means peace."

Comments

Thank you Ruben.I was slightly familar with Benito,more so now.I often hear people talking about " their rights" I rarely hear them admit that " their rights" end where " my rights" begin.

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You are welcome, James.

Many thanks for reading this.

Answer 5

Everyone's human, so every person has both good and bad qualities, opinions, etc.  Nevertheless, genetic variability is a good thing as many inbreeding studies have already shown.

I agree with Dale Byers that a few genealogists might be racist, but they shouldn't be.  Such people need to free their minds of their misbegotten beliefs.

Answer 6

The blog is only giving credibility to the notion that ethnicity is real and can be determined by DNA.  It's all nonsense.

Whites vary amongst themselves from one extreme to the other in every conceivable respect except skin color.  There's no way they could be a genetic "race" by any meaningful definition.

Comments

RJ,

Even "whites" can have dark skin color as demonstrated by "Caucasians" in southern India.  Race per se is not a biological concept; it's a social one.

Skin color is biological and is determined by a number of different DNA strands with chemically functions: melanin and carotene.  People used to think of race as a genetic concept, but such thinking is outdated.  Genetic variability is the norm and not the exception.  Making everyone one race would probably doom the human species.

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Yes.  The question is the correlation or lack of it between the color genes and the other genes.  You need a bottleneck to create a subspecies, but an adaptation can spread without a bottleneck.

Migration out of Africa was a partial bottleneck, but the descendants aren't all white.  There's said to be more genetic diversity in Africa than in all the rest of the world.

If any sort of tree can be drawn, it won't be at all like people expect.  Sykes and his Eves would be nearer the mark.  We don't see Ursula-supremacists.  But then again, you can have Ursula's mtDNA and not have anything else of hers.

Answer 7

At least intellectually, a genetic genealogist cannot be racist, because they know that race is a social construct that does not hold up to scientific investigation.  However their actions may tell a different story.

Answer 8

In one respect, I was quite annoyed by ethnicity estimates that said I was 99.9% white (there's my many times great-grandmother, a Huron, lurking in my French-Canadian background).  I was equally appalled to realize that some unknown ancestor apparently owned and raped his slaves, based on many of my matches.  But I found it interesting to be 2.9% Neanderthal.  I found it interesting to be part Denisovan, and to be from the same general tribe as Richard III.  I grew up in the U.S., where each of us has many atrocities in our ancestry to be ashamed of.  One of my Union ancestors didn't fight against Confederates during the Civil War--he fought against the Sioux.  But most of my ancestors were farmers who didn't own slaves (well, okay, I may have to revise that if I figure out who the slave owners were).  Would it change a racist's mind to take a DNA test?  If it showed they were of mixed race, they might think the test was invalid.  If it showed they were 99% white like I am, it might give them some sort of weird superiority complex, as though race isn't just a meaningless construct.  So I think it would change none of their minds, any more than it changed me into a white nationalist.  Interestingly, though, I've decided to be at peace with my heritage--what other choice do I have?  One of my racist colleagues at work, who was half Mexican-American but frequently spouted anti-racist comments about Mexican-Americans, called me a "Gringa Mexicana" because I love Mexico and my Mexican cousins and I called her on it every time she did it.  Yup, that's me--a non-racist gringa who was raised by a man who hated racism, and who raised three non-racist children.  My ethnicity is interesting, but irrelevant to my beliefs.  Theirs is too,

Answer 9

Some related points:

* With the advent of cheaper DNA testing, more and more are discovering their genetic origins and 'admixtures', and finding many surprises.  And more, this DNA research is building trees of connection, deriving the ancient populations and their migrations, where peoples separate, develop distinguishable characteristics, then remix again.  It's very difficult to see how any knowledgeable and experienced genealogist, with practical knowledge of DNA testing, can possibly be racist, unless they have an agenda, a chosen point of view, where they stubbornly pick and choose facts that appear to align with that world view.

