FINALLY!

So enjoy it while it last for it won’t be long before the spring edition knocks out the cold dreariness of this one.

(psych! we plan to keep this one up as long as we did last year’s which stayed up well into spring, practically summer. you know? we’re traditional here at NAICA)

In this post-modern world, identity is not so much a crisis, I think, as it is a challenge.

I was watching a TV show on PBS the other night. It was one of those last, straggling Black History month shows. You know, the ones broadcasters (yes, even public television) try to squeeze in at the end of February to prove that they did indeed acknowledge the month’s significance. But that’s another story.

Anyway, this particular show, African American Lives was hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., a noted scholar and chair of Harvard’s Afro-American Studies program. The show was on the predicament most contemporary African-Americans find themselves in; the lack of information regarding their genealogical roots. Unlike most Anglo-Americans who can trace their lineage back to say, 13th-century France, most African-Americans can only point in one general direction: east.

Gates, along with a dozen or so participants including Oprah Winfrey, Chris Tucker, Quincy Jones and Bishop T.D. Jakes, underwent genealogical tests to derive the percentage of African blood which would then be further analyzed and compared with other DNA samples to pinpoint a more precise location on the looming continent that is Africa.

Percentages. Hmm, where could I possibly be going with this?

One of the main tests the scientists on the show did was called Admixture Testing (see example above). According to the website, “this type of testing analyzes a selection of specific regions of your DNA, compares them against a database and estimates what proportions of your genetic ancestry may originate from different population groups.”

Basically it was just a chart with columns. In fact, the charts they showed looked like some sort of grade-school math exercise: “If you have 112 black people and add 32 white folks, 24 Indians and 5 Chinese laborers over 11 decades what will you end up with?” It was shocking to see such a complex idea reduced to such a simple chart … I wanted one of those charts.

What an incredibly enticing idea it was, the notion of seeing one’s genetics neatly mapped out in columns. The participants on the TV show felt the same way – at least until they saw their own identities neatly mapped out. Who was more black, who was more Indian, who looked more black, who looked more white, etc, etc, etc. The columns on these charts would either prove to validate the identity in question or challenge it, all based upon which column was the tallest. I won’t delve into the history or politics related to the intermingling of races in the North Americas; we all know what’s up with what. What I do want to talk about are the reactions of the participants to their respective charts.

Specifically, I want to talk about the reactions of two in particular; Henry Louis Gates Jr., noted Harvard scholar, and Chris Tucker, noted star of such films as Rush Hour and … Rush Hour II. While one of these participants was eager to learn about the different facets of his genealogy; the other asked the scientist, point-blank, for the “short answer” as to what his genealogical background consisted of. And if you think the guy who wanted the short answer was Chris Tucker, you are mistaken … it was Henry Louis Gates.

I was surprised by Tucker’s unassuming reaction to this chart which supposedly defined who he was as a human being. Actually, I was more shocked than surprised. During the first half of the show I had been too busy making sweeping assumptions on his character based upon his role in Rush Hour: a role that involved pigeon-holing Asians and “acting” blacker than the Jeffersons. But actors are nothing like the characters they play, right? Of course they’re not.

For the record, Tucker’s chart showed that he was 80% African and 10% Native American. While the other participants rambled and romanticized on and on about their particular percentages of “Native American” blood, Tucker was the only one who expressed active interest in finding the specific Indian nation(s) he was descended from. “Is there any way to know what tribes they were?” he asked his grandma in an interview. She shrugged. “So now I gotta go find two tribes.” he said, “African and Indian.”

More surprising than Tucker’s reaction was that of Gates. Not only was he shocked by his 50% African and 50% Northern European percentages, but he was, understandably, distressed that they could not pinpoint a more precise location for his African genealogy. In fact, the scientists were able to give more exact locations for his white ancestry than his African ones. Now, I’m not judging Gates for his reaction and I’m not praising Tucker for his, I’m simply pointing out how elusive the idea of identity is. A chart is tangible, identity is not. And so we choose to look at charts and columns and blood quanta to tell us who we are. We look to them for answers, but as proven by Gates’ chart, they don’t always have the answers we are looking for.

Gates’ reaction was not only understandable, but perfectly logical. His idea of self was shaped by an African-American community, not a Northern European one. What did he care about Bavaria? The chart challenged the very idea of who he was as a person. He even said, jokingly, “Should I resign from my position at Harvard?” Tucker’s reaction, on the other hand, simply expressed the innate desire in all of us to learn more about our genetic makeup. But by luck of genealogical draw, Chris Tucker’s chart defined him as “more black” than Gates. What exactly does “more black” mean? Or “more Indian” for that matter?

The TV show took Chris Tucker to Africa. He was the only participant who had an exact match to a specific tribe in Sub-Saharan Africa, and so I suppose the show’s producers thought he had the best chance of having one of those life-changing television moments. Upon arriving in that small, remote village, Chris Tucker’s entire demeanor changed. He looked lost and uncomfortable. I am sure it was pretty overwhelming for him, but I also had the feeling that he expected to feel more at home than he actually was. It was a pretty anti-climactic television “homecoming.” But all the important moments in life are anti-climactic, aren’t they ?

I digress.

Does Henry Gates’ 50% African blood quantum make him any “less black” than Tucker’s 80%? Quincy Jones, another participant, put it all into perspective, “being ten percent white don’t change the mind of the cop who pulled me over.”

How do we define and represent ourselves in this age where even the most un-mixed of folks are raised in extremely hybrid cultures? Are we indeed under pressure, consciously or unconsciously, to represent our particular “categories”? In this day and age it is becoming less and less common for people to fit into one category. Chris Tucker and Henry Louis Gates are perfect examples of that. We all have our own charts. Charts and columns and blood quanta. All of which are meaningless without context. And many of us, like Tucker and Gates, lack that specific context.

Identity is transitory any way you slice it. It seems that those who are easily categorized by society, whether by looks or blood quantum, want to break out of this pigeon-hole of an identity. Read: Chris Tucker. And those whom society finds harder to categorize must instead search out an identity with which to hold on to. Read: Henry Louis Gates.

A chart can be read many different ways.

It always seems to come back to the same point (for me at least): identity is not so much defined by genetics in as much as it is defined by community. Community on an intimate level, community on a social level, community on a global level. We are defined by our communities, and in turn, how we represent ourselves in the larger hegemony defines our specific community to those outside of it.

Another participant, Dr. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (not “Native American” by the way) said it best: “It’s not the percentage, it’s what you take from the tradition[s] at hand, and then, what you do with them.”

And anyway, we all came out of Africa to begin with, right? So maybe the next time someone asks you where you came from, you should just point east. It would be easier than showing them your chart.