Know Thyself

Last night I caught a show on PBS “Faces of America”. I’ve seen bits and pieces of the show here and there, but I was able to view the majority of the show. It was amazingly enlightening on how similar we all really are. So often we see skin color, clothing, and we automatically judge the person as different, foreign, and dangerous. But that really isn’t the case. An African studies poet and professor found out that she is in fact 66% European and only 27% African, with 7% Asian added into the mix. Eva Langora realized she is not Hispanic, but Spanish, Asian, and African.

So many people wanted to have a diverse background and showed a bit of disappointment when they were strictly European. I think this would be fascinating, and if you have $130 you can request a DNA test kit and send it in for your very own ancestry analysis. They include a map and charts with your genetic ancestry.

I’m about as white as you can get, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find Native American and African ancestry in my family. From the history I’ve dug up, we tended to be rather open to other nationalities and cultures; and I did find an advertisement in a paper from the 1730’s (when my family first arrived from Ireland) notifying the community of a run away slave. I’ve also found out that my grandfather’s great-grandfather was supposedly Native American, but I have yet to confirm this or figure out which tribe. I would love to confirm some of this information, even if I can’t actually find names and dates.

The human family really is small. I think of all of the bigots and racists in this world and would personally love to see their faces it they learned they had the same blood running through their veins of the individuals and groups that they detest. Our past has nothing to do with color or dress, it lets us know where we came from and hopefully to embrace the diversity we carry within ourselves. Now, if we could only come up with a way of testing our religious ancestry…now that would be interesting and very enlightening.