Remember that story I posted a while ago about a white supremacist trying to take over a town in North Dakota? Well, according to a genetic test, he has about 14% African ancestory… Pardon me while I wallow in some schadenfreude. As my oral defense is tomorrow, I think I deserve it.
http://gawker.com/talk-show-host-informs-stunned-white-supremacist-hes-p-1462477146
You what?
I’m a little confused about why a white supremacist agreed to go on a show hosted by a non-white lady and undergo that DNA test…
Because he believed he was supremely Caucasian on that occasion.
Stupid is as stupid does.
I’m a genealogist who works with DNA as well as conventional research sources. We see this all the time. The Stormfront guys who test to prove they’re all Aryan who turn out to have a great-grandparent who was clearly Jewish. The “Cherokee Princess” descendants who find no Native autosomal DNA but rather 1-9% Sub-Saharan African.
If you are white and your ancestors lived in the southeast of the U.S. for longer than one generation, don’t do DNA testing unless you’re OK with possibly finding out that you have at least a few percentage points of SSA in your genome.
On the plus side, many people are thrilled to learn new facts about their family history and will embrace even the historically painful truths, because they are true.
Having now VTFV (viewed the friggin’ video), I’d like to add that “statistical noise” is a real term, but it’s when a fraction of a percent of other admixture appears but there’s no outside proof that it’s real: 0.1-0.3%, usually. Certain ethnicities can sometimes seem like others, autosomally speaking. 16% is NOT statistical noise. It’s a great-grandparent or closer.
Well since we are ALL out of Africa, that isn’t too surprising.
But I what I do find to be the sweetest irony is this:
All of us have some Neanderthal DNA in us, as we met with them and interbred. That is everyone except Africans, who stayed in Africa and never intermingled. So while white supremacists glorify purity of race - they actually have the impure Neanderthal DNA, while the black Africans are “pure” homo-sapien. LOL.
Oral defense for my comprehensive exams for my phd. I know. My brain always automatically goes there too! >_<
I passed, btw! Yay!
Just so you understand: the testing in this case is not deep ancestry (haplogroups, etc.). The results here represent approximately the last 5-6 generations. 16% (the SSA percent for the racist in this story) is not from pre-history, it’s from the late 1800’s.
That little factoid makes me so very happy!
By the way, they picked up on your thread:
http://bbs.boingboing.net/t/a-white-supremacist-makes-an-interesting-discovery/
Ten years later, Chapelle’s “Clayton Bigby” sketch still holds up.
Has it really been ten years?
Jeeeeeeeezus…
Wait? Who? I’m confused.
The mods posted the same article as you on BoingBoing last night:
http://boingboing.net/2013/11/12/a-white-supremacist-makes-an-i.html.
So there’s another thread on the same topic at the link I posted:
bbs.boingboing.net/t/a-white-supremacist-makes-an-interesting-discovery/
Ah! Maybe at some point they’ll combine them all?
I hope so… I guess they haven’t noticed?
Yeah… sometimes it takes them a while… I’m sure they’ll get around to it.
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