Do you mean that an average African American individual is comprised of DNA from more widespread local groups?

I'm not sure if having the dna from many tribes makes you more african that the dna from one (is that what you mean?) that seems a philosophical debate above me.... It seems rather silly.

BUT

A counter arguement might be that the American fellow doesn't take into account the fluid history of Africa itself and the upheavals and population shifts that occur there, not only now but into the past.

For example look at the 1800s in Southern Africa. Google "Mfcane" to see what I mean. That involved millions and many different tribes. Some scattered, Some gobbled up and amalgamated into others and some obliterated. Then realise that was just Shaka. It happened all over before the euros and since then.

Mshweshwe was around at more or less the same time (not too far away) and had pretty much the same sort of effect.

Also the big elephant in the room... colonialism. I think sometimes Afro Americans can be guilty of not realising just how big an thing it was. People shifted all over fleeing the Euro armies, then once conquered were shifted about for conveinience BY them. Then had to migrate economically to find work under their systems and so shifted about again.

There has been so much shifting about on the continent I don't really buy the idea of static groups of DNA that seems to be implied here.

I guess testing would tell but personally I ain't buying it. There is another elephant in the room... Miscegenation in the US over the time period being obviously that more widespread.



And then of course there is the non genetic arguement. Is blood and lineage all you're talking about or is there a suggestion that Afro American cultures and behaviours... their spirit is more essentially African than continental Africans? That would be a whole different debate.

Agree with M.N. The arab invasion of the north in the 600s also caused an upheval of people, nations shifted prior to that other invasions of the middle east saw africans there move into the continent to escape enslavement and genocide.

The argument is flawed.... by its logic Turkish people are more "asian" than any other group because they're a mixture of every invading force that's conqured the region and as semites aren't a race per se. The opposite is true of course, those who haven't been mixed are of a "pure stock" and have stronger genes than those who have.... then again, if you look at our culture (past the fact that we as diasporans have lost or don't tend to celebrate the aspect) the idea of ancestrial veneration as an understanding of genetics and DNA long before it was discovered in modern times, mixed and diasporan africans celebrating their heritage then have a wider pool from which to draw from.

AGenerally say that their more direct link holds sway though.

From what I heard, the thesis was based primarily on genetics. I had the argument much like you that the author didn't take into account some of the greatest events that hit Afrika, and even the world. I mean, for 1200 years, between 600 BCE and 600 CE, you had occupation of North and Northeast Afrika by Persians, Greeks and Romans (including Byzantines) that caused large migrations into West and Central Afrika. That was all before the Arabs caused the largest human migration in history when they invaded Afrika in the 600's CE; causing incalculable numbers moving from North Afrika into West, Central, and Southern parts of Afrika. Lest we say, the Arab slave trade lasted over 1,000 years before formal European colonization, and transplanted 10's of millions, if not over 100 million, Afrikans across the Continent.

What I don't know is if it is assumed that even though migration occurred, that klans or tribes still stayed together or didn't mix (which I think is a ridiculous notion). I would find it hard to believe that a college/university would give out an advanced degree without considering those factors.

I have to agree. Makes everyone look bad, the student and the school.

black people in USA are not "afrikan" they are Americans. since they have the blood of all races flow through their veins, they should be called We Are The World-Americans. That sounds better and less threatening.

Interesting topic. Not being an expert on DNA whatsoever, an obvious question, comes to my mind: If all humans descend from 100% African DNA, when does DNA stop being African??

I guess this was addressed in the thesis.

Any chance of a link to this work Shemsi??

Shut up lady.

Ezy...Arnie..lol!!

@Breadfruit,

@Back in the day, I watched a very interesting documentary whose thesis was that Black Women the world over, were the carriers of all brands/strands of DNA and that they (Black women) inherited this matrilineally… or rather, through their Black mother’s DNA.

Meaning that if a girl is born of a Black mother who was born of a Black mother, who was also born of a Black mother…. all the way back to the beginning of time, then she possessed this DNA. In essence, the documentary was saying that Black woman possessed the DNA of every single ‘race’ in their Blood and it is only they who could pass it on.

The flip was that no other ‘race’ of women had the type of DNA Black women have…

So Breadfruit, assuming I remember correctly, this means that DNA stops being ‘Black’ when a child is birthed by anything other than a Black woman. You dig? I hope that my explanation was somewhat clear…

So, the only way we can be ‘Black’ is by being the children of Black women – regardless of our father’s or her father’s ‘race’. Our entire maternal line has to have been Black all the way back to the beginning of time.

That’s the scientific side and I hope to track down that documentary again. It was on PBS here.

**

What is also striking about this is that in every single African traditional spiritual system I have every heard about or studied, I have found that the priests and priestesses all state that it is impossible for anyone other than a Black woman to ‘birth’ the African spirits (DNA). And that African male priests always inherited/inherited their spirits from their mothers.

That means that crackers, Latinos or other interlopers cannot ‘birth’, form, call, speak to or interact with African spirits (despite the fact that you got a lot of them in the West claiming to be ‘African shamans’…). I recently went to a talk here in Brooklyn in which a Yoruba Babalawo said that the biggest problem African (Black) spiritual leaders face in the West is foreigners (crackers etc) who want to be ‘initiated’ to African spiritual systems and traditions.

The Babalawo said “how can we give these spirits to people who don’t contain them in their blood”?

I thought that was striking, considering the genetic information presented in that documentary about Black folks. That is, you can’t be Black unless your mother is.

@Shemsi,

Yeah, if you could get a link to that thesis, it would be great to read.

Thanks BrooklynGal,

Just looking at your post, would an African who's great grandmother was european, but who's mother was African still have the orignal potential of an African who's matrilineal line was African, right back to "Eve"?

I would suggest that she would definitely be African (Black), but is this how geneticists begin saying that someone is 34% european, 4% mexican, 1% asian and 61% sub-saharan African??

I'm feeling you on that doubt with european science and their historic ability to create "facts" without truth, but until our Academics refute the out of Africa argument as nonsense, I'll stick with it for now.

Truely though, these people have made lying something planet earth will always be infamously known for LOL!!

Peace

Just to add some more confusion to this thread LOL...... A "Black" woman with white parents and white grandparents.......

On further reading.......the parents had another child, who also had the same phenotype as Sandra. Can this be genetically explained or a jacket (cockhold) business a gwarn??

Fascinating stuff, BG.

Would explain why most Black people of any shade test as Black over here....... as you figure most of the "race mixing" that occurred over here was the result of other men exploiting our Black women.
Not until recently, past 50 years, that Black men white women mixing was going on to any big extent.

Hollywood made a film about that story(book) you're talking about ..Human Stain...and they cast Nicole Kidman in the role.

A female friend of mine tried to get me to watch that flick a few years back....

Thanks BK, feelin ya all the way (got me thinking about Jodeci for some reason) :-)

I'm off to get a DNA for Dummies guide......... interesting stuff indeed

Peace

Yes indeed.

Ain't it amazing how high the levels white on black rape were in North America? So much so that it significantly altered the physical features of so very many of us.

I mean, slavery for the Black woman must have been something. Rape, rape, rape all day every day by those damned crackers. Millions upon millions of Black women and girls being raped all over the place.

But thank God for that dominant Black gene and DNA.

Yes!!!

One of the many reasons there is no way I could turn my back on the Afrikan woman, especially she born in Amerikkka. It really saddens me sometimes when I think of what our women went through. All that she endured so that we could be here intellectualizing many different topics on BNV today is astounding.

Our ancestors were dealing with beasts! I've read books telling of young boys being raped also.