Shock And Horror Discovering You Have White People DNA
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
183.69308
Summary
We ve all heard of the stories of people who discover that they re not the same race as they thought they were. In this episode, we ll take a look at some of the more common stories of mixed-race people who find out they ve been mistaken for another race.
Transcript
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Now, I saw this trending stories of people who were shocked to find that they were a different race than they thought.
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Shocking and glad that they weren't white after all.
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Although I could have told you that based on just looking at some of their pictures.
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But let's go through a couple of these profiles that they like to focus on.
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Jodi Girard, 49, grew up thinking she was white, but found out her biological father was black.
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She says, I did Ancestry.com in the fall of 2018.
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I found out that the man who raised me wasn't my dad and that my biological father was African-born.
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A lot of these stories involve a missing father or an affair.
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A close family match on Ancestry led me to him.
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It turned out he had a total of nine kids, including me.
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My mom said that my biological father had taken advantage of her when she was married and in college.
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Anyway, there's John Gibilaro, 47, thought he was white.
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Italian then discovered that he was Latino, well, half Puerto Rican.
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They don't mention the other half because it's probably some Euro admixture.
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And they don't want to own the white half these days, right?
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In fact, they're happy when they learn that they're not white so they can try and cash in on these other things.
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He says, I've immersed myself in the culture of Puerto Rico and talked about the underbelly of racism.
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People say things in front of other white people that they might not say in front of a person of color.
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I'm sure everyone thought he was a person of color, though, right?
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I'm a history teacher who has always covered colonialism.
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Puerto Rico is part of the U.S., but is not treated like it.
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One of the positives of my experience is conveying to my students my empathy with immigrants.
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And then lastly, here's Tony Vargas, 50, thought that for 46 years he was Hispanic.
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Well, it kind of looks like it, but his DNA test indicated that he's white.
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I told her that my results showed that I was Jewish with ancestors in Germany and Russia.
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He's disappointed because he thought there was some Mexican, right?
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Accepting the fact that I'm not Mexican has been challenging.
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My Mexican heritage is tightly intertwined into a sense of self.
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I even co-founded an activism website called Latino Rebels to bring attention to issues affecting Latinos.
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Yeah, well, now he can go grift based on the J card, the Jewish card.
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I have a very good friend who, she's clearly European Spaniard.
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And she has a sister who's very anti-white and liberal.
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And for the longest time, she thought she was Mexican, like Mexican heritage.
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And I said, well, yeah, there are white people in Mexico, Spaniards in Mexico, right?
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And then she got a test and found out, oh, my gosh, there's no Mexican.
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And she even used to wear a shirt that said Mexican on it.
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And in the test, found out that there was a 2% Ashkenazi Jew, which, of course, I had to poke some fun with my friend telling her I couldn't be friends with her anymore.
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I said, well, now you could just have a shirt that says Jewish on it.
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But I just want to say, notice how it's never, yay, I'm 100% white.
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It's always them being depressed about being partially white and excited when they find out they're not.
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But it's kind of obvious with the way that they look.
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But yay, I'm 98% white, you know, or 100% European.
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Well, this guy obviously thinks he's Hispanic because he probably has Sephardic Jewish DNA, right, which is like, you know, intermixed somewhat with Portuguese, Spanish populations, I believe, right, for example.
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And I mean, the point is, too, is with the Jewish DNA, it's one of the most mixed, apparently, like of all the ethnicities, right?
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I mean, Ashkenazim, I guess, is a little different.
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They have more, they've snatched up more German DNA, white-looking, you know, Northern European-looking DNA.
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But, I mean, again, you can find these, you can find them on a DNA map.
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They're like, they're different, you know, they're distinct kind of thing.
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It reminds me of Jessica Alba, who did some DNA tests on some show.
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Because Alba comes from Spain, like our last name.
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So, and it's just a strange article to do by Insider.
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So, this is the first article in the series of articles they did about this.
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At 43, a DNA test revealed that I'm white with Jewish ancestors.
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But then, of course, what happens is the usual, you know, the, oh my God, the shock and stuff.
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But then it's like this immediate, like, adaptation.
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To my shock, the pie chart showed that 50% of my DNA was Ashkenazi Jewish.
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You can pick out, isn't it Jewish, like, on top of the totem pole there as far as victimhood?
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That's what I, it'll be a very exciting new chapter here in her life.
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Once she knew about my DNA results, speaking to her mom, I think it was her friend or something, her mom.
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She told me about a one-night stand she had with a much older Jewish man.
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She always thought that he was, or she was his.
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He had kids with four other white women as well, by the way, I think it was.
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Because people had always told me that I had relatively light skin.
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They'd say that I'd taken after my mom, but I'd met other people of color who were as light as me.
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My dad had three other children with white women.
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So it's not like, he had three children with another white woman.
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And all of these stories, by the way, it's like, man, they were sleeping around, having affairs.
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In a way, sure, this is the story of, you know, human history in a way you could say, right?
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So because of ingenuity of white people, DNA tests, they're now able to figure out what they are, right?
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Looking back, she says, I don't think I fit into a black or white household.
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Things have changed now that society is more accepting.
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I now realize that I was being asked to be something I wasn't.
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They call her an Oreo and a half-caste and stuff.
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And it's like, well, she didn't look that black.
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My husband, Marcus, and my therapist have helped me understand what it means to be Jewish.
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I need to acknowledge my history and legally...
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I need to acknowledge my history and legally change my name last October.
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I went to an introduction to Judaism or Judaism class, and I converted last year.
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But then these same people will turn around to us and be like, what do you mean white identity?
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Like, oh, I discovered I started reading about Celts.
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I started reading all about Germanic history and culture.
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I went back to old Celtic ancient spiritual traditions, and I started practicing those.
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This woman founded a nonprofit called Right to Know to try to lobby the U.S. government
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that they need to be forced to give up details of who it was that, like, who their biological
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And she tells a story as well about how her dad's side didn't want anything to do with
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her because, like, it was a blemish of his profile, I guess.
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Like, they just kind of pushed her away or whatever.
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But anyway, so it's a huge, like, cathartic experience and, like, she says at the end
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here, meanwhile, I continue to work on my sense of belonging, but I feel a lot more comfortable
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They would never do a story like this on white people.
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That, like, you know, oh, it was great to find out I was white.
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And to know, like, I'm majority Swedish or, you know, Russian or German or something.
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Now I'm going to look into that part of my culture and heritage and honor that.
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I mean, in and of itself, it's not a super important article and stuff.
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It's more kind of, in one way, it's funny, but then it's also just a small slice of the
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kinds of things that people experience in everyday life when they either read a story or, and
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But it's like this, just this relentless trickle of stories like this that, like, somehow
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they continuously plant the seed that it's like, it's basically bad to find out that
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