Obama's mom was not really "white"

[fried eggs]

New research has uncovered surprising findings about President Obama’s ancestry.

Researchers at Ancestry.com have discovered that his lineage does include at least one black slave but not on his Kenyan father’s side. Obama’s white mother is most likely a direct descendant of one of the first documented African slaves in the United States, said the team of genealogists.

Its team, while lacking definitive proof, said its research “strongly suggests” Obama’s family tree — on his mother’s side — stretches back nearly four centuries to a slave in colonial Virginia named John Punch.

In 1640, John Punch, an African, was a servant in Virginia who escaped, was caught and sentenced to remain enslaved to his master for life.

The Ancestry.com team said records suggested that Punch fathered children with a white woman, who passed her free status to those children, giving rise to a family of a slightly different surname, the Bunches. The researchers said over time, as the Bunches continued to marry, they became prominent landowners in colonial Virginia and were known as white.

http://thegrio.com/2012/07/30/obamas-mother-stanley-ann-dunham-a-descendant-of-a-black-slave/

[jberryhill]

1. Nobody is

[Fawke Em]

2. Not in this country, no.

[antigone382]

8. Not anywhere, really. Race is a social construct. It has no biological meaning.

if you look at the genomes of people of different "races" from anywhere in the world, you'll find that if you don't know the specific markers for the things that we define race by, like hair texture, skin color, and some facial features, it is impossible to tell which people belong to which "race"--there are the same number of average genetic differences between two "white" people as there are between two "black" people.

[patrice]

38. Love that last point: there's more variation WITHIN a "racial" group than there is BETWEEN them.

[Taverner]

39. Yep. What you said.

[Yavin4]

40. Which is Why Any Study Equating "Intelligence" and "Race" Is Pure Bullshit

There is no such thing as a pure race of people.

[patrice]

44. And the genetic material that accounts for "race" is a minute fraction of a person's whole genome. n

[Fawke Em]

62. Not sure of other countries, so I simply posted that I know there is

no such thing as "pure white" in this country.

FWIW, there are actually ways to tell what race someone is by their bone structure, although that is beginning to lose its validity as people of various races intermarry.

Learned that from Dr. William Bass, a world-renowned forensic anthropologist.

Not arguing with you, just pointing out that Dr. Bass has racially identified people by bone structure, but certainly does admit those methodologies are rapidly changing.

[antigone382]

64. In a very general sense you can, but intermarriage is not at all a new thing.

With the possible exception of Native Americans, who are pretty much all of Asian descent (though they came over in three separate waves), we're all so mixed with each other that making clear-cut definitions is simply impossible. That doesn't mean that observable physical characteristics are not useful at times--for example, another victory for forensic anthropology: we know that Native Americans came over in three waves because of the increasing prevalence of shovel-shaped incisors (a trait associated with modern Asians), and the direct correlation between incisor shape and the three different language families among Native groups--in other words, the three waves of immigrations into the New World were completed by three different ethnic groups, who had different languages and physical characteristics that are fairly clear and consistent.

In addition, there are definitely ways that we can identify the adaptability of certain physical traits, such as skin tone, body structure, and even the prevalence of sickle cell anemia. But there is no consistent way of applying these findings to any clear racial classifications. Rather, the mysteries of human migration and interconnectedness have been unlocked in some incredibly surprising ways through the analysis of mitochondrial DNA. We've found, for example, that the dark skinned, curly-haired people of Papua New Guinea, who by outward appearances would seen very closely related to Africans, are actually more closely related to Europeans--and that Africans are also more closely related to Europeans than they are to New Guineans.

[Matariki]

20. Seriously.

[joeybee12]

3. I smell a Mormon plot...

Actually, would this be a surprise, no? I'm sure this is true of a great many of us...just being snarky since it's Ancestry.com and an unusual timing.

[fried eggs]

5. The timing IS odd

[enlightenment]

21. Ancestry.com is not associated with the LDS church.

That's FamilySearch (if you're wondering).

https://familysearch.org/

[thelordofhell]

27. You're wrong

Ancestry.com was originally created by two Bringham Young University grads that started with LDS data disks then branched out to Ancestry Magazine which became Ancestry.com. They are based in Provo, Utah.

