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[Doctor Ninja]

"it was a strange moment of triumph against racism: The gun-slinging white supremacist Craig Cobb, dressed up for daytime TV in a dark suit and red tie, hearing that his DNA testing revealed his ancestry to be only “86 percent European, and … 14 percent Sub-Saharan African.” The studio audience whooped and laughed and cheered. And Cobb — who was, in 2013, charged with terrorizing people while trying to create an all-white enclave in North Dakota — reacted like a sore loser in the schoolyard.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on, just wait a minute,” he said, trying to put on an all-knowing smile. “This is called statistical noise.”

Then, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, he took to the white nationalist website Stormfront to dispute those results. That’s not uncommon: With the rise of spit-in-a-cup genetic testing, there’s a trend of white nationalists using these services to prove their racial identity, and then using online forums to discuss the results.

But like Cobb, many are disappointed to find out that their ancestry is not as “white” as they’d hoped. In a new study, sociologists Aaron Panofsky and Joan Donovan examined years’ worth of posts on Stormfront to see how members dealt with the news.

It’s striking, they say, that white nationalists would post these results online at all. After all, as Panofsky put it, “they will basically say if you want to be a member of Stormfront you have to be 100 percent white European, not Jewish.”

But instead of rejecting members who get contrary results, Donovan said, the conversations are “overwhelmingly” focused on helping the person to rethink the validity of the genetic test. And some of those critiques — while emerging from deep-seated racism — are close to scientists’ own qualms about commercial genetic ancestry testing.

Panofsky and Donovan presented their findings at a sociology conference in Montreal on Monday. The timing of the talk — some 48 hours after the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. — was coincidental. But the analysis provides a useful, if frightening, window into how these extremist groups think about their genes.

Source

This is just too funny.

 

[Linkura]

Obligatory:

 

[The Kree]

Maybe they'll start taking each other out to purify their ranks.

Nah, they'll just deny the science and call themselves niggers in their sleep.

 

[Gorillaz]

Find out in front of a live studio audience that your a hypocrite brehs

Actually,

America in general, brehs

edit: the show was my in America so this shit just backfired but whatever

 

[Jackpot]

And some of those critiques — while emerging from deep-seated racism — are close to scientists’ own qualms about commercial genetic ancestry testing.

Funny, but yeah those tests have issues. I think one of them has a weird bias to giving everyone Swedish or Finnish heritage.

 

[Dead Prince]

Maury.gif

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

Obligatory:

First post nails it.

 

[MIMIC]

One drop!

But it's OK. We reject you.

 

[lastplayed]

We're all Africans deep down.

 

[Protein]

"So you see, I can't be racist."

 

[Crayons]

I'm not a white nationalist but I took a DNA test and it told me I was 6.5% Sub saharan African. So this white nationalist guy is blacker than me

 

[Saint Gregory]

I actually had a friend tell me ages ago that a lot of the original first families in places like Virginia have African ancestry because there was no taboo against it in those areas prior to the institution of slavery.

 

[Doctor Ninja]

We're all Africans deep down.

Didn't the original humans migrate from Africa? So it makes sense that we have African DNA. I'm not genetic expert though.

 

[Glass Rebel]

Does it count as internalized racism now? 🤔🤔🤔

 

[Tall4Life]

I legit thought this was an Onion article, now I'm laughing my head off

Funny, but yeah those tests have issues. I think one of them has a weird bias to giving everyone Swedish or Finnish heritage.

Yeah, generally these tests are based on single nucleotide changes in your DNA (which can have huge effects), and they assign those changes to different ethnicities/races, which can be disingenuous

There's no sequence in your code that explicitly says "Your mother is Russian and your father is Mexican"

Still funny nonetheless

 

[lightskintwin]

"So it's not racist when I say it"

 

[Easy_D]

Don't Europeans also have some neanderthal DNA (or was that debunked?) how's that for racial purity???

Racists are strange

 

[dragonzdogma]

can our driver license please include our racial % genetics or whatever you call it-
that would be epic, no?


EXAMPLE:
name: Joe baker
Organ donor (check)
blood type O
Age 21
Eyes Brown
Race ,30% Hispanic 30% Caucasian 30%African 10% Asian. (or whatever term science uses)

^ something like that.

 

[yanipheonu]

Yeah, DNA testing really undermines racist ideals of whiteness.

 

[BlazeBreak]

Didn't the original humans migrate from Africa? So it makes sense that we have African DNA. I'm not genetic expert though.

