Proving My Blackness

But if you want to be somebody else --- if you’re tired of fighting battles with yourself --- then you must ... change your mind.

http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/12/somebody-else.html

It's always a little amusing to me when a fair-skinned person of some African heritage claims he looks white. (I once watched a video art piece by a former Wellesley professor who kept declaring to the camera that she was black, not white. "Yeah, of course you are," I thought.)

I looked up Mr. Johnson and to any black person who has known a wide range of people, he's obviously black or mixed or whatever term you prefer. I had family in one of the worst black sections of Philly, many of whom were very light-skinned. Nobody thought they were white.

African-Americans don't just look at skin color in assessing the probability that someone else has African heritage. We look at the hair, the nose, the lips, the overall body type. Perhaps one day these details will be unimportant, but today they are part of what we think of when we think someone looks "black."

I am of mixed race: my father was African-American with some Caribbean ancestry, and my mother was a mix of German, Irish, French, and Native American. Whenever I hear, "race is only a social construct," I recall the day I signed up for the National Marrow Donor Program. Before I was swabbed, I filled out a multi-page form that included a question that asked for "race/ancestry" and saw what looked like dozens of boxes to check off: for "white" alone, there were ten subcategories. Out of curiosity, I asked the gentleman doing the swabbing if this question was difficult for most people. He said that it was: people who identify as a single race tend not to think of their particular racial make-up as mixed. He went on to say that getting a racial breakdown is critical because doctors use race/ancestry to ensure as close a genetic match as possible (all other things being equal), and that people like me were in very high demand because of the difficulties faced by mixed race people in finding a suitable bone marrow donor. It was nice to think that my mixed-race status might potentially save someone's life one day.

My white European American roots go back to 1613 London England then to 1640 Lancaster County Virginia when he married and 1670 where he died. My Black African American roots go back to an unknown time and place in Africa but begin in free person of color privilege in 1790 South Carolina and Virginia and black slavery in Georgia in 1835. My brown Native American roots go back to some time 12,000 years ago before becoming Cherokee in South Carolina and Georgia in 1800.

Despite my being a member of the one and only biological evolutionary human race that originated in East Africa about 180-200,000 years ago, I am only colored "black" and " negro" in America. As a result of being born poor, black and raised on the South Side of Chicago. Which is the oldest most populous contiguous black community in America. Members of my family range from blackest blue Bantu to high yellow blonde blue-eyed white and everything in between.

My childhood nickname from some of my fellow blacks was the insulting slur "white boy". Particularly when I raised my hand in class or aced the test or "clowned" them in some sports play. While many whites called me the N...word. My family was and is American socioeconomic political educational royalty.

"if you had your choice of colors, which one would you choose my brothers? If there was no day or night would you choose to be black or white?" The Impressions; "A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life" Allyson Hobbs

This is the story for many African Americans. Sure there is the Irish great-grandfather but learning about the Nigerian, Ghanaian, Cameroonian, and even Middle Eastern aspects of my ancestry was much more mazing. It speaks of all of our humanity that began in Africa and migrated throughout Africa and beyond. I suspect what scares Americans of European descent, with all this genetic testing, is the possibility of learning of black ancestry caused by the thousands of Mat Johnsons that passed as white after slavery.

This is fun. Look how the world has changed since Kate Chopin's Desiree's Baby! Maybe we're goin' post-racial after all . . .
http://www.thecriticalmom.blogspot.com

I am a geneticist. I think people care too much about race (and I don't mean to dismiss the author's feelings). Ultimately, we are all from Africa not that long time ago in evolutionary time. And race is a concept that is not even recognized in genetics because there is more variation WITHIN "races" than BETWEEN "races." In a sense, this all much ado about nothing. As someone said, race was created for racism and not vice versa. And that is true both genetically and culturally. Yes, it is interesting to understand how humans populated the earth (migration patterns), but beyond that, the differences in skin color and a few other traits are meaningless socially but perhaps of interest from an evolutionary perspective.
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1435.html

Lovely column. Thanks for writing it.
I have not read all the comments, but I can see that some ask about the usefulness of the National Geographic DNA test. I can't speak to that, but the 23andMe DNA test ($99) is easy and affordable. It provides a list of all people (on mother's side and father's side) who share DNA with you (those who are in this particular database, that is). Easy to see where in the world your genetics originate from. An interesting test. It has been useful for some in tracking back to family they did not know (adopted people, family separations, etc).