[arely staircase]

41. really?

WOW. You know they are giving all that info to the lds.

[enlightenment]

43. It is not associated with the LDS church.

FamilySearch.org is the official genealogical datesearch website for the LDS church.

Ancestry is a purely commercial venture. The church does not officially collect; disseminate; or record the data that is posted by users, nor can users use Ancestry to record data for the 'official' LDS records, as they can through FamilySearch.

Just because Ancestry was started by a couple of Brigham Young grads with church data (and for years, the LDS church had the best data collection available) does not make them associated with the church. Nor does the fact that their corporate offices are in Utah make an association.

Do you know anything about genealogy? Or the LDS church? Or the development of international commercial corporations?

[Marrah_G]

31. Yes they are

[notadmblnd]

37. Oh yes it is. It has LDS handprints all over it.

Ancestry.com Inc., formerly The Generations Network, is a publicly traded Internet company (NASDAQ: ACOM) based in Provo, Utah, USA.

In 1990, Paul B. Allen (not to be confused with Microsoft cofounder Paul G. Allen) and Dan Taggart, two Brigham Young University graduates, founded Infobases and began offering Latter-day Saints (LDS) publications on floppy disks.

On January 1, 1997, Infobases' parent company, Western Standard Publishing, purchased Ancestry, Inc.,[10] publisher of Ancestry magazine and genealogy books.

In July 1997, Allen and Taggart purchased Western Standard's interest in Ancestry, Inc.

More growth for Infobases occurred in July 1997 when Ancestry, Inc. purchased Bookcraft, Inc., a publisher of books written by leaders and officers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).[13][14] Infobases had published many of Bookcraft's books as part of its LDS Collector's Library. Pelo also announced that Ancestry's product line would be greatly expanded in both CDs and online.

In April 1999, to better focus on its Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com Internet businesses, Infobases sold the Bookcraft brand name and its catalog of print books to its major competitor in the LDS book market, Deseret Book.

The MyFamily.com website launched in December 1998, with additional free sites beginning in March 1999.[18] The site generated one million registered users within its first 140 days.[15] The company raised more than US$90 million in venture capital from investors[15] and changed its name on November 17, 1999 from Ancestry.com, Inc., to MyFamily.com, Inc. Its three Internet genealogy sites were then called Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com, and FamilyHistory.com.[19] Sales for 2002 were about US$62 million, and those for 2003 were US$99 million.[20]

On December 19, 2006, the company changed its name to "The Generations Network."[26] While the company had been offering free access to Ancestry.com at LDS Family History Centers, that service was terminated on March 17, 2007 because of the inability to reach a mutually agreeable licensing agreement between TGN and the LDS Church. Recently,[specify] however, service was reinstated at several of the larger Family History Centers.[27]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestry.com

[Iggo]

4. But...wait a minute...that would mean...

THE PRESIDENT IS BLACK!!!!

:haironfire:

[cherokeeprogressive]

10. Nnnnnnnnnope

He's a mix.

[Iggo]

19. But we already knew that!

What's the point in trying to make his Mom black, too?

To make him more black than he already is?

They already hate him because he's black.

I swear, sometimes I just don't understand racists.

[dkf]

22. Isn't this more important to the black community who see a difference between blacks who are

descendants of slaves vs blacks who aren't?

It's not my thing but I've heard reference to this before.

[SunsetDreams]

26. No it isn't.

Where did you hear that?

[JoePhilly]

29. Is it? Do you have some evidence of this?

I mean, I recall my Italian-American friends who spoke Italian and had a grandmother from the old country who spoke no English living in their home, calling out my other Italian-American friends who did not speak Italian, or have an old country granny living at home.

Apparently, the former group was more ITALIAN.

[movonne]

55. This proves he is really is an american...

[spanone]

6. who cares

[JonLP24]

7. I don't get it

How does having a non-white descendant make one "not really" white. As I understand it, no one is 100% of anything.

