The Value of Knowing Where You Come From
If Chris Rock knew more about his ancestry while growing up, his childhood aspirations of becoming the president of the United States might not have seemed so foolish to his mother
6 Responses to “The Value of Knowing Where You Come From”
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February 1st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
We must be very careful about making claims concerning what attributes allowed individuals to survive the Middle Passage. The claim attributed to Dr. Bruce A. Jackson, director of the African-American Roots Project at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, cannot be substantiated (“There certainly is something to be said for the strength of the African-American gene pool…) The claim that only the strongest intellectually and most creative could have ever survived the Middle Passage while emotionally appealing can not be tested scientifically. Indeed, the most recent data on survivorship during the Middle Passage suggests rather high survival over the course of the TransAtlantic Trade. This data will become available publically in a few months when the TransAtlantic Slave Trade database goes on-line. This work was lead by Professor Davis Eltis and his co-workers and suggests that over the course of the trade survivorship in the Middle Passage was around 89% (thus a mortality of 11%.)
In my own work on this question I have pointed out that simple explanations of survivorship during the Middle Passage are not tenable. Thus, attempts to construct the nature of natural selection on individuals who were captured and subjected to the Middle Passage are simply just-so-stories. Therefore, genetically based arguments concerning African American physiological superiority (used to support racist notions of athleticism or predisposition to hypertension) cannot be supported, neither can claims of genetically based superiority of intellectual features or personality.
Finally given that only a subsample of Western and Central African genetic diversity ended up in North America, any genetic characteristic of African Americans could just as easily be explained by genetic drift (random changes in gene frequency based on sampling error) as natural selection.
The role of genetic drift in altering gene frequencies, particularly in causing the loss of rare genes in populations is also a major impediment to reconstructing individual ancestry. The idea behind ancestry testing is to utilize genes that reside at low frequency in target ethnic groups in Africa to suggest that a given African American may be descended from that group. The problem with this notion is that we do not know, nor can we reconstruct, the past gene frequencies amongst African ethnic groups. Therefore saying that a specific allele found in one African ethnic group today, wasn’t present in 4 or 5 others 200 years ago is logically impossible. Thus, at best, ancestry testing can really only tell someone that they share a rare gene in common with a given group today, it cannot prove that you descended from that group.
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:02 am
This was a great and informative article. I want to be sure to watch the PBS showing.
February 7th, 2008 at 4:05 am
Don’t forget about the Black Confederate Soldiers. Also, there were a lot of free Blacks that owned Slaves in the South.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
” educate a man you educate an individual.educate a woman you educate a nation.” [malcolm x].with the imposition of chatel slavery against african people the system of oppression in the 13 colonies and the united states of america 1619 -2008 systematically has institutionalized miseducation and suppression of african people’s contributions and their knowledge of themselves manifested into self destruction.as marcus garvey said:” a people without knowledge of themselves is like atree without roots.it cannot grow.” most of african people in the western hemisphere come from west africa.from the 8th to the 19th century islamic west africa was noted for their gross national products being books.it was muslims from west and north africa who were moors and conquered spain from 711 ad to 1492.so this is our history and the data exist tio verify our roots beyond dna which is not conclusive in genealogical research and history.passenger arrival records,oral and written traditions will verify our roots.we spoke and wrote in arabic the lingua franca of the world past and future.alex haley proved this with kunta kinte.thank you-taif’tul’isam-p.o.box 338-compton,ca.90223
February 21st, 2008 at 8:45 pm
The documentary stirred a desire for me to continue my research on my family history. I began three years ago and it has been quite an interesting journey. I became discouraged and felt that my family was not appreciative of my research. I encouraged them to watch American Lives 2. They did and are now supportive and want to participate in the continuation of discovering our roots. They were also interested in the fact that Chris Rock hails from our family hometown of Andrews South Carolina. Thank you Mr. Gates for instilling family pride.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I just wanted to let you know that I caught part of the PBS program and was just fascinated by it. I have been working on my family geneology for the last few years. My family has roots to native America as well as Europe. Although I am not aware of any black ancestry, I was surprised to find that genetic testing can trace your family back to the different country groups. Which only proves to me what the Bible says of us all being the same. It is our upbringing that seperates us. I am looking forward to watching the entire program and any future one.
I hope that you put together a curriculm and teach it. People today need to have the understand of their roots what ever they may be. They need to be proud of who they are and where they came from.