Comments on: Race, Genomics & Health

By: Wyatt Phillips

Wyatt Phillips — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:31:16 +0000

First: Barack Obama is NOT half “African-American”. He is half African. Nevertheless, Barack Obama is African American.

Second: If Obama isn’t black then neither are his children. To go by percentages, for the sake of argument, Obama’s children are “25% white”. How come then people don’t argue that his children “aren’t black”. From eyeballing the local African American population, I would say a plurality look like Obama’s children, yet I can say with almost absolute certainty that the people living here view them as black. In accordance with the argument that Obama isn’t black because he is “50 percent white” wouldn’t the same argument hold for a sizable number of African Americans who have white ancestry whether the white ancestry is 50% or 10%? In other words, why is someone 50% white and 50% black argued to be “not black”, yet someone 75% black and 25% white is seen “as black”? And who is to enforce these blood quantums? I personally don’t think African Americans go around on witch hunts to figure out who is “100% black” and who is not. I have personally never met a black person who thinks in strict percentages. If anything, I’ve met black people who think in terms of nationality: “I am 100% Jamaican; I am 100% Somali, etc”. NEVER have I met a black person say: “You are only 98% black? Then I don’t accept you because I only accept 100% blacks”. The phrase “100% black” is ludicrous. Blood quantums are ludicrous. President Barack Obama is black.

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By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:44:55 +0000

Taken as a whole, the special issue of this journal often implicates whiteness yet “whiteness” as a racial category remains largely unexamined.”

Professor Steve Hsu discusses the European Genetic Ancestery here:

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/11/human-genetic-variation-fst-and.html

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By: Jessie

Jessie — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:30:06 +0000

You make some excellent points, A.D. ~ and it’s good to read you here, I hope you’ll hang around and comment again. I have to say, I’m really puzzled by Gates’ fascination with all this. He’s a wicked smart guy and yet, as you say, the whole enterprise he’s engaged in reinforces the notion of the ‘one drop rule.’ It seems to fetishize blackness.

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By: A.D. Powell

A.D. Powell — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:03:06 +0000

Bliss Broyard could have effectively destroyed the “one drop” myth if she had stood up for her father (who had far more right to call himself “white” than Obama has to call himself “black”). Instead, she chose to ally with the foremost advocate of the “one drop” myth (forcing a “black” racial classification upon predominately white or otherwise nonblack people), Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (”Skip” Gates). Too many “blacks” like Gates have a barely concealed belief that “white genes” must be forced into the “black race” if said “race” is to “prove” itself equal to “whites.” Note the contradiction there, but “blacks” like Gates are never called on it. Furthermore, the obvious “black genes” in Hispanics and Arabs are tacitly ignored. No one wants to insult them by pointing out their kinship with the “blacks.” Bliss Broyard herself noted that her father’s first wife, a Puerto Rican (wrongfully identified as “black” by many black writers), considered herself, her husband and in-laws to be “white.” Sounds good to me. If Obama can claim that he is “black” because he “looks black,” then anyone who “looks white” is “white.”

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