BBC News, June 29, 2009
First it was Oprah Winfrey’s wistful reach for the continent, now other prominent African Americans are finding their roots.
In 2005 Oprah Winfrey underwent DNA testing in an effort to determine the genetic make-up of her body’s cells.
The popular American talk show host wanted to know where her ancestors, taken as slaves to the United States, had come from.
Famous genes
Since then thousands of other African Americans have followed suit, many of them household names in the US.
Comedian Chris Rock discovered that he was descended from the Udeme people of northern Cameroon.
LeVar Burton, an actor who played the slave Kunta Kinte in the TV drama Roots, linked himself up genetically with the Hausa in Nigeria.
Civil rights leader Andrew Young traced his lineage to the Mende people of Sierra Leone and is also believed to be a distant relative of one of the leaders of the 1839 Amistad slave ship mutiny.
DNA testing has also resulted in some African Americans being bestowed with honorary African titles.
The Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker, who portrayed the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, was made an honorary chief of Igboland in south-eastern Nigeria.
He was given the title of Nwannedinambar of Nkwerre which means “brother in a foreign land”, during a visit to Nigeria in April.
Getting results
There are more than two dozen genealogy organisations in the US selling genetic ancestry tests but African Ancestry is the only black-owned firm.
It is also the first to cater specifically to African Americans. Of the half a million Americans who have purchased DNA tests, around 35,000 of them are African American.
African Ancestry charges $349 to test either a person’s maternal or paternal lineage.
Once the fee is paid, swabs used to collect a DNA sample from the inside of the cheek are sent to the customer and then back to African Ancestry’s laboratory.
The DNA’s genetic sequence is extracted and compared to others in the firm’s database.
The company claims this contains 25,000 samples from 30 countries and 200 ethnic groups, and is the largest collection of African lineages in the world.
African Ancestry say that they are very precise in tracing where a person’s ancestors originate from.
Once this is known, a “results package” is sent out, including a print-out of a person’s DNA sequence, a certificate of ancestry and a map of Africa.
“It’s a kind of welcome to Africa package,” said Ghanaian-born Ofori Anor, editor of the African expatriate magazine, Asante.
Transformation
Gina Paige, a founder of African Ancestry, wants to transform the way people view themselves and the way they view Africa.
When many African Americans visited Africa in the past, they were interested mostly in kente cloths and masks, nowadays they want to know more about the country they are visiting.
Although they still visit the slave castles, they are now also interested in the price of property.
Purchasing a townhouse in the Ghanaian capital Accra or a commercial property in Sierra Leone’s Freetown feels less implausible.
“What we need now is for people to get deeply involved in one particular country or region or culture,” said Andrew Young, the civil rights leader whose consulting firm acts as a liaison for American companies wanting to do business in Africa.
There has been a change too in the way Africans see African Americans and claims of kinship that were once viewed with amusement are now embraced.
This is partly due to the emergence of President Barack Obama and because of the role played by African Americans in his historic election.
As a result, African politicians and businessmen want African Americans to lobby in the US on the continent’s behalf.
Traditional African rulers have also been busy handing out honorary chieftaincies to African Americans in the hope it will lead to an increase in investment and a boost in tourism.
Guinea-Bissau’s Tourism Ministry encouraged comedian Whoopi Goldberg to visit when in 2007, DNA tests showed she was descended from the Papel and Bayote people of the country.
Unfortunately, Goldberg has not taken up the offer as she has a fear of flying and has not been in an aeroplane for 20 years.
Unlike the Hollywood actress, as soon as Lyndra Marshall, a 56-year-old retiree from Maryland near Washington DC discovered her African heritage, she immediately boarded a plane for Ghana’s Ashanti region.
“We did not talk about where we came from when I was growing up,” said Ms Marshall.
Since she found out she was of Ashanti descent, she has been trying to get other people to visit and invest in the country.
Along with DNA technology, Ms Marshall credits President Obama with kindling an interest in Africa.
“With Obama being both African and American, and our president, this has made many of us interested in where we came from, too.”