This is a moving account of a story both unique and universal: the human family. Thank you.

I don't understand. I thought race doesn't exist and that companies like 23andMe and the National Geographic Society promote racist pseudoscience.

My late wife was a combination of Russian, Romanian Jewish. But she had the most Asian eyes you have ever seen. It seems that years ago, Genghis Khan and his men raped their way across eastern Europe, leaving DNA samples all over the place.

A Vietnamese acquaintance saw her photo, and my granddaughter's photo (same characteristic) and asked where the Asian ancestry came from.

It doesn't make any difference.

I embrace the Americas-ness (north & south) of this identity quandary - my children are Lithuanian Jewish, English, Irish, Scotch, German, French, and Native American, as well possibly African American and Mongol -- in other words, mutts or citizens of the world. Whenever I meet someone who knows their entire uncomplicated family tree, and they still live within a 50 mile radius of where we are now speaking, I just think their world is very small....

To insert into a charming, wry ("Mustefino" as a "brand") account of the author's youth, the tale of his mother's abusive, alcoholic father was a bold composition decision. Apparently the major trauma of his mother's life was not connected to any racial issue from her determined identification with a skin color, but to her victimization from her father's disease --alcoholism-- rather equitably distributed among all humans. Contrasting the author's struggles with his mother's struggles is what moves this essay from charming to powerful.

While her father's death ended his mother's identity struggle, the author's struggles ended in a truce when he chose to be "mixed". His account of the two DNA tests--his own and his mother's--highlights their different needs. The author's confirmed he was percentage points blacker than Mustefino. No disappointment there. Was his mother disappointed in being only 55% black? Were her comments rejecting both the possibility of being Jewish and being half white just another denial of her father? Could "Puerto Rican" have even shown up on this DNA test?

In any case, Mat Johnson wrote a story worthy of the Lives series. I am happy to have read it on a warm day watching seagulls and pelicans feed in slightly choppy water far from where my DNA test shows I belong.

A mixed race man writes about a lifelong curiosity and conflict about his heritage and how that impacts his sense of identity--and most of the people commenting here tell him it doesn't matter, that he shouldn't even think about it, the NYTimes shouldn't publish it. LOL.

I've decided reply to questions regarding my ancestry and religion with a universally perplexing, "I'm everything." And I believe it.

While I am a mathematician by trade, the mathematics that I have taught my children, children of an Asian mother and Caucasian father, goes like this:
you are not half-this or half-that. you are 100% Korean, 100% German, 100% American.
You can embrace 100% of any part of your heritage.
This goes for all of us: whether you are 3% Jewish, or 25% African, or whatever: embrace your heritage, learn about it, be proud of it, and love it. All of it.

On forms which I have to fill out I check all the boxes - I'm white, black, Pacific islander, etc.

If your mother is black and your father is Irish (and presumably white), you are biracial. The "one drop rule" is dead, so you are not forced to be a black person. Mulatto, quadroon and octoroon have faded into history along with their creepy connotations and the equally creepy parties in New Orleans where white men would troll for mixed race women. The fact of the matter is times have changed. You can call yourself whatever you like. You can follow the biracial President and call yourself a black man, you can call yourself a white man (no one will hang you) or call yourself biracial. Your choice. No need to prove anything to anyone.

Nat'l Geo has this especially exentensive DNA test--it gets down to brass tacks for us all, "Find out if you have Neanderthal or Denisovan ancestry":

http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/ngs/product/genographic-2.0-kits/geno...