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: Yes, though recent discoveries and research are starting to trend a bit away from a singular cradle of life and toward the notion that early humans began to migrate out of Africa earlier than thought and there was then more interbreeding between populations afterward.

 

[lastplayed]

Don't Europeans also have some neanderthal DNA (or was that debunked?) how's that for racial purity???

Racists are strange

Forget race, that's not even the same species!

 

[Tall4Life]

I actually had a friend tell me ages ago that a lot of the original first families in places like Virginia have African ancestry because there was no taboo against it in those areas prior to the institution of slavery.

Prior to the implementation of full slavery they were generally treated as indentured servants like the poor whites that came across the Atlantic. They were still forcibly taken from their homelands, the Africans, but for a bit it wasn't the kind of slavery it would turn into later... I want to say that South Carolina (as with most things related to racism) started the trend of making them slaves from the outset

Regardless, it was pretty common as well for the slave owners (or masters if we're referring to the indentured servants) to rape/have sex with their African slaves/servants and produce children (Jefferson reportedly had a couple of children with one of his slaves).

Didn't the original humans migrate from Africa? So it makes sense that we have African DNA. I'm not genetic expert though.

Yes, but over hundreds of thousands of years that would only make up like a percent at most, probably. This guy having 14% Sub-Saharan African DNA means his African roots are much closer

 

[kswiston]

I legit thought this was an Onion article, now I'm laughing my head off



Yeah, generally these tests are based on single nucleotide changes in your DNA (which can have huge effects), and they assign those changes to different ethnicities/races, which can be disingenuous

There's no sequence in your code that explicitly says "Your mother is Russian and your father is Mexican"

Still funny nonetheless

They should be able to differentiate between more isolated groups. The percentages will have a margin of error, but there wasn't a ton of intermingling between western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa until fairly recently.

Sweden vs Finland is probably going to be a mess.

 

[commedieu]

Didn't the original humans migrate from Africa? So it makes sense that we have African DNA. I'm not genetic expert though.

Not according to white supremacists. They come from Europe. Or life was started elsewhere. Nothing black.

 

[Oriel]

I've never really seen the point in these ancestry tests TBH. Based on the fact I'm Irish I'm quite confident I've a mixture of Celtic and Nordic (Viking) DNA in me. Not that it really matters a jot, what changes after you get your results? "Huh, neat.....what now?"

 

[Tall4Life]

Don't Europeans also have some neanderthal DNA (or was that debunked?) how's that for racial purity???

Racists are strange

If I remember correctly we all have a portion of neanderthal DNA, most easily seen in the mitochondrial DNA which is passed on by the mother. They were able to map the entire Neanderthal genome and they found enough similarities to conclude that either there was interbreeding or they were just an extreme, specialized variation of the same species (likely interbreeding though).

 

[waveuponwave]

My uncle did a test like this. I really don't see the appeal.

This is pretty funny though

To find relevant comments in the 12 million posts written by over 300,000 members, the authors enlisted a team at the University of California, Los Angeles, to search for terms like “DNA test,” “haplotype,” “23andMe,” and “National Geographic.” Then the researchers combed through the posts they found, not to mention many others as background. Donovan, who has moved from UCLA to the Data & Society Research Institute, estimated that she spent some four hours a day reading Stormfront in 2016.

That's some dedication to science

 

[Tall4Life]

They should be able to differentiate between more isolated groups. The percentages will have a margin of error, but there wasn't a ton of intermingling between western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa until fairly recently.

Sweden vs Finland is probably going to be a mess.

Yeah, if your whole family is from China and you know it's been that way for a while the genetic testing will probably be more accurate, but as with many human populations, migrations and wars happen that cause otherwise separated populations to reproduce together

Like I took a test to see the ethnic ancestry of my mom and father, and it concluded that my mom's ancestors mostly stayed around central Europe/Nordic countries, while my dad's side is a fucking mess going from Egypt to the Middle East to China to Russia and to Europe.

Genetic "purity" or just having a really close match for ethnicity is hard as shit unless you and your family have been explicitly locked down there for centuries

 

[lightskintwin]

Prior to the implementation of full slavery they were generally treated as indentured servants like the poor whites that came across the Atlantic. They were still forcibly taken from their homelands, the Africans, but for a bit it wasn't the kind of slavery it would turn into later... I want to say that South Carolina (as with most things related to racism) started the trend of making them slaves from the outset

Regardless, it was pretty common as well for the slave owners (or masters if we're referring to the indentured servants) to rape/have sex with their African slaves/servants and produce children (Jefferson reportedly had a couple of children with one of his slaves).

