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DNA Was Never Meant To Tell A Racist or Anti Racist Story

What is DNA? It's a blueprint for creating life. Are there stories locked in our DNA? There are stories of the migrations of humanity, and our families, through time. That's not the reason why we have DNA however.


Home DNA testing for ethnicity has been popular since it was introduced in the last decade. Many would like to use this testing to turn people with racist attitudes around by demonstrating the fact that all humans are actually related if you go far enough back in time. The problem is most people are taking an atDNA test that doesn't go far enough back in time to show this mixing.


I read something posted by a geneticist saying the at home DNA ethnicity tests are deceptive because they aren't showing admixtures for many people with European heritage. Many "white" people have about 99% to 100% European ethnicity results. This is correct for these people in the United States. It was illegal for people in the United States to marry outside their race in many places before the civil rights era. We had an apartheid system in this country before the push for legal desegregation.


One of my grandmother's was Nicaraguan. Native American and African admixture is showing up in my DNA ethnicity results because of my recent Nicaraguan heritage. An aunt on my father's side is 97% European because within the time frame covered by these tests, about 300 years, that is our family's heritage. That heritage is supported by documentation.


The illustration below shows my results compared to someone whose ancestors lived in Europe and/or the United States for the past 300 years and is 99.9% European. I have no doubt the ethnicity estimate is correct. This result is largely due to segregation.


Most of my Nicaraguan DNA cousins have substantial Native American and African admixtures. Is that because Europeans settling Central America were less racist? Probably not. It's because mostly males from Spain came to America and the only option for partners were female Native Americans or slaves. In what is now the United States families and females were immigrants to this country not just males. Below you see my ethnicity results compared to someone who has 100% recent Central American ancestry.



Most African Americans have a substantial amount of European because of rape during the era of slavery. European Americans don't have substantial amounts of African DNA, it's generally a trace if any. Below are my ethnicity results compared to an African American cousin with substantial slave ancestry (I suppose another way to try to change the minds of racists would be to point out all Americans have cousins from different ethnic backgrounds? Centuries of racism are difficult to wipe out with anything though)


Racist people and Anti Racist people shouldn't manipulate DNA results to suit a narrative. DNA wasn't created to give anyone a narrative for political purposes. If a racist takes a DNA test and discovers Jewish ancestry, for instance, will that person become less racist? Maybe? Or maybe they will choose not to believe the results as demonstrated on posts at the racist site stormfront. Some at stormfront believe results they don't like, while others dismiss them


A majority of Americans taking a DNA test just want to know where their families lived before coming to America, or they want to collaborate with cousin matches on their family tree. I was told I had Jewish ancestors and I began researching because I wanted to know what happened to them during the holocaust. Descendants of slaves want to reclaim the African heritage that was stolen from them.


My admixtures are recent and visible in my DNA, but they are slipping away from our more recent family generations. My mother married someone who was nearly 100% European with a little Jewish admixture. Because of that I only have half as much Native American and African as my mother. If I married someone of European ancestry my child's admixtures would be half of mine, and so on until they were no longer visible in our descendants DNA. Below is an illustration of this show my ethnicity results compared with my mother. You can see how the non Europe admixture is diminishing. Will this trend continue or will future generations add it back in?




If we looked at our ancestry over the past 1000 years there would have been more diversity. Unfortunately atDNA tests don't reach back that far. Autosomal DNA is telling us a story; it's just not telling us the entire story.


DNA can tell us a story but it's not always the story we want to tell. The testing companies aren't trying to be deceptive. They are often telling a true story that is the sad story of racism. They're telling us that a lot more mixing occurred south of the border than in the United States.

We're all humans and should be kind to each other whether we're related recently or 1000 years ago. Blood relationships should have nothing to do with how we treat each other.

Because atDNA tests don't tell the story we want to tell doesn't mean they are deceptive. There isn't any way to show something that isn't there anymore. Racism is so entrenched in some societies there is no quick fix for it unfortunately.


(Disclaimer I'm not a scientist and had no aptitude for science in school. I majored in History and that is my love.)

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