"By participating, you will:
• Discover the migration paths your ancient ancestors followed hundreds—even thousands—of years ago, with an unprecedented view of your ancestral journey.
• Learn what percentage of your genome is affiliated with specific regions of the world.
• Find out if you have Neanderthal or Denisovan ancestry.
• Have the opportunity to share your story and connect with other Genographic Project participants, helping us fill in the gaps in the human story."

"'I’m not Jewish,' she said, annoyed. 'Mom, I told you, you’re 3 percent Jewish,' I said, just trying to mess with her. M.S. hasn’t diminished her sense of humor"

This is humor not prejudice?

You don't have to prove your racial or ethnic identity to anyone. In this country, you are what you say you are. Race and ethnicity is completely self identified.

My honest opinion is that this is much ado about nothing. It is interesting to me that many people of mixed heritage ( and by the way, who isn't mixed today) claim to look very caucasian, but frankly when you look at their pictures they clearly have negroid features. I looked up Mr. Johnson's picture just to see how I would perceive him, and to me he is clearly of mixed descent and no question that he is partially of African origin. I was recently in Southern Italy where anyone with blue eyes and a hint of light brown hair is referred to as "blond". This article reminds me of this kind of mentality that nefariously gives people some kind of higher status because of their coloring.

Has anyone repeated their test? Did they get the same results?

Good news: if you had been 26% Jewish in the 30s/40s Germany or Poland or France or Italy or the Netherlands or Hungary or Romania you would have been murdered. So being black here isn't all that bad.

And am curious: why does the New York Times care about an individual's racial identity? Sorry to ask, but is this news?

DNA testing can upset family traditions in regard to ancestry---it happened to me. My grandfather long told us that we were English (and naturally related to royalty). He went through Burke's Peerage and selected a pretty coat of arms that he had reproduced. Being from Trenton, NJ, he even boasted that an ancestor had obtained the boats for Washington to cross the Delaware.

A few years ago, I decided to put the family tree in order using the extensive online resources that had come available. I discovered my 3rd great-grandfather had been married in 1808 at a German church in Philadelphia, but thought little of it. I then had a Y chromosome test and the result back I2B1. While this did not point to a specific country in northwestern Europe, it was more concentrated in Lower Saxony in the modern population.

This caused me to do additional research at this German church that revealed records for marriages and baptisms at well. The family was definitely German and likely descended from an immigrant who arrived in the 1740s.

I am not quite certain why my grandfather made up the myth of English ancestry. Perhaps the anti-German feelings of the World Wars caused him to do so. I content myself as being 1/16th German with the remainder being English and Welsh in equal portions. I suppose this might entitle to watch the Von Steuben Parade, but I feel more connected to the US than any other place.

This is an odd article. Not the subject matter, there are many in the black community who are mixed, in fact most of the black or African-American community is mixed, even the very dark ones. Those who are very fair or look white have been around from the beginning (since our African ancestors were forced here) and their life stories make up the mosaic and the complexity of the African American experience too (mulatto, octoroon etc. )

What I find odd is the way the author writes of his experience. But of course everyone is an individual. And his story is his to tell. Loving v. Virginia came down in 1967. I was ten years old at that time. Loving Day only started as a celebration 11 years ago - around 2004. And to my knowledge, it was never celebrated or not celebrated in Black communities. It wasn't meaningless but neither was it particularly meaningful . (Obviously I do not mean legally. I am an American lawyer. I mean culturally.)

This story makes me sigh with sadness. Black American lives are layered in complexity and I wish we could find our own peace without having others outside our experience define it for us. I like your Mom. Give her a kiss for me and let her be.

