The Study of Racialism

Wortman_J

Interesting article taken from:

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=15042002-084051-5356r

"Shriver's data suggests that well over 90 percent of the African genes in Americans are still found in people who call themselves black."

"Shriver pointed out, "There is a very small degree of overlap in the population distributions." In America, most of the whites are extremely European and most of the blacks are quite African."

"Earlier, cruder studies, done before direct genetic testing was feasible, suggested that African-Americans were 25 or even 30 percent white. Shriver's project is not complete, but with data from 25 sites already in, he is coming up with 17-18 percent white ancestry among African-Americans. That's the equivalent of 106 of those 128 of your ancestors from seven generations ago having been Africans and 22 Europeans."

"Granted, the "one drop" rule would be laughed out of existence if anyone attempted to impose it on a land with a more genetically blended population, such as Puerto Rico (which Shriver has begun to study). Yet, it appears possible that the rule survives in the U.S. because it's not too wildly inaccurate. Only a small fraction of the population resembles Shriver in being more than half, but less than 90 percent European."

"According to Shriver, only about 10 percent of African-Americans are over 50 percent white." [meaning Mulatto JLC]

"The admixture rates vary by region. The African-American populations with the highest average numbers of white ancestors found so far are those in California and Seattle. They average a little over one-quarter European ancestry."

"The African-Americans of New Orleans average 22 percent white. This fairly high number reflects the influence of Spanish and French mores in Louisiana. Latin cultures have no "one drop" rule, so intermarriage was somewhat more socially acceptable there."

"Advocates of the growing popular idea that race is merely a "social construct" with no biological reality point to the artificiality of the "one drop" rule as evidence for their view. Yet, it's possible that the "one drop" rule itself helped to construct the genetic reality that Shriver has uncovered."

"Thus, the "one drop" rule helped make African-Americans and European-Americans into two social groups whose members -- despite sometimes being highly varied in ancestry -- are perhaps more distinct on average in their family trees than the arbitrariness of the "one drop" would lead you to initially assume."--[preceeding excerpts from: Analysis: White prof finds he's not -- 2 ]