Getting it right
Although many people are excited about the prospect of tracing their ancestry, critics say the work of America’s genealogy companies is far from accurate.
On a visit to South Africa in 2005, Oprah Winfrey said that DNA testing had conclusively revealed where she is from. She thought she was Zulu but subsequent DNA testing showed she was a descendent of the Kpelle people of Liberia.
Professor Deborah Bolnick of the University of Texas is particularly critical of African Ancestry.
She says its database is too small to fulfil its marketing promise that it is “the only company whose tests will place your African ancestry in a present day country or region in Africa”.
“Consumers should know the limitations and complexities before they spend hundreds of dollars thinking they’re going to find an answer to who they really are,” said Professor Bolnick.
“It’s really much more uncertain than the testing companies make out.”
Despite these limitations, African Ancestry customers like Ms Marshall are convinced her results are correct.
“I have lots of family that look very Ghanaian, they are short like them, dark like them and I have a cousin that looks just like the Ashanti king.”
However, comments like this offend the Editor of Asante magazine.
“African Americans just want to be able to say they were once kings and once ruled the world,” said Mr Anor.
He feels that African governments and traditional rulers should stop the practice of granting citizenship and chieftaincies to African Americans.
“Just because your genetics show you came from a place, should that mean you can lay claim to that group of people or place now?”
Original article
(Posted on June 29, 2009)
Comments
I wonder if any of these people can trace their ancestry back to black Africans who sold their “brothers” to non-black slave traders? Maybe a tribal king wanted to get rid of a potential usurper, selling him and his family down the river, so to speak. Now THAT would be something. I mean, it’s not as if a handful of white guys one day marched into the Dark Continent and started rounding up slaves.
If it convinces them to return to the motherland, I’m all for it. It won’t be long before Africans tire of the African-American delusion that they’re anything of real value. They contributed very, very little, if anything, to our society and they won’t be any better over there.
African Ancestry charges $349 to test either a person’s maternal or paternal lineage.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Yes, I would rather go to a psychic who could tell me that I am a reincarnated Napoleon or used to be some Germanic prince or something.
That process only costs about $20.
The Editor of Asante magazine says:
Since when did Africans ever rule the world. History shows that blacks in Africa were nothing more than primitive societies where you had constant tribal warfare. If it wasn’t for white Europeans bringing with them their advanced culture, Africans would still be living in the Stone Age.
I’m still waiting for Oprah to start calling herself a ‘Liberian American’ instead of a ‘African American’.http://tinyurl.com/nf6532 http://tinyurl.com/kq4bur http://tinyurl.com/m4tgno ..the other is living a quieter life now.
Re the Kings and Queens thing, it seems you hear a lot of African woman refer to themselves or get addressed as “the beautiful ebony goddess, nubian queen or eve”, or something equally egotistical and delusionary.
Two things strike me about this article.
First, it’s all about blacks exploring and reveling in their “heritage.” Yet they want to deny whites the right to display the Confederate flag, which many feel is part of their own heritage.
Secondly, the article, like all others from the MSM, studiously avoids mentioning that blacks sold each other into slavery.
Whitey’s heritage is essentially evil but black heritage is as pure as the driven snow? I don’t think so.
I picture a dilapidated strip mall somewhere in Philidelphia, and in an abandoned barbershop sits a large round board on a tripod, labeled with all the black african countries around the perimeter, and an arrow nailed in the center, a seated older black woman pulls an envelope out of a stack and opens it, disgarding the enclosed Q-tip and shouts out a name: “Treyvonnicious Simian”, and hands the return envelope to another older black woman while an older black man spins the pointer, then calls out “congo” the 2nd women scribbles “congo” on the return envelope and tosses it an old laundry basket…then “Shaylondra Butts”……
I picture a dilapidated strip mall somewhere in Philidelphia, and in an abandoned barbershop sits a large round board on a tripod, labeled with all the black african countries around the perimeter, and an arrow nailed in the center, a seated older black woman pulls an envelope out of a stack and opens it, disgarding the enclosed Q-tip and shouts out a name: “Treyvonnicious Simian”, and hands the return envelope to another older black woman while an older black man spins the pointer, then calls out “congo” the 2nd women scribbles “congo” on the return envelope and tosses it an old laundry basket…then “Shaylondra Butts”……
‘“African Americans just want to be able to say they were once kings and once ruled the world,” said Mr Anor.’
