Claremont Independent

I’ve always been suspicious of anyone who used a broad definition of ancestry to define their character. The myth of ancestry, the allure of origin stories and folk legends and group identity, constantly overshadows one’s sense of self. For instance, despite my family’s background, I am not, nor have I ever been, a Vietnamese princess. Similarly, I would not be proud of killing Americans with bamboo sticks. Assuming that one should act a certain way based on the reputation of their background reeks of stereotypes, profiling, and interpersonal laziness.

It is this assumption that Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., had in mind during his Athenaeum visit on January 27th. A prominent academic, Harvard professor, cultural commentator, and editor of the Washington Post’s TheRoot.com—“Think of it as Salon for black people,” he elaborated during dinner—Professor Gates came to speak about the genealogy project he spearheaded on PBS, the 2-part PBS series “African American Lives.” I will say, though, that apart from being a very witty speaker (A Mellon scholar, he jokingly referred to his position as “the ‘watermelon’ scholarship”), Professor Gates’s work focuses on changing the values of black culture, helping the “Talented Ten Percent” rise above poverty. While his goals are noble, at least half of the concept behind “African American Lives” provokes some questions.

The television series traced the family trees of famous black celebrities, from sports, entertainment, science, Oprah, and the arts, up to their first American ancestors, victims of the slave trade. Once the paper trail ran out, his team conducted ancestral DNA testing to determine their subjects’ genetic makeup. (For a literature professor, he was surprisingly adept at describing how geneticists trace mitochondrial DNA, especially without metaphors.)   The science and history, however, fueled the ultimate goal of the project:  empowerment. Ultimately, Professor Gates hopes that such lineage-tracing projects will be a cornerstone of inner-city education, in a much more affordable incarnation. “’With this cotton swab,’” he said, “‘you can find out exactly where you came from.’”

While it’s a great way to introduce kids to science, I fail to see how discovering one’s lineage could be empowering. After such a long time disconnected from these roots, how could one reconnect in any meaningful way, beyond an academic exercise? 

Even Professor Gates acknowledged that time may have corroded the meaning of tribal descent. “I thought that [his subjects] would be more excited about discovering their tribal ancestry,” he confessed. “But once you find out you have Luo ancestry, you can’t just walk into a village and ask, ‘Hey, did you know a guy 300 years ago who looked kind of like me?’”

The results themselves might not be that satisfying, either. Gates spoke on the genetic impossibility of some desired backgrounds as well:  it’s highly likely, for instance, that an African-American is descended from a white person. “Rape was a common occurrence back then,” he noted, “and as much as we don’t like to confront it, we have to acknowledge it.”

The statistics are reversed for people descended from the historically powerful and slavery-resistant Zulu and Nubian tribes. “Every African-American wants to be descended from these tribes,” he explained. However, their tribes were located far from the slave trade. (That didn’t stop Oprah from flying to South Africa and announcing her status as a proud Zulu.)  Conversely, is Professor Gates truly empowered by being descended from a Irish king who lived in the 5th century?

But where science failed, history succeeded. All the subjects in “African American Lives” connected immediately with their family’s American history:  the research team, in partnership with the Mormon Church, unearthed stories they had never heard about their family lineage, about wealthy landowners, freed slaves who served in the military, state senators. Professor Gates, it turned out, was half Irish and a descendant of a freedman who fought for George Washington in the Revolutionary War.

Though some of the stories ended tragically (Radio host Tom Joyner’s ancestors, for instance, were wrongly accused of murder and ended their lives in the electric chair), all of the interviewed subjects agreed that discovering the accomplishments of their ancestors affected their lives in ways they didn’t expect. Upon hearing that her great-uncle donated land to build the elementary school she went to, Tina Turner burst into tears.

Chris Rock, too, felt as if his ancestor’s accomplishments would have driven him to higher goals. “Until I lucked into a comedy club at age 20…I assumed I would pick up things for white people for the rest of my life,” he said, stunned upon discovering his great-grandfather, a former slave, was a South Carolina state senator and a philanthropist. “If I had known this, it would have taken away the inevitability that I was gonna be nothing.”

Professor Gates’s visit coincided with the Obama inauguration. Right now, one of the GOP’s main concerns should be winning minority votes. Race has been a contentious issue for far too long. While progresives believe that race is integral to character, conservatives choose to ignore it altogether. While the first values group identity, the second trusts the integrity of the individual.

How, then, can we tackle the problems of black empowerment?  As half of African-American Lives shows us, the tales of individual family members—their triumphs over adversity, their hopes for their children—do more for empowerment than ancestry does. Instead of answering the question “who am I?” with a nebulous and vague answer of race and ancestry, we can and must see ourselves as the individual end result of thousands of people’s unique decisions, made throughout their lives.

History was not written by a predetermined genetic code, but created through millions of choices; from a parent’s decision to move to a nearby neighborhood to their ancestor’s decision to become a free citizen in America. From this family tree, we are given a framework for our own individual decisions.

I do have to applaud Professor Gates for his recognition of the importance of family. In his works, he emphasizes the ideal of a complete, cohesive family repeatedly:  its necessity in creating a stable home environment, its impact on child and adult psychology, and its lack of importance in black America today that causes many of its ills.

I highly doubt he would argue that these problems arise from a certain genetic background. Here, a reclamation of individual history – and personal responsibility – holds the solution.

Tina Ngyuen CMC ‘11 is art editor of the Claremont Independent.

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