Posted on 01/19/2005 9:44:58 AM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Despite tanning well in the summer thanks to his Italian genes, Anthony Frederick (junior-sociology) has light skin. He is white, and so are his parents and all of his close relatives.
So, naturally, when a DNA test came back showing he is 14 percent African and 6 percent East Asian, he was shocked.
"When I got my results I was like, there's no way they were mine," he said. "I thought it was just an example of what the test was supposed to look like. Then I was just like, oh my God, that's me."
Last semester, about 120 students volunteered to take a DNA test under the direction of Mark Shriver, associate professor of anthropology and genetics. The test, called "AncestrybyDNA," is the first of its kind since it allows the possibility of mixed race results. These results are divided into percentages of European, sub-Saharan African, East Asian and Native American.
The results, as well as other questions about race, were presented last night in a panel discussion titled "What is Race?" in Thomas Building to about 40 students and professors.
Ron Jackson, associate professor of communication arts and sciences, said that race is really just a social construct -- something we create.
"Race is what we say it is because the language we use consistently confines us as individuals," he said. "We define our realities, but are we ready to redefine our reality with respect to race?"
Shriver, on the other hand, discussed race from a biological perspective. He presented results of DNA tests from people all over the country to show that there is often an overlap between people who identify as "black" but have white DNA, and vice versa.
"There is no such thing as 'real racial divisions,' " Shriver said. "Races don't exist in the way people think; [DNA tests] highlight the flexibility of social categories."
During the discussion, students who had surprising DNA results shared their stories.
Chassity Wells (sophomore-communication arts and sciences) discovered she was 21 percent European despite having very dark skin.
She said she was most surprised because some of her lighter friends had more African DNA than she did.
"I was surprised because I'm all into Black Caucus and knowing about black culture," she said, after which sociology professor Sam Richards chimed, "You gotta catch up on your white culture!"
Frederick said his results caused him to see the world from a broader frame.
"Everyone becomes 'one' more than they did before," he said. "I used to look at people being 'black', but now I'm a part of it, too. It puts the world in a different perspective. Even if we don't know it, we're all linked somehow or another."
The discussion is a compliment to the Human Race Machine, both of which were sponsored by Eberly College of Science, the College of Liberal Arts and Office of the Vice Provost for Educational Equity.
Bryson Nobles, project coordinator for the Race Relations Project, said that DNA tests and the Human Race Machine will help people open their minds a little more.
"The point is for people to decide what race really means," he said. "Most people try to determine a person's race by looking at them. The reality is, it's easy to be very, very wrong."
Richards said he will use Shriver's material to back up what he has always said in class -- it is impossible to clearly define race.
"Race is a nebulous concept," he said. "We create race, we create the categories of race, and this just clarifies this. The Human Race Machine and panel discussion both sort of highlight the grayness of race."
If it is so nebulous, how come there are measurable, statistically significant differences in height, suseptablitiy to certain diseases, responses to education in measurably different test scores, etc.
I'd be interested to see my results from this test, especially since I am adopted and therefore have no idea of where my real family is from, other than that my birthmother indicated that I am mostly Scots-Irish.
However, I'd be more interested to learn how they determined that a particular DNA sequence was "European" as opposed to "Asian", "African" or whatever. Could they narrow down "Asian" to inside or outside the Subcontinent? Can they separate Eastern from Western "European"? How about distinguishing "Asian" from "Native American"?
If I were to discover that I am mostly subsaharan African, my depression for the results would not be about how American blacks look, so much as how they act.
For my poli-sci and sociology classes...thanks Willie!
Van
...Therefore we must end all racial preferences immediately
"There is no such thing as 'real racial divisions,' " Shriver said. "Races don't exist in the way people think; [DNA tests] highlight the flexibility of social categories."
Hmm...I detect a glaring incongruity with these statements.
See the latest PBS specials - "The Journey of Man" and I forget the other one. They explain how researchers discovered that minor variations in DNA occur with some regularity, and can serve as "markers" which can be compared between different populations.
One researcher collected enormous quantities or blood from all over the world some time ago. Another then did the computer analysis, and discovered that he could trace the migration of all humans into the world at large from one tribe in Africa starting about 50,000 years ago.
One wave went down to Australia, resulting in the Bushmen. Another wave, about 10,000 years later, went up to Central Asia, and then split in several directions: one to Europe, one to India and China, yet another to Mongolia and then to North America.
So the answer to your question is, Yes, they can identify that most Amerinds have markers in common with Mongolians (from which on can conclude they had common ancestors), but have enough markers different from each other that one can conclude that the common ancestor lived more than 15,000 years ago. And from that, one can conclude that there was a migration then from Mongolia to North America.
As Spock used to say on StarTrek ... "Facinating!"
A second program discovered that some Amerinds living up near Lake Michigan have markers in common with Norwegians, and that the stone tools used by the Amerinds have much in common with the stone tools of the Norwegians 11,000 years ago. Which suggests that Columbus, and even Eric the Red, was not the first to migrate here from Europe.
Even more Facinating!!
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