That in a nutshell sums up the fantasy known as Afrocentrism. By making ridiculous and totally unfounded claims (like the ancient Egyptians were black, African blacks invented mathematics, ancient Greeks stole many ideas from black Africans, etc.) blacks here in America and abroad try to earn a place for themselves at the table of historical accomplishment.
It certainly beats admitting the truth so succinctly stated by Prof. Richard Lynn:
“The argument is now complete. Brain size is positively correlated with intelligence in man, and the races show consistent differences in both brain size and intelligence. These differences appear to have arisen because the Caucasoids and the Mongoloids colonized a new and cognitively demanding niche when they migrated into the temperate and cold environments of Europe and Asia. In these harsh environments the less intelligent failed to survive, and this left the Caucasoids and the Mongoloids as the two most intelligent races and the only two races that have made any significant contribution to the development of civilization.”
There are more than two dozen genealogy organisations in the US selling genetic ancestry tests but African Ancestry is the only black-owned firm.
sending in a q-tip and $350 is not really “getting in touch with your roots”, it’s some con artist getting in touch with your wallet.
This is quite incredible. Black African history is one of simple tribal savagery, complete lack of political, technological, scientific, agricultural, social, and cultural progress.
Their history is one of a Stone-Age people, a group of primitives who never progressed beyond a simple hunter-gatherer society.
What pathetically little progress they’ve made is due entirely to the intervention of other races.
Tragically, they remain a race displaying, by any known measurement, the lowest intelligence of any major racial or ethnic group on the planet.
Until these unpleasant but irrefutable facts are universally acknowleged, black Africans can never find their legitimate level among any society on earth. And any further desperate efforts to jump-start them will meet with failure and destructive frustration.
Like obama all of these “african americans” have huge quantities of White blood flowing through their veins…
We must not leave out those Hottentots. There seems to be a preponderance of this tribes ancestors about.
“Purchasing a townhouse in the Ghanaian capital Accra or a commercial property in Sierra Leone’s Freetown feels less implausible”
Pinch me! Be still my beating heart! Please buy property in Africa, Africans living in America. I mean, it makes sense does it not? Return to the font of all civilization, gentility, learning, commerce, and prosperity. Leave us poor, stupid, racist Whites alone in our misery in our cold countries. We will probably fail without you, Africans, but we will just have to do the best we can. Goodbye, and enjoy your new lives in paradise!
What annoys the hell out of me, is that I didn’t think of this con first. Blacks are so easily manipulated by their desire to wear the big head dress, or the Leopard skin hat, that they will pay just about anything to someone who will tell them what they want to hear. These people are pathetic.
“African Americans just want to be able to say they were once kings and once ruled the world,” said Mr Anor.
Oh dear…
“I wonder if any of these people can trace their ancestry back to black Africans who sold their “brothers” to non-black slave traders?”
Yes indeed! I always found it a little hard to believe that a captain and his crew could just waltz on in, collect enough slaves to fill a fitted-out hold big enough to detain a few hundred, get ‘em on board and sail off without just a little bit of help from whatever chief was in charge of the place.
But I thought race was just a social construct???
“They contributed very, very little, if anything, to our society”
This is a far too harsh assessment. Blacks have contributed. I recently watched clips from the Eurovision song contest (a competition of pop music acts from every European countries) and realized that if this was how American music looked, we would not be a powerful cultural exporter.
Blacks created American music. They are the root, many of the performers, and the forebearers of popular white performers. Credit should be given where it is due.
“If it convinces them to return to the motherland, I’m all for it.”
It won’t have that affect. All it will do is make more American blacks more arrogant. They know the white mans world is their gravy train. None of the celebrities mentioned would be anything or anyone if they weren’t the product of white societies.