[caraher]

15. it's the old "one drop of blood" thing

Since, in biological terms, race is "folk taxonomy" and not really scientific, in principle you can construct any social rules you like regarding what it means to "really" be white (or black). Some historical social rules potentially in play are ones that say you belong to the lowest group in your society's racial pecking order to which some blood ancestor "clearly" belonged and that even "one drop" of ancestry from the group qualifies to put you in the "lower" category.

Of course, we were all treated to plenty of critiques to the effect that Obama himself was not "really" black (or "black enough," whatever that could possibly mean).

[CJCRANE]

42. But this applies to all white Virginians

if you follow the logic of the article.

[hedgehog]

51. You're just figuring this out?

I've read that most (all?) Southerners are of "mixed" race if you go far enough back.

My own family is Irish, through and through, but there have always been stories of ships from the Armada ending up wrecked in the West of Ireland. There was a vigorous trade between Spain and Galway through the medieval era. We're mostly pale red heads and blondes, but if I took a black and white photo of one of my brothers, you might guess from his features that there is relatively recent African ancestry in our genes based on his hair texture, lips and nose.

[Brigid]

58. My paternal grandmother had a lot of Irish in her.

But she was short and slight, with olive skin and dark hair and eyes. I often wonder if there wasn't just a drop of Spanish blood in her because of the frequent contacts between the Irish and the Spanish over the centuries. My dad could have passed for Spanish, and so could his sister, because they got her coloring (my grandfather was a redhead with blue eyes). I have a sister who got her coloring too. You just never know.

[4th law of robotics]

9. Wouldn't everyone have african ancestors if you go back far enough?

Seems you have to either draw an arbitrary line and say "before this point it doesn't count" or else give up on the whole thing and declare all of us to be displaced Africans (except for those living in the exact spot of Africa where H. sapiens were located after being kicked out of the garden of Eden).

[Blue_Tires]

23. +1

[Scootaloo]

50. Logical point, but irrelevant in modern discussion of race

Yes, every human on earth is the descendent of Africans. Of course, that's still drawing an arbitrary line; primates evolved in North America. And modern placental animals probably developed in some corner of what is today Eurasia... and their theraspid ancestors probably hearken from somewhere in modern Antarctica... past that, you kinda lose any geographic scope... it looks like the first landfish hearken from what's Greenland nowadays, perhaps?

However, the people who walked out of Africa probably didn't look very much like modern Africans - remember that time doesn't stand still for evolution. Saying "we're all Africans" in reference to distinguishable modern races is one of those "correct but wrong" arguments.

This story is neat because it makes a highlight of a point that a lot of Americans don't know about their own history... That if your family's been on the continent long enough, you've probably got some ancestors who didn't come here willingly.

[MrMickeysMom]

52. Actually, yes...

Unless you feel that we are a planet of mixed alien races, which right now, I'm not betting on it.

[shraby]

11. Maybe they should wait for definitive proof before spouting off?

Where's the (at least) 3 sources to document it? I could be descended from about anyone I choose to be doing a family tree like they are.

[Avalux]

12. Interesting, although "lacking definitive proof".

Of course this won't matter to most of us but to some, it may. Proof not necessary for that crowd and they won't be voting for him anyway.

[snooper2]

13. how come I always get fundie vibes from Ancestry.com?

[rox63]

17. I believe they are owned by the Mormons

rather than the fundies.

[snooper2]

25. that explains it, mormons are a version of fundie..

[rox63]

63. Don't try selling that notion to either fundies or mormons

Fundies think Mormomism is blasphemy. Not sure what Mormons think of the fundies.

[snooper2]

66. we have a different definition of fundie--

Fundie is a generic term for folks who practice their bible literally (to me at least)-

So those shitfuckers that blow up girls schools in Afghanistan are fundies too. Just like the Westboro Punk Ho's, and the preacher in Florida, etc.,etc.,...