I am mostly descended from immigrants from the British Isles, and from Germany, the majority arriving in colonial times. But my great-mother was Mexican and my Grandmother born in Chihuahua, then raised in El Paso. Because of life choices among her many siblings, I have many cousins whom the world considers Hispanic or Chicano. Growing up in Pennsylvania, I only learned my family history gradually. The stories, some painful, came one by one over the years, as I met my western relatives. Today, in my 50's, I am so very grateful for that heritage. I am infinitely wiser for it, and it is a lens I look through every day. It causes me to look more deeply into people. It allows me to understand situations, how people can be shunted aside for no reason, or have their possibilities filtered out. Were it not for that racial/cultural lens, my view of the world would be much more cramped, but I would likely be quite unaware of that fact.

I got interested in genealogy at one time because my family goes back to 1670 (should say, got to America in 1670,wasn't interested in what happened before they crossed the water). These tests sound interesting. How reliable are they? Has anybody tested the test?

Thank you for this column. I'm hoping "mixing" will increase and that the human race will be stirred, sharing DNA though out.
When GLBT folks started coming out, attitudes started to change. Not all at once.
Now that "mixed" has been President of the United States, and other "mixed" are figuratively coming out, I hope our attitudes will change again.
On a personal note, my family is rife with allergies, and I mutely hoped my kids would marry someone with other DNA so my grandkids could escape the allergies. No luck, but I'm again mutely hoping for my great grand kids to be "mixed."

I am 100% white with Re-vitiligo. You can imagine my frustration :)

The writer missed a valuable point---we are all mixed. DNA is great and I also took the test which changed my perceptions of my background----when I found out I was 49% Western European and 25% Irish when I assumed I was more British with a British surname. Just remember it is all good whatever the mixture--we are one human race!

Just received my results from a DNA testing website....as expected except for the 2% Neanderthal DNA. Fortunately that means, according to the website, that I am below the avg. for Neanderthal ancestry. My girlfriend disagrees.

Luby's, Lol. They were great back in the 1950s and 60s. Now, not so much. My mom loved them too, well beyond their glory days.

A pleasure to read, so well written!

Recent science actually makes the discussion of race, ethnicity and the requirements that you identify yourself as one color or another (White or Black or American Indian or Asian, etc.) unnecessary.

Scientists have identified the location of the very first tribe of Homo Sapiens as being from East Africa around Kenya. Once HS started on the migration around the planet it depended on the sun as to whether your skin color changed. If there was less sun you needed less melanin coloring in your skin to protect you. The hotter and more tropical the darker the skin. The colder and dryer, the lighter the skin.

To judge a person by his/her skin color just because s(he) migrated to a colder climate or stayed in a warmer one is in my view inhumane. Under that melanin-toned skin we all have the same structures of blood and muscles and bones. The criminal stupidity of mankind is when s(he) thinks s(he) is better than someone else because if the color of their skin.

My DNA indicates that I am 90% Jewish and 10% Scandinavian. I've been mistaken for black or mulatto any number of times. Forty years ago in Iran, a street vendor refused to sell food to me because he assumed I was a "Christian". When asked by complete strangers where my "people" come from, I now answer without hesitation, "I'm a Hungarian Jew from Texas," which as far as I am concerned, is who I am. The 10% Scandinavian DNA doesn't ring true for me, but it does explain why my father's three sisters all had blue eyes and blond hair.

After the importation of slaves was banned in the US in the early 19th century, the production of slaves became a problem. The only way to replenish the salve population was for slaves to have children. In the American South the "one drop"rule, which stated that any traceable 'negro' ancestry, made a person Black was very useful in maintain a large slave population. African Americans and whites by generally continue to accept the one drop rule, which explains why Obama is considered to be the first Black president. Therefore, when the author of this article insist that he is Black is he agreeing with the one drop rule which was designed to create more slaves and protect the "purity"of the "white"race?

I suppose this is where I am odd. I never cared about my genealogy, didn't care about anything apart from the fact that I was American born :3

Hopefully the next generations of humans, growing up in an era of DNA testing, will come to understand better that there is no "them". There is only "us."