* Humans are after all the same race, with essentially equal DNA.  There's a large diversity in traits, but differences in genes are basically just molecular rearrangements.  Our differences are only caused by gene differences, where simple changes result in differing hair color, skin color, and eye color.  While a particular gene mix may result in a specific set of talents, traits, and defects, I can't see any logical basis for declaring superiority of a population, just from a particular gene mix.

* The whole idea of a 'master race' or 'royal blood' is such a silly and ignorant idea, a self-defeating concept.  The moment you limit a gene pool, you limit diversification, and you increase the chances of recessive traits and diseases, thereby slightly decreasing the future quality of that population.  If you want improved genes, you want diversity, more mixing of very different peoples.  It's not a guarantee of course, but increases the chance of superior talents, by increasing the chances of individuals with some of the best genes of both gene pools.  Tiger Woods is not a perfect person, but he *is* an exceptionally gifted athlete, and that's almost certainly because he came from 2 very different nationalities.

* I don't want to hurt any feelings, but it always bothers me when I see the hunt for connections to royalty.  Besides generally being scoundrels, and self-entitled, selfish prima-donnas, they were significantly inbred and unhealthy.  You want 'royal blood'?  You want some of the unhealthiest blood lines ever!  You are much better off with as little 'royal blood' as possible.  (I'd be much more impressed with connections to Da Vinci or Newton or the like, or to world champion athletes.)  For the sake of their children, 'royals' should have ALWAYS married 'commoners' (a heretical concept!).  And for the sake of their children, white nationalists would be better off marrying from the peoples they despise.  They should be thankful for any non-white blood they already have.

Comments

You are right on target with all points, Rob!

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Inbredness isn't hereditary.  You're only inbred if your parents are related.

Start worrying if both your parents are descendants of Queen Victoria.

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I beg to differ.  Royals have no effect on my bloodline. I'm interested in nobility because of their good record keeping, and the rich history they provide.  I don't really care about how unhealthy their DNA is or if they were self-entitled scoundrels. I'm never going to marry into a Royal family. This is about their historical influence.

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RJ - you are probably correct, I did not try hard enough to be technically accurate.  I'd be very interested in how you would have worded it (if you ever see this or care to comment further).

James - your point is valid, and the way I worded it could be considered somewhat unfair.  Because my writing gets long winded, I was trying to keep it short.  Proper discussion would take a lot more words, and I was only trying to make one point.

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Well I agree about royals.  In fact aristos and gentry generally were a bunch of criminals.  But Europe used to be a Third World country.  It was survival.

But I don't think it's genetic.  The transmission mechanism is money.  Just swap the babies of aristos and plebs and see how they turn out.

Answer 10

If all the "isms", "ists" and other ways of separating people would disappear from our language... it would be a much happier world.  Throughout history people purporting to be what we today would call a genealogist, played with the data to fit what the person paying for the service wanted.  I have a friend who paid someone to do their tree...  what that person did was pure nonsense...  took the last name and copied Burke's Peerage but did not connect this man's family to that surname.  Sigh...  He recently took a DNA test and we are having fun looking at his results.  

Yes there can be folks who claim to be genealogist who are racist but a true genealogist is a person who studies the connections within the entire human race and is not interested in race so much as in connections.  

In my world we are all related...  to think otherwise is simply delusional... it seems to me they have found what the call the DNA Eve and Adam whose genes we all carry.  So that means we are all cousins to some degree...  

Welcome all my cousins... I am sending you all... one big hug

Answer 11

To emphasize this point. The Mozingo surname project results are all held private.

See the book Fiddler on Panitco Run. All Mozingo's descend from an African Warrior, name of Edward Mozingo. He was an indentured servant, who gained his freedom, establshed himself on a plot of land on Pantico Run, married a white woman who had fulfilled her indentured, and started a line that today includes persons who identify as black and white. Including some members who are members of the KKK.

