funny.... my sister and I were just discussing this last night, while watching Paris' ad.... I'm a product of two black/african american parents black.... even though many ignorant douchebags of all ethnicities see my 'light skindedness' and automatically ASSume that one of my parents was whyt....

sorry to disappoint you, but NO!!!

have not had the pleasure (or funds) to find out my geneology chart, but I've met quite a few relatives at the many reunions that I've attended.... lets just say that massa made quite a few visits to the slave quarters....

Sounds familiar.

How can they not know this?

It's interesting that as we examine our fellow-traveler, the domesticated dog, we no longer even can classify it into its own species, Canis familiaris. DNA evidence shows it to be still so close to the Grey Wolf, that we must call it Canis lupus familiaris.

It bore the indignity of falling in with an intensely tribalist species, which discriminates very sharply between types of individuals, and has an intense scrutiny of facial characteristics - so much so that we have imprinted our friend the grey wolf with a mutual language of comprehensible facial expressions - go on, can you figure when a dog is angry with you, or the reverse?

We pretend we can see broad differences, where none exist in reality.

And now, back to your show....

DNA evidence shows us to be 99% chimp.

Amazing what a percentage or two of DNA means.



I think we learned our facial expressions from dogs actually. All canines use the same body language - we are the only chimp who shows teeth to smile (like a dog).

I think early humans learned a lot from the dog spirits that archeology shows we worshiped as gods.

It's one of those things that separates us from those other chimps.

Carmen, What's the procedure to get a DNA test done?

Swab your cheeks and send it in. If you're female, you'll only get your mother's side. If you know your birth father or have male birth siblings, they can do a y-chromasome test. I'm going to do another test to find out my estimated haplogroups, which can pinpoint more specifically the African, European and Native American origins.

Thanks Carmen. But by doing the swab will they be able to tell me the "amount" of Caucasian, Asian, Black ™ etc etc in my whole system?

Those groups are not based on genetics - they are cultural / political.

MMM..... I am not sure if I am accurate, but if not, I am sure I will be corrected. I think, on a different post (maybe on this one, I havent gone back), Carmen gave us a percentage of all her DNA, grouped by Ethnic groups ™

I don't know...never heard of that...you might be confused as to what it meant.

There is no genetic test for "how black you are", or "what percent white" a person is.

These groups are arbitrary and based not on genetics.

An Australian native is considered black. So is a person from North Africa. They are as genetically different as any two groups can be.

"Black" defies scientific definition to my knowledge.

I am...a result of.... 2 hardcord Jewish who don't even consider themselves WHITE. I ( and my 2 brothers) were brought up to tell everyone WE were JEWISH, not White ™. But in the US (my birth country, not my parents') I am supposed to be "White" according to all paperwork, and the legal, profiling system in America....whatever you call it... I don't get to choose...unless I am saying I am mixed but...I don't know....to me; I am in some kinda limbo...just like Barack....if you will

in the words of Mike Malloy whyt people don't know a dayum thang about black people... they THINK they know, but they don't know JACK...cheese...

and, truth be told, w/ the exception of a small minority, they don't wanna know/could give a flyin fucc...

you may consider yourself in 'some kinda limbo', but I doubt Sen. Obama thinks he is... he knows exactly who he is...

book rec: How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America

There has been some major revisions on the distinctions between Australian natives and Africans. I will have to search for the info but I saw a program on discovery and the found a subgroup of Africans that Australians are very much related to, or something like that.

At a marketing firm where once I worked somebody told me once that Jewish was a race - inviolate, and genetic. I swore to them that within a year I would be Jewish and they would be convinced.

To this day they the mark their calendars with Jewish holdiays on my account and refuse to remember my promise. They chalk this up to my "Jewish" sense of wit.

I kid you not.



Absolutely. Read his book about it. Barry wrote about why he decided that after-all, he was black and what this meant to him.

Yeah? Let's see some links.

I've got one:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=9581

It often feels like the smallest and saddest minority of all.

Depends on where you go. It's very vague. The place where i got mine, they do not use those categories.

They will not tell you how Black you are, just how much Subsaharan African is in your mother's DNA, unless you get a birth-related male to take a y-chromosome test for you.

No, that was mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) which is the mother's side.

You should check out different DNA testing companies. There are different tests which test for different things.

So far, I haven't found out anything I didn't already know, except the percentages.

"21% Native American" for instance is not good enough for me, since there are at least 500 tribes in the US that are still considered "extant" i.e. not totally killed off by Europeans and Buffalo Soldiers, and "recognized" by the federal government.

Neither is "32% European", since the company I went to considers Indo-European (e.g. Indian, Persian etc) as "European".

How is Barack "in limbo"?

Or they try and pull b.s. like that guy Harrison, claiming "I'm an African American becuzz we're all from Africa!!"

Well, too many of them have been taught that the majority knows better and knows the minority better than we know ourselves, and take what LITTLE they have been taught for granted.

My adoptive mother's grandmother was Jewish, ethinically, not religiously -- she married my mother's grandfather, who was a Halle-Berry-shaded AME minister.

Didn't stop my mother's family from being smothered by Jim Crow.

10 kids, ranging in "color" from Malcolm (my grandmother and a sister who could have "passed" if she wanted to, but chose not to) to Whoopi, and everyone in between.

That is because the definition of "white" has NEVER been static.

None of these b.s. legal and social definitions have ever been static.

And one of my favorites, White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race

Great expose on all the foibles and follies of all manner of people -- like East Indians -- trying to claim to be white lol

Yeah, it's up there with the "I have an Indian Spirit Guide" often spoken by the Wannabee Tribe of "Dances With Poodles."

Why do all the Indian Spirit Guides speak English? Why are they all Cherokee?

It's because people always wish to be covered with comfortable illusions, rather than deal with the cold wind of reality.

It is easy and nice and politically correct to like Black™ people. It is much more uncomfortable to deal with actual individuals, as they do not behave as well as the great fluffy myth.

Whenever all of the political candidates go out to Indian Country and speak with people, they carry their baggage there. They think that Indians want to talk about mystic streams and sacred land. Usually they're pissed off about Veteran's Benefits (they tend to have a high US Military Service rate), assistance to ranchers, and occasionally, Cobell. They generally don't give a fuck that you have a mystic spirit guide, unless the Mystic Guide tells you to vote for Veteran's Benefits and student loans.

PS: And yes, Indian. Don't nobody tell me to say "Native American." That goes over just like "Good news - we have a NEW NAME for you people, and everything's gonna be OK. Line up over there - we start marching a daybreak."