Back

@zhivi Yet another proof that Black has little to do with the color of the outmost 1mm layer of your body. It is an artificial, political, social category of people.

@carl true.

@zhivi Very interesting!

@Catmama what did you find the most interesting?

@zhivi The woman's absolute certainty that she's Black (which I don't doubt) is very interesting. How people perceive themselves and others depending on the country is fascinating.

@Catmama it is. She explains her family line. My dad went to high school with someone that looked white with red hair. He told everyone he was black and fight anyone that said anything different.

@zhivi Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel, Demon Copperfield, has several characters with roots like hers.

@MichaelT thanks for sharing. Can I assume you read it?

@zhivi Just finished it this week. It's fantastic! The one thing I couldn't visualize was the complexion of the title character. (Although that is truly a trivial thing, right?? ) This Tiktok helped.

@MichaelT great. I’ll add it to the list of info I’m collecting.

@zhivi I love this for this woman. This is the opposite of my family, who denied our black heritage for many years and didn't relearn about it until some of us started doing genealogical research. I ain't claiming to be black, since I wasn't raised that way and ain't nobody seeing me as such, but I feel it's important to acknowledge who my ancestors were. I identify more as Appalachian than any color-based heritage. (I hope it's okay to comment on this, I can delete if not.)

@balvinia of course it’s ok to comment and share. Thank you for sharing.

@zhivi Race is social and represents people’s identity - nothing else!

@lborrell too bad a lot of people don’t see it that way.

@zhivi Race is rooted on #racism and as such it is very political at least in the U.S. Thus, from time to time, the genetics/biology discourse comes around to distract from the main issue: #racism and its effects on people's life.

@zhivi I have a lot of black features so I'm sure there's some recent African ancestry in me. Skin so white you need sunglasses to look at it, though.

@LizzieSpeaks love it. I’m sure you are correct. Have you ever gotten one of those ancestry test done?

@zhivi No, but my paternal grandfather looked so middle eastern that kids used to ask me if he was white. I said yes, because that's what my family told me. But, as I grew older and more and more people noticed my nose, hair, teeth, and cheekbones, it became obvious to me that somebody fudged the truth somewhere in there. I should do one of those tests. His last name was North African French.

@LizzieSpeaks if you do let me know what you find out.

@zhivi CRI Genetics tests are on sale so I'm going to get one when I get paid. It has a timeline for ancestry. https://www.crigenetics.com/ancestry?_gl=1*17dbvq0*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE2NzAzNjM3NDUuQ2owS0NRaUE3YnVjQmhDZUFSSXNBSU93ci04NjYxM3ZoQUhlaFB1S3I4QTlpbEgxbFhaejNaTF9SUTB3UWdXTnlYYXIySVRUWVlUT1E0Y2FBczVPRUFMd193Y0I.

@LizzieSpeaks I can’t wait to hear your results