Answer 12

I've followed this topic, but stayed diligently away from it.But just in case I'm blinded from trying to watch the solar eclipse that hits my location in about an hour, I figured I'd chime in now before I can't.  :-)

Even though I can barely math my way out of a paper bag (I did manage multiple calculus and physics courses in college, "manage" being the operative word and I did so only because I had to) I consider myself a science buff. When I discovered in 2004 that I could test my DNA for genealogy/anthropology, I was positively giddy. Beyond FTDNA and the Genographic project, I even volunteered for two university DNA projects.

Every - single - time the mainstream media starts talking about "race," I'm in danger of losing my nice Samsung TV due to the ballistic coefficient of a colliding object. Ahem.

As others have noted, there is no "race" in modern humans. We are all homo sapiens sapiens, and we all came out of the Great Rift Valley in Africa. We all had dark skin until--anthropologically speaking--very recently. My prototypical Western European yDNA R1b and mtDNA H ancestors were dark-skinned less than 8,000 years ago, probably less than 7,000.

Research has identified two genes--SLC24A5 and SLC45A2 (and in some Scandinavian archaeological digs a third, HERC2/OCA2)--that led to depigmentation. It's an environmental adaptation, nothing more. And tied to the same genetic adaptation as pale skin is something you might never guess: being able to tolerate the sugar lactose in dairy products. I see some "Ah hah!" moments on faces out there.

We all were hunter-gatherers. Fauna and flora were plentiful. We, being the adventurous humans we are, moved out of Northern Africa into the Middle East, and beyond. As some of us moved north, the gathering aspect became less rewarding, and it became clear that killing every animal we saw was not as practical as herding and managing the ones that produced milk: carbs and protein in one handy, replenishable resource. Some of us were severely lactose intolerant, however, and nature's handy--and necessary--protein shake didn't...er, sit well. Over time, natural selection favored those who could comfortably digest milk.

So why am I pasty can't-tan pale and my good friend and neighbor across the street dark-skinned? Simple. Vitamin D.

In equatorial climes, the sun--except during an eclipse--is strong and the amount of sunlight varies little each day throughout the year. The farther north you go the less direct sunlight you get, and there are days in the winter where the sun is above the horizon for only a few hours. Humans need vitamin D and we were engineered to synthesize it on our own. But we need sunlight to do that.

Dark skin is perfectly fine for that if sunlight is plentiful and predictable. In fact, dark skin is preferable. But if you migrated into, say, prehistoric Scandinavia without the benefit of One-a-Day or Centrum, you got very little vitamin D. So little, in fact, that some of you didn't survive because of it. Over time, the adaptation was pale skin: easily sunburned (not a problem in northern latitudes) but also more absorbent for vitamin D synthesis.

Vitamin D.

There are racists of every creed and color, and they are all blatantly ignorant. And the more the media talks about race, the more difficult it will be to put it past us and move into a more sane 21st century.

Totality here in about 50 minutes. My regular sunglasses are fine to watch it, right?  ;-)

Comments

Now, I've read the best answer to this  DNA  blog Edison Reed, .... thank you! 

I'm very proud of my DNA results, along with the Scandinavian, Irish, American Indian, French, British was West African! 

 I check other when asked my race on applications and other documents as I feel we are all the same, we are humans. My skin is light, but it does tan well if I stay in the sun, I guess The American Indian lineage. 

My eyes look blue only because of the lining is thinner because my Ancestors also migrated to Scandinavia from Africa so, the eyes also adjusted by mutations to the linings, they became thinner,  so when the light shines on them they appear blue, not brown. Everyone, really has brown eyes, it's actually the lining on the eyes that make them appear brown, blue or more rare green. 

My hair is straight, born white blonde, turned reddish brown, but  everyone else in my family had dark black/blue curly hair and darker skin. Yes, my DNA matches perfectly to my brother and sister's. I just inherited a larger percentage of the  Scandinavian than my brother or sister.