If Oprah moved to Africa today, at first there’d be great excitement. In short, she would be hated for being richer than all the other common African ‘kings and queens’ and for not sharing her wealth. In the US, she can keep her wealth and no one questions it. In Africa, she would have to literally fight to keep it living in an armed compound 24 hours a day.
Why should they bother, the blacks keep coming back here. What are the blacks that keep coming HERE looking for?
All this will lead to is every black suddenly “discovering” that their ancestors were kings and emperors and the inventors of math and science. Most black already decided they were descended from “royalty”, but now with the help of $350 and a q-tip, their suspicions will be confirmed.
Yes, blacks who continue to insist to be referred to as “African Americans”, and who take pride in their “African” heritage, should return to their homeland. Now.
Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi is a determined man. Unlike the disgraced former US president George W Bush, Gaddafi appears to have stayed the course. After his quest to be the man in the Arab world was frustrated, he turned his attention to Sub-Saharan Africa to achieve his ambitions as a grandiloquent puppet-master. The past few months have undoubtedly brought Gaddafi closer than ever to his cherished dream of being United States of Africa’s first president. Last August, Gaddafi pulled a coup against fellow African political leaders when he managed to convene and sponsor a gathering of more than 200 African kings and traditional leaders in Benghazi. The obviously cash-flush kings thanked the Libyan leader by crowning him Africa’s King of Kings. Interestingly, His Royal Highness Gaddafi attended last week’s AU summit in Ethiopia in that capacity. Having managed to become the top bull of African kings, Gaddafi had his sights set on the continental body, the African Union. He forced his proposal on the AU agenda for the establishment of a single government, the United States of Africa.
As one of the world’s longest serving heads of state, Gadaffi is an old hand in international diplomacy and this perhaps allows him to mesmerise and bamboozle younger leaders with his money, power and influence. He is power-hungry, if not power-drunk, and his desire to rule Africa as the supreme lord master has never been in doubt. That is why it is an indictment on African diplomacy that he has always been given a hearing at AU forums despite his wayward ideas and eccentric behaviour bordering on the crazy.
Annonymous #20.
There is some truth to your argument but you make the tragic leftie mistake of then giving way too much credit (all in fact) to blacks.
They did not “create american music”. They did introduce tribal rythms which were incorporated into long existing European folk and more recent Country styles. This went on to become rock ‘n roll.
However they did not “create” it. At best they influenced it into pioneering work from such prodigys as Buddy Holly, Bill Haley. Taken to new levels by Elvis, Dion etc then improved and perfected by Brits like The Beatles and the Stones.
Popular music has since regressed to Black Rap/Hip Hop which has rid itself of any positive white influence such as melody and meaning and the afterbirth/residue/toxic waste of this unholy anti union is the sickening tripe which is now white music Britney/miley/jackson/back street boys etc.
Fire an electron(African tribal rythms) at an atom(centuries of white culture) You get a second of celestial white light(60’s music) But is the decades of nuclear winter as an aftermath worth it? Maybe it is, I love 60s rock. But there’s no denying the truth.
“Civil rights leader Andrew Young[…]is also believed to be a distant relative of one of the leaders of the 1839 Amistad slave ship mutiny.”
Sounds like a scam to me.
But I thought race was just a social construct??? Beavis
You mean what I was taught in Sociology 101 was wrong? How is it possible to type people by DNA sample not only to race but to tribe or ethnic group? Oh, I see it is “uncertain” according to Dr. Deborah Bolnick
As many others have pointed out, this is just the same old fortune-telling scam, with a data base of 25000 (!) records substituting for the chicken entrails or bones. Just to give it the scientific veneer of the white man’s magic.
The funniest thing about this article, though, is that Oprah (the Wise) would swallow that story about her Zulu ancestry. The Zulus are a tribe from south-eastern Africa. No slaves were taken from there. Why would any slave trader go so far out of his way, when slaves could be bought “off-the-shelf” in the slave-trading ports of west Africa? That is, the side closest to the markets?
