by Mark Silva
The genealogic discovery of a white great-great-great grandfather in the family tree of First Lady Michelle Obama is a quintessential American coda to a year of living divisively.
The genealogist Megan Smolenyak, who spent several months in search of the first lady's family history - a pursuit sponsored by the New York Times -- displays her findings in a 21-minute presentation at her Website, RootsTelevision.com (See it above, as well.)
Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard scholar of African-American culture drawn into that heated public debate over racial profiling this year after President Barack Obama, the first African-American president, chastised Cambridge, Mass., police for acting "stupidly'' in their arrest of Gates at his home, writes today of "Michelle's great-great-great-granddaddy - and yours.''
The genealogist was intrigued by Michelle Obama's lineage because of the surname, Shields, which her mother, Marian Robinson bore. It was the genealogist's mother's surname as well. She felt an "instant affinity.''
It was a 6-year-old slave, Melvinia Shields, from South Carolina, bequeathed in her master's will and later sold for $475, who tugged at the genealogist's heartstrings, Katherine Skiba writes for Tribune.com today. The slave later bore a child, Adolphus Shields, by an Irish American. Mother and son remained slaves. "It's still jarring to see dollar signs associated with human beings," Smolenyak added.
"African Americans, just like our first lady, are a racially mixed or mulatto people--deeply and overwhelmingly so,'' Gates, editor in chief of The Root, writes today.
"Fact: Fully 58 percent of African-American people, according to geneticist Mark Shriver at Morehouse College, possess at least 12.5 percent European ancestry (again, the equivalent of that one great-grandparent).
"As a matter of fact, if I analyzed the y-DNA (which a man inherits exactly from his father, and he from his father, etc.) of all the black players in the NBA, fully one-third (somewhere between 30 percent and 35 percent) would, incredibly, discover that they were descended from a white male who impregnated a black female, most likely a female slave, just as a white man did Michelle Obama's third-great-grandmother,'' Gates writes.
"In the '60s, we were fond of saying that we are an "African people." Well, our DNA proclaims loudly that we are a European people, a multicultural people, a people black as well as white,'' he writes. "You might think of us as an Afro-Mulatto people, our genes recombined in that test tube called slavery.''
The president's mother, of course, was a white woman from Kansas. His father was a black man from Kenya. That makes the president, born in Hawaii, about as purely African-American as one can be. And all Americans should find, in the newly discovered tale of the first lady's roots, another reason for appreciation of how far the United States of America has come from its own history.
Comments
Prepare for the usual Anti American/Republican hate...this time for Michelle Obama.
Remember, these are the same right wing morons who cheered when America didn't get the Olympics.
5..4...3..2...1....Ding Ding Ding!
Posted by: I wanna be a Republican idiot | October 8, 2009 10:49 PM
Don't worry, "I wanna" you are an Idiot.
Oh, goodie. Race. Aren't we supposed to be over that? No, you liberals keep it alive and well. I am sure, no I am 100% positive that if you went into any individuals geneaology that you would find a child born from a rape, or viking invasion, or Roman conquest, or civil war, or tribal warfare. It is the HISTORY of humanity. The goal is to learn from history and not segregate people into races, classes, cultures, tribes, clans, chastes, or SSSS, You on the left keep wanting to keep those labels. Why?
Posted by: Gary | October 9, 2009 4:26 AM
I wonder what the stats are on the reverse, that is, whites with unknown black genes?
Posted by: irene | October 9, 2009 8:33 AM
No one cares . . .
5 4 3 2 1 . . . .
Posted by: Bobbie Mobbie | October 9, 2009 8:34 AM
The goal is to learn from history and not segregate people into races, classes, cultures, tribes, clans, chastes, or SSSS, You on the left keep wanting to keep those labels. Why?
Posted by: Gary | October 9, 2009 4:26 AM
You gotta love this thinking.........we are all one.......so what's the matter with YOU on the left. Brilliant.
Posted by: bill r. | October 9, 2009 9:51 AM
OK, so what is the matter with you on the left little bill? haven't you professed the "we are one" mantra? I certainly thought you have, maybe I'm mistaken?
Is there a Nobel prize for brilliance? maybe you should get one of those trophies.
Posted by: springfield | October 9, 2009 11:30 AM
You gotta love this thinking.........we are all one.......so what's the matter with YOU on the left. Brilliant.
Posted by: bill r. | October 9, 2009 9:51 AM
You might try thinking for yourself. Applied ignorance, a leftist trait, is correctable and unrelated to race or class. Everytime leftists claim to want to move past race, they are the first to bring it up. They can't seem think without casting all interpersonal issues as race based. It is sad how trapped you leftists are in your own narrow world.
Posted by: Hans | October 9, 2009 12:19 PM
Ah....hansel and gretel...er sprungfield. Tell me Einsteins......we had one of many posts calling Michelle "yo momma". I wrote about this before, but as usual, you never reply to the questions, just bark the same ol' race bait crap on another thread. Why don't you grow a pair and answer this question. How many First Ladies were refered to as Yo Momma? and why do you think it is ok now? I won't hold my breath for an answer, I quite frankly, believe you to be the same poster. But you can certainly act as if there are 2 of you. By the way sprungfield...you still seem stuck on that size issue...do you also drive a "big" truck for compensation? Sooooooo Big!
Posted by: bill r. | October 9, 2009 2:11 PM
little bill, you're absolutely off you rmedications today!
**********************************
Ah....hansel and gretel...er sprungfield. Tell me Einsteins......we had one of many posts calling Michelle "yo momma". I wrote about this before, but as usual, you never reply to the questions, just bark the same ol' race bait crap on another thread. Why don't you grow a pair and answer this question. How many First Ladies were refered to as Yo Momma? and why do you think it is ok now? I won't hold my breath for an answer, I quite frankly, believe you to be the same poster. But you can certainly act as if there are 2 of you. By the way sprungfield...you still seem stuck on that size issue...do you also drive a "big" truck for compensation? Sooooooo Big!
Posted by: bill r. | October 9, 2009 2:11 PM
**********************************
I have no idea what you're talking about there little guy but you need a nap. Yes, of course I drive a big fat FORD 150, you see sometimes working people need a truck to carry thes big things from one place to another and my wife drives a small Toyota.
But then, according to you, without know jack shiot about me other than your assumptions and rambling incoherent comments, because I drive a big truck I'm what ??? oh yeah, trying to compensate for something?
Little bill, you crack me up, put down the pipe little fella, you're getting way too high!
Posted by: springfield | October 9, 2009 3:42 PM
Wonder who she got her "I hated America " from?
Posted by: inky | October 9, 2009 4:19 PM
Recently is has been shown that "race" is a man made label started by scientist who like to categorize and label. The only thing that categorizes a person into a particular arbitrary societal label is there appearance, mainly skin color. What exactly is the purpose of labeling someone a mulatto? Why is a person like our president identified, not only by society, but by himself, as "black" or Afro-American when he is just as much "white"?
I don't know that you can "more past our history" when we live in the past: the labels that cateogorized us into groups. How about just being an American?
Posted by: Gary | October 9, 2009 5:55 PM
Maybe she's trying to prove she doesn't hate America cause she has white ancestors. Ah, but then you bring in the word slavery, theirs her hate for America.
Posted by: Demelsa | October 10, 2009 10:16 AM