Still at my writer’s chair now something funny began to percolate. Some white folks, perhaps they were not white but light skinned blacks passing for white—hence the obvious “black” phenotypes cropping up, for example deeply tanned skin, thicker lips, broad noses. . .the “big ass” mentioned in a different Divine Caroline article. Hmmm, oh well, I thought, serves them right. We knew many of us (African Americans) were mixed on the plantation, good to see the stirring of the stew went both ways.
But I got up out of my comfy writer’s chair. I started feeling my way in society with blinders off and also remembering, how so many different cultures embraced me as one of their own. I mean far out people to the tightly fixed notion that most of us African American hold dear like Aborigines, South East Asian Indians, Balkan people, and Mediterranean as well as Arabic speakers. Curiosity got the best of me. I had one test by National Geographic through the Genographic Project, not satisfied simply knowing my haplotype I wanted percentages so I went for another test (DNA by Ancestry) but what do percentages tell you unless you know what those percentages consist of so I had even more specific tests by DNA Tribes and Family Tree DNA—six in all and sad to say, I’m not finished yet.
Now, I must admit I was frustrated as everyone else when the results received where not those anticipated. I found scant Native American though my great-great grandmother was said to be Cherokee. Nothing from the British Isles though my great grandfather was said to be British and most shocking of all, my African profile was completely skewed. Rather than the West African heritage showing up prominent as expected I was awash in South African of every which type. More over I have even more Eastern African than Western and some Northern thrown in there.
Ok, almost as a joke ... yes, it must be a karmic joke, the day after St. Patrick’s my sixth result came rolling in over the internet transom as a PDF file. And on the first page of results after my known hefty dose of South African and African American was a plausible ratio from Ireland which none of the previous tests showed. But it was too late to bust out the Emerald Green—the day way over, lol.