They've traced and confirmed Thomas Jefferson and his lover/slave Sally Hemmings line.

 

[Doctor Ninja]

Not according to white supremacists. They come from Europe. Or life was started elsewhere. Nothing black.

They grow out of the ground like mushrooms

 

[Vanillalite]

The video of this is great. The 2nd chick on stage just starts cracking up before the results are read cause she can see them.

 

[Messofanego]

The woman laughing her ass off is the best part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-XDKiO-i4Q

 

[Azoor]

 

[SRG01]

Yeah, if your whole family is from China and you know it's been that way for a while the genetic testing will probably be more accurate, but as with many human populations, migrations and wars happen that cause otherwise separated populations to reproduce together

China's genetic diversity is pretty strong because of old migration and trade routes during previous dynasties. There are also Asiatic Aboriginal genes along the South-East coast...

 

[VaultBoy101]

It has never made sense to me how people don't understand that we all have:

2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great-grandparents
16 great-great-grandparents
32 great-great-great-grandparents
64 great-great-great-great-grandparents
128 great-great-great-great-great-grandparents
etc.

Guess what? Chances are there's more than one race in all of our ancestries.

 

[Tagyhag]

I'm really curious as to where they think humans originated from if it wasn't Africa.

 

[Haly]

Others were told that they could remain part of white nationalist groups, in spite of the ancestry they revealed, as long as they didn’t “mate,” or only had children with certain ethnic groups. Still others used these test results to put forth a twisted notion of diversity, one “that allows them to say, ‘No, we’re really diverse and we don’t need non-white people to have a diverse society,'” said Panofsky.

 

[Tall4Life]

China's genetic diversity is pretty strong because of old migration and trade routes during previous dynasties. There are also Asiatic Aboriginal genes along the South-East coast...

Yeah my bad, it was an awful example

Like I'm honestly struggling to think of a place so separated for a long time that it could be reliably looked for... idk Japan?

 

[MB99]

Reminds me of one of the best Boondocks jokes:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cmIrq1bOafA

 

[Van Bur3n]

He can still remain a white supremacist. He's just not as supreme as other white supremacists.

 

[Cake Boss]

 

[Mr. Poolman]

It has never made sense to me how people don't understand that we all have:

2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great-grandparents
16 great-great-grandparents
32 great-great-great-grandparents
64 great-great-great-great-grandparents
128 great-great-great-great-great-grandparents
etc.

Guess what? Chances are there's more than one race in all of our ancestries.

In fact, there is nobody alive who isn't at least your cousin to the 50th degree.
And yes, that includes different races.

 

[boiled goose]

Didn't the original humans migrate from Africa? So it makes sense that we have African DNA. I'm not genetic expert though.

I believe they track changes that happened after major migrations to give you those percentages.

14 percent means recent ancestors were from africa.

 

[scorcher59]

"Some black dude"

 

[Rocwell]

can our driver license please include our racial % genetics or whatever you call it-
that would be epic, no?


EXAMPLE:
name: Joe baker
Organ donor (check)
blood type O
Age 21
Eyes Brown
Race ,30% Hispanic 30% Caucasian 30%African 10% Asian. (or whatever term science uses)

^ something like that.

Yeah and maybe they could put your religion on there too, a cross for Christian, a crescent for Islam and a little yellow star for Jewish.

 

[Haly]

Like I'm honestly struggling to think of a place so separated for a long time that it could be reliably looked for... idk Japan?

Various pacific islanders are sufficiently segregated from general migratory patterns enough that if you're looking for "pure bloodlines" you'll probably find a few there.

 

[KillLaCam]

isnt everyone part African? The 1st ppl weren't from Europe

I believe they track changes that happened after major migrations to give you those percentages.

14 percent means recent ancestors were from africa.

ohh thats even more pointless then

 

[lastplayed]

It has never made sense to me how people don't understand that we all have:

2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great-grandparents
16 great-great-grandparents
32 great-great-great-grandparents
64 great-great-great-great-grandparents
128 great-great-great-great-great-grandparents
etc.

Guess what? Chances are there's more than one race in all of our ancestries.

You only need to go back 1000 years to have a total of 4,294,967,295 ancestors.

That's what makes me laugh when people say they're descended from some famous monarch or something. Umm chances are we all are.

 

[StarVigil]

So that's why they use the n-word so casually

 

[rjinaz]

They sound like Death Eaters talking about mud blood. Jesus.