Very meaning-rich and clever way of pointing out the craziness of America's race-based distinctions. In my favorite alternate future these kinds of distinctions will entirely disappear as "membership in the human race" will be the only membership that matters. Hopefully, our common values, worth, and reality won't depend on space aliens showing up. But then again....

I am VERY light skinned with a Black Dad and White Mom. After spending a LIFETIME trying to prove my Blackness, I have given up. I'm definitely Black; or biracial (I prefer just saying "mixed") but the world sees me as White. I am not passing. I know that I have white privilege. And when there is some racial issue in the news, I reflexively take the Black side. But the world does see me as white...until I mention that I'm Black.

Then suddenly the radio station survey asks me Black oriented questions.
Or the man I was interested suddenly stood me up.
Or when my racist uncle would use the "n" word and then tell me that he was "sorry."

I know that I'm Black.
And I don't want the DNA test because I don't want to know that I'm only 25% Black. My skin color tells me that on its own.
I do have the kit. And one day I may send it in. But not today.

The world sees me as a white woman but I am 100% mixed. I feel closer to Barack Obama and his struggle than Hillary or any of the white presidents we've had.

I understand your experience. I am a very brown Hispanic, brown enough to think that there has to be some Black in me. I grew up being somewhat teased for this but growing up in a a context that despised Spaniards for killing the original Americans, I was more proud of my expected Black and Native American ancestors than of the European ones. Moving to the US, where everyone's obsessed with "where are you REALLY from?" I caved in and got a DNA test. Apparently there's less than 5% of Black in me and I'm around 60% Spaniard. Still blows my mind when my boyfriend teases me with how White I am (Yes, I know Spaniards are considered Hispanics here but not where I grew up). How you look like may not tell much about your heritage, especially when that one is as mixed as it is for most of us...

Four decades ago the author's mother went of her way to portray her Blackness. Kudos to her. Fast forward 2015 legions of Black women across the diaspora are bleaching their skin, scorching their scalps and thinning their noses to appear more American (a/k/a White). ...of course we Black men are partially to blame since many of us, especially those in sports and the arts, don't appreciate (like?) Blackness.

Identity is not in the genes, it's in the heart and the soul, an essence that you absorb slowly, over the years, and--if all goes well--learn to savor. Why ruin your mother's enjoyment of her blackness? It's based on her life experiences, most of which you can never know.

Identity is not in the genes, it's in the heart and the soul, an essence that you absorb slowly, over the years, and--if all goes well--learn to savor. Why ruin your mother's enjoyment of her blackness? It's based on her life's experiences, most of which you can never know.

interesting piece but sounds like almost anything i read from writers of a similar background. "i'm black 1st & foremost & mixed with some type of other".

as a person of portuguese, african & jewish decent, i must say that i'm tired of the word mixed & even more annoyed to hear the word race used to describe humans of mostly either caucasoid, negroid or mongoloid decent. i've stopped using either (try it - not terribly easy in this system). it's 2015, long since the scientific jury came in with the fact that there is one human race. "mixed" implies an ethnic purity exists. something like it may exist, but it doesn't apply to much of the world & certainly not most europeans. though of course you know one is supposedly mixed only if they're of ethnicities or another ethnicity not anglo. speaking of, the word ethnic is a "white" construct if ever there was one. that we still use it when we know quite well that every human on earth is ethnic is quite lazy. use of that word & the idea (or ideal) of race really only benefits caucasians & particularly the more typically anglo. it mostly hurts africans & other "brown" persons in what can only be considered a culture of anti-blackness. perhaps why so many people of direct african decent still speak of ethnicity as if the "2 drop" law means anything & of hair texture in slavery terms of grades?

i find it disheartening that ethnicity isn't celebrated due to this need for the "standard" & the proverbial other. we can do better, now~

I know that there were laws on the books that defined one as black regardless of the percentage of black blood. But it seems sad to me that accepting the complexities of one's heritage is so difficult. What's so wrong with being 3% Jewish?