[FRIAM] A Quantum of Ethnicity

[Steve Smith]

Barry wrote:
> The author Isabel Wilkerson wrote two books which I’ve read in the
> last year or two. The second one was “Caste, The Origins of our
> Discontents.” In it, she looks at castes in three countries: India,
> the US, and Germany. She notes the extent to which the Nazis, once
> they had control of the government and needed to write laws supporting
> their scourges, followed the template of the American south. At one
> point, on the matter of who was to be considered a Jew, they looked at
> the American definition of a negro as one having “a single African
> American anywhere in your family tree”. For the Nazis that was a
> bridge too far, so they stopped looking past the grandparents. The
> American criterion was more than they thought they could sell to the
> German people.
>
> The other book she wrote, “The Warmth of Other Suns” is a history of
> the Great Migration, the flight of six million from the south to the
> north in the US, was a real eye-opener for me. I had never understood
> how brutal Jim Crow was.

I took the plunge a few years ago for one of the ancestry DNA tests and
was shocked but not surprised.   In spite of the family
stories/folk-geneology tracing my roots back to mostly germany/poland
with a schosch of Scottish, the DNA test claimed 95% Scandinavian and 5%
North African.  Mary took the same test and got results much more
aligned with her family story (Irish/English/Welsh).  Her father who
could pass for native (heavily tanned from outdoor work, very dark
hair/eyes) wanted to claim Native Ancestry but couldn't place it in a
family tree (generations in Nebraska).   Mary's test came back as
"clean" as Elizabeth Warren's. 

My mother passed recently and with her passing I received a 3 drawer
file-cabinet of the working papers she had from when she was tracing her
geneology a few years ago.   While her mother emigrated from Germany as
a child around 1900 with a full Polish mother, and full German father,
her father's nameline (Graham) went back to pre-revolutionary days *IN*
Kentucky, my great great great therefore being a contemporary of Daniel
Boone I suppose.   That line mingled with that of a Scottish sea captain
about 1800.

The 95% Scandinavian isn't inconceivable from any portion of northern
Europe.  The 5% north African was an interesting surprise.   The maps
they offer up of "North Africa" leaves room for a wide range of ethnic
origens with anything from Nubian to Arab to Moor to Berber to
Harrarian.   I don't know that it relieves my ancestors of having
included slaveholding.  My parents were both quite proud (for
Kentuckians) of being "damn Yankees" which might have been an element of
"protest too much"?   I don't know there is anything legitimate for me
to feel proud or embarrassed about in my presumed 5% (less than a
quantum?) but I felt both in passing.   My parents both considered
themselves proud "mutts".

A different genetic-marker database (different company, etc.) might well
have given me different results.   I don't think these things are as
bogus as astrology or palm reading, but I suspect that in spite of their
scientific roots, they are more about vanity or confirmation bias than
anything.  Throwing my DNA against a few different database walls and
seeing what sticks might provide some parallax, but I'm not sure I care
really.

While I grew up thinking my parents were very progressive about
racial/ethnic issues, by the time my sister was dating in earnest, they
tried to call her off her first boyfriend whose family were Mexican (we
lived on the border and his great grandparents had been born en-situ
*before* the area shifted from MX to US) and a later one whose father
was African American and (deceased) mother was Phillipina.   While they
were gentle about it, I was shocked at the hypocrisy.   By the time my
father was retired, he was listening to Rush Limbaugh and my mother
voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and probably 2020.  I'm sure they voted
(near) straight-ticket Republican most of their lives.   My sister and
her husband lived/worked in Spain and Chile through their 50s and ended
up not much less biased.  Go figure.

Anyone else do the genetic heritage testing thing?  We know Sarbajit's
status.   Who can claim a quantum of Native American, Neanderthal or
Ghengis Khan?  Who cares?

- Steve