OFF-THE-CUFF
Late-summer genetic testing revealed surprising results.
I paid $99 and sent spit to genetic testing service 23andme.com to learn about potential health problems that could harm and hurt over the next decade. Besides discovering a few genetic anomalies, such as a strong predisposition toward celiac disease, I also found out about being an African American.
Apparently, my DNA contains proof my family tree since 1500 A.D. has one person that came from Sub-Sahara Africa. Apparently, a tiny sliver of my twelfth chromosome is the smoking gun. I’m exactly 0.1 percent African American. How that one chromosomal segment got there is anyone’s guess, but doesn’t surprise because most my family tree arrived in America pre-1800 and some branches pre-1700.
Lately, given the findings, I have searched and asked, but haven’t been able to find a definitive government definition for what makes a person African American.
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Go read all the definitions. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, a person is an African American when he or she has “origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.” Under this official U.S. government definition, I’m African American, even though literally 99.9 percent white.
The National Minority Supplier Development Council has a different definition. In order to attain certification as a minority-owned business, an applicant needs to be at least 25 percent Black (or other minority race). Under this government definition, I’m not African American.
The Small Business Administration 8(a) program has yet another definition. With them, an applicant must “hold him or herself out to be a member of a presumed group” (such as Black) and be “currently identified by others as a member of a presumed group (such as Black).” In other words, under this government definition, I’m African American if I say I’m African American and I get enough people to say I’m African American.
Those government definitions and others are far too ambiguous, especially with government programs and business benefits on the line. Fairness is an issue. Should a person who is “25 percent black” but who has white skin and white adoptive parents and who grew up in an upper class home be given preferential treatment on government contracts over others?
If it’s going to define race, the federal government ought to have just one lone definition instead of offering a smorgasbord. And maybe that single, official definition could include DNA testing.
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The issue of what makes a person a member of any race came to the forefront during the George Zimmerman trial, when the media regularly referred to Zimmerman as a white Hispanic, even though he self-identified as Hispanic. To be consistent, the same media ought to be referring to President Obama as white black and you should be calling me black white. PGA golfer Tiger Woods, instead of being the world’s best African American golfer, should be referred to as the world’s best Native American Filipino white black golfer.
In the early ‘90s—and I mentioned this years ago in this column—I worked for an East Coast business owner who was under pressure from a civil rights group because of employing only three African Americans at his 150-employee firm. So he hired four South African-born whites. He then told the civil rights group he had four new African American hires.
And then you have the problem of many blacks in America not being African American. There are many blacks from Jamaica, England, New Guinea, Australia, Cuba, and Haiti who don’t self-identify as African American. And never will.
In August, we had over to our Vernon Center home family friends from the Cities. The husband was black and Nigeria born, the wife white, and the children biracial. It was fun sharing with the husband my DNA testing results revealing I was an African American—and an Ashkenazi Jew. But that’s another story.
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