But of course, an African-American company that owns a real computer, and a data base of 25000 records, would be just the kind of outfit that you could rely on to give you the real facts. Sheesh!
Under the current administration, reperations for slavery stand a very good chance of being passed. There may be stipulations that require that you prove that your ancestor was a slave. The majority of slaves came from the region of Nigeria. If you can walk in with DNA proof of being from Africa you get the money.
I was really surprised, too, at Oprah’s stupidity regarding Zulu heritage. Having traveled there, she should know more about Africa than I do. Even somebody like me with cursory knowledge of Africa is aware that slaves came from the region around Nigeria. Nigerians strongly resemble black Americans. Kenyans and Zulu don’t. I would also raise my eyebrows about the Congo. Seems too far inland for slave raids but that’s beyond my knowledge.
The thing to watch for is that millions of Africans will demand money for long lost relatives taken as slaves and demand compensation for the lost family members. —-Lorin
Forget the ‘compensation’; let’s give ‘em the ‘long-lost family members’!
I’m all for reparations, if they take the form of repatriations.
Anonymous at 7:43 AM: People in the US: PLEASE do not assume that the Eurovision Song Contest somehow represents the best popular music in Europe.
It’s 99% awful, downright weird in some cases, and we treat it as a joke.
There were no slave raids. It would have been far too dangerous for white slavers to venture inland to capture slaves. It was also unnecessary. Slaves were taken by rival tribesmen and sold to the traders at the coast. Think about it; the tribes were constantly at war, and they had practically no possessions. The only way to turn a profit was by taking slaves for sale.
“On a visit to South Africa in 2005, Oprah Winfrey said that DNA testing had conclusively revealed where she is from. She thought she was Zulu but subsequent DNA testing showed she was a descendent of the Kpelle people of Liberia”.
Oprah built a school in South Africa, but now she finds out she’s not a South African Zulu descendant after all. Oh well…
32 — Civilized Neighbor wrote:
This illustrates their abysmal ignorance, even about their OWN history and home continent.
For just one thing, the Zulus were a powerful, dominant tribe. Even among Africans, there were rulers and ruled, oppressors and oppressed. The Zulus were feared by others (much as the Aztecs were feared by their neighbors) and were not likely to be selling their own people into slavery. And that is assuming that there was any slave trading going on way down in Southern Africa, thousands of miles from the West Coast.
Most slaves (sent to the Americas) came from the West African coast —- the vast majority of them — which was the closest point. The Zulus had not yet even reached South Africa, and I don’t think they were (then) coastal either, so probably had no contact with Europeans. But IF they were selling any slaves at all (meaning captives from other tribes) it would have been to the Arabs and Persians, such as those slave-traders from Zanzibar. This commerce would have gone to the Indian Ocean, not the Atlantic. There’s very little likelihood that any slaves from Southern or Eastern Africa made it to the New World (conceivably a minuscule number on Dutch ships passing the Cape who might have made it to New Amsterdam) … and even fewer of them, if any, who were Zulus. I think NONE! The notion, when you look at it, is really preposterous.
As for the Congo, mentioned above, the Portuguese did have
I also think (in the case of American blacks) that trying to pin down one’s ancestry to a specific place or a tribe is misleading, deceptive, and probaly quite hopeless. Blacks, even more so than American whites, lost virtually all traces of their ancestry and became very scrambled with time. Also, they have been here longer than a great many whites have. And Africa is a much larger continent than Europe, with more separated and varied peoples. Therefore, an “African-American” is likely to be much more mixed than most Americans of European descent.
And this does not even count the large admixture of Caucasian genes (and Indian genes too) that got tossed into the “black” mélange, whereas most white Americans are just white, making their geneology much simpler.
I’m saying that this makes pinpointing a specific tribe and place VERY difficult, if not impossible; and I have to wonder if these people are being ripped off for the sake of a comfortable sense of “who they are”. For $350.oo? Is this a con game? As a canny poster above said, a fool and his money are soon parted.