It's my opinion everyone should answer other on applications! 

Answer 13

Ugghh..I was hoping WikiTree would be an oasis away from politics.

Comments

James,please tell me how is a discussion about racism "political" I am sure you will find racist in every place you look,It is not bound by political ideology or geographical location.Its only master is ignorance.

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It's obvious Leftist propaganda, having really nothing at all to do with genealogy. It's purpose is to stir up hatred against White Supremacists, who the Left would tell you are everywhere, and very influential. You're supposed to rally behind them, to fight those accursed racists!

In reality, if you held a convention for all the White Supremacists in a given state, and they ALL showed up, you could undoubtedly do so in a good-sized High School gymnasium. The attendees would be mostly basement-dwellers, with no influence on anybody.

In reality, the basic points made here is wrong - it's obvious "fake news". It's absurd enough to believe that a bunch of White Supremacists are going to join some study done by a bunch of Leftist professors. But it's also absurd to say that very few populations are 100% white, to imply that a DNA test will tell you that with any real certainty, and to assume that a White Supremacist is going to give a hoot if they're only 99% White. Hitler was all about the Arayans - but was not one himself!

In reality, the same people who push this stuff will also turn around and tell you "there's no such thing as race". Of course, that won't stop them from going around calling people "racist". It's silly stuff - for suckers, and for the virtue signaling types to use to pat themselves on the back.

Instead, let's ask someone to explain how this has ANY relevant genealogical value. And let this junk fade back into obscurity, where it belongs.

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Well that was political.It also shows that sadly, even proving them wrong rarely shuts them up.You cant fix stupid.

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LOL. Aren't you the guy who was just stroking some other virtue signaler, calling her "courageous"?

Yeah, it's so "courageous" to dump on White Supremacists here - as though THIS is where such people hang out, and that they might hear her, and come "get" her through her Internet connection!

It reminds me of the periodic demonstrations you hear about - protesting against White Supremacists. Normally, there aren't even any White Supremacists there at all. When there actually ARE a few, they're outnumbered 50-to-1. I doubt they even TALK to such people if they're there (as if it would do any good). It's all just a big show they put on to try to tell everybody how "courageous" they are, shaking their fists at the barely-existing bogey-man.

Ironically, occasionally we get some Lefty in here claiming that doing genealogy is an act of White Privilege, or some such nonsense - that we're all a bunch of racists for being interested in learning about our ethnic roots. But when we can be used to take a fake swipe at some semi-imaginary for, they magically forget about that.

BTW, the results of every white person's test that I've seen says they're 100% white, so like I said - FAKE NEWS. The only person who took it who you might assume is white, to look at, is half Puerto Rican. So, no surprise there that it wasn't 100% white (even he came up 96%).

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You are here,Like I said racism and stupidity are everywhere.

Answer 14

Just came across an article from Scientific American addressing similar issues:

White Nationalists Are Flocking to Genetic Ancestry Tests--with Surprising Results

subtitle: Sometimes they find they are not as "white" as they'd hoped.

Answer 15

Now this old thread has surfaced again, an idea occurs.

Now that everybody in the US is claiming to be 1/32 Native American, all those who oppose racism should demand and use the like opportunity to be 1/32 Black.

The standard of proof needn't be very high.  It's about self-identification really, and that's a legitimate and important consideration.

In any case, the market would soon be supplied.  The guardians of the sacred oral history would emerge.  The new Don Greene would write the books.  The testing companies would find your 0.4% Black DNA as soon as the marketing department said the word.

Why not?  Princess Nicketti doesn't seem to have done Native Americans any harm.

Comments

I think the first thing the government should do is take race designations off everything-- off census questions, social security  questions, driver licenses, school records -- off everything.That would equalize all races. Forget designations.

Edit: and off criminal records and arrest records. Oh, and off college applications. Hmm, I wonder what would happen, but let's quit separating ourselves.