Everyone else doesn't really follow their holy book for the most part

[cali]

14. "We are all of us mongrels

dark haired and llight haired, who must learn not to bite one another"

E.M. Forster

[sinkingfeeling]

16. Stupid of Ancestry.com to research it and to publish it. Makes it look like they're

looking for 'pureblood' Aryans. Have they done Rmoney's yet?

[Avalux]

24. Ancestry.com = Mormons.

That's really all we need to know. The GOP 'planted' story as a trap; best to ignore it since the claim states there's no definitive proof and it doesn't really matter anyway.

To the GOP base though, it will matter and become all-consuming. MORE reason to hate Obama....he's even more black than they thought!

[grasswire]

34. ancestry.com is a publicly traded company. Mormons own familysearch. n/t

[CJCRANE]

36. It's a misfire because it implies that all Virginians are related to John Punch

which I'm sure will please some people but will annoy the Tea Party types.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

18. We are all migrants of Africa at some point.

However, I imagine that would tilt the brain of this particular "researcher."

[Blue_In_AK]

28. My guess is every single one of us

whose ancestors have been in the US for a long time have a portion of AA or American Indian blood in our veins. People like to have sex and there was little birth control in those days.

[Kalidurga]

30. Please change headline to reflect actual headline. Thanks.

Interesting.

[Marrah_G]

35. That only applies to LBN forum

[Kalidurga]

59. Ok thanks,

the article just didn't seem to be as mean spirited as the title suggests. Still I didn't like the tone. I can see how it would be interpreted that way. It's just very confusing. I don't get the motive of publishing something that might be true and means nothing(ancestry.com not the op).

[Enrique]

32. I see this as a promotion for Ancestry.com

they have ads where actors tell us about the surprising things they found about their family history, this fits right into that ad campaign.

[CJCRANE]

33. This implies that every white person with Virginian ancestry

is related to John Punch since there is no "definitive proof" of the link to Obama's mother's family except that "as the Bunches continued to marry, they became prominent landowners in colonial Virginia and were known as white".

[CatWoman]

45. I'm from Virginia (Portsmouth)

and here is my fraternal grandfather:

[CJCRANE]

47. We're all mixed together...

as my anarchist friend always says "there's only one race - the human race".

[CatWoman]

49. that was my point

[patrice]

46. Who cares?

[Marr]

48. Ever notice how that "not really white" thing is only ever used in reference to a

person with a bit of black ancestry? I've never heard someone called "not really white" for having a fraction of native American blood, for instance.

[Igel]

60. No.

I've heard it said of people with a bit of S. Asian or E. Asian blood.

I've heard it said of Russians because, as you know, if you scratch a Russian you find a Tatar.

Depends on who you hang out with and where the racial boundaries lie.

The Arabs in my classes weren't "really white," but nobody wanted to say they were black or Asian. You have a limited number of prototypes around which to group every token and you wind up with a lot of things that are "not really" what they are.

[KurtNYC]

53. 4 centuries ago ?? she is related to ~8192 people

Let's see, how big is a family tree at the level 400 years back....

Assuming 3.5 generation per century, that's 14 generations. 2 to the 13th power...

This ancestor they found, who may or may not be related, if related makes up 1/8192nd of his mother's DNA.

[gkhouston]

57. Also assuming their records are correct.

ancestry.com only lists 8 of my grandmother's 22 siblings, so I'm not betting money on the accuracy or completeness of their records.

[struggle4progress]

54. It's not impossible but the chances for this being correct are very very slim

One only knows "John Punch" by name because of the lawsuit involving him, and to make any connection between Obama and "Punch" one must apparently believe, without much evidence, that he had children by some woman whose descendents were soon all known as "Bunch"

Ancestry.com is just grabbing for headlines

[Zoeisright]

56. Who the fuck cares?

Other than racist bastards.

[Atman]

61. IMPEEEAAAACCHH!

We can't have a president with NO whiteness. It's in the constitution! It's gotta be! A tea bagger told me so !

[slackmaster]

65. Are you invoking the "One Drop Rule?"