[ExI] Well-roundedness and character

[William Flynn Wallace]

You can do some interesting tricks with these low-cost DNA tests, but
perhaps the most important one of all is that it educates people about
themselves.  It did that for me.



spike


*If one is totally free of racism, then it should not matter what color
your ancestors were.  As a matter of historical interest, sure.   bill w*

On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 6:27 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

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> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat
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> >…What would the number signify and why would it matter? The everyday
> concept of race really doesn't map onto biological concept of a population
> group. In fact, any clear look at the numbers here shows, for instance,
> that everyday racial groups overlap different biological populations….
> Regards,  Dan
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> Hi Dan, the number is mostly to educate people about themselves.  That’s
> what it did for me.
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> I did one of these commercial DNA tests when they dropped to 100 bucks.
> Now they are 60, but in the past 6 yrs, I have bought 34 kits for relatives
> and done DNA mapping to try to figure out connections with genetic
> diseases.  That’s how I found out about the black ancestor: all of us on
> that branch show it, none of us knew.  But now we do.
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> Here’s bit of American history you might find interesting.  The
> traditional version of slavery in the south suggests that escaped slaves
> went north to freedom, but it is a little more subtle than that.  If they
> were in Georgia, some went south into Florida, which was sparsely populated
> and they could join the local population.  You can see the evidence in the
> Seminole tribe, which did not evacuate Florida but accepted the Africans.
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> In Virginia, the escapees from the slave plantations could head north, but
> their better chances were in heading west, to get over the Appalachians.
> Over on the west side, in what is now West Virginia but was then part of
> Virginia, they still had (theoretically) legal slavery but no one owned
> slaves out there from what I can tell from the census records.  My great^3
> grandfather was a fiery Methodist minister who spoke often and thunderously
> on this topic.  So the slaves would sometimes go west, get over the
> mountains and set up camp in the hollers on the west side, often going into
> the coal business, where they could be free, work harder than before under
> far more dangerous conditions, while still being as destitute as they were
> as slaves.  But they were free, and they were equal to the local whites
> there.
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> Decades went by.  My grandmother was born and grew up there.  She was
> telling me how life was in the mountain country.  There was a choice of
> careers: you could do anything you like, as long as you like coal mining.
> There the black men and white men were truly equals: after a half an hour
> in the mine, everyone was the same color.  The black and white families
> lived in the same row of company-owned shotgun houses.  They accepted each
> other as equals.
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> This explains a long-standing puzzle: we couldn’t figure out why my
> great^3 grandmother ended up there of all places, from Georgia.  Reason:
> she was Scotch-Irish with an African baby.  She ended up in the coal
> country of West Virginia, where they had no heartburn with that kind of
> thing.
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> The 1920s came along.  The miners decided they would politely ask the
> company to lift a finger to help keep them alive, the company politely
> refused, the miners began to unionize, the company brought in
> strike-breakers from Italy.  The labor force detested the Italians, but
> black and (non-Italian) white were friends, united in common cause against
> Italians.
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> Race is both more and less than DNA, if it is anything at all.
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> With that in mind as a background, you may come to understand why your
> comments on the DNA-component of race interests me.  You can do some
> interesting tricks with these low-cost DNA tests, but perhaps the most
> important one of all is that it educates people about themselves.  It did
> that for me.
>
>
>
> spike
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