As DNA technology has gotten better, it has become easier for anyone to find out where they came from. As a result, more and more people want to know not only if they have relatives nearby, but also what race they are.
One man wrote on Reddit that his girlfriend is going a little too far with the results of her DNA test. He told her that since she found out that 1% of her ancestry is Jamaican, she has been talking about how happy she is to be Black. Both he and his girlfriend are White, which is a problem.
He wrote:
“Wendy, my girlfriend of two years, and I have been together for two years. She did a DNA test to find out where she came from, and the results showed that she was about 1% West Indian, most likely from Jamaica. We’re both white so that everyone knows the truth.”
“The other night, we went out with some friends, and she told everyone she was from Jamaica and how happy she was to find out she was black,” he said. “Kaylin, one of our black female friends, felt awkward and said that being 1% Jamaican doesn’t make her black.”
“I told Wendy I agreed and told her in a gentle way that she might not want to say that anymore. We were in front of our friends, so I tried to be nice and keep the conversation from turning into an argument.
Even though he tried to be nice about how she was acting, things got tense between them.
He said, “I’m sorry I corrected her in front of our friends, but I told her she shouldn’t suddenly call herself black because of an ancestry/heritage test. Since then, Wendy and I haven’t talked much, and we live together, so it’s tense.
When people read what he has to say, they completely understand where the boyfriend is coming from.
This person said in response:
“OP, your girlfriend obviously thinks she’s special now, and she can’t see why it would be offensive to say she’s black when she’s never been black” (because she is white). She needs to realize that claiming to be black is disrespectful to black people’s experiences, both now and in the past.
Others talk about times when white people claimed to have ancestors who didn’t really exist. One person wrote:
“My sister took one of those tests, and it said that she was 1% African, but we’re all white. On my dad’s side of the family tree, it’s the same as the mythical “Cherokee princess.” If there was one, it happened in the 1700s (and how did that relationship work? ), and we have no right to claim that ancestry.”
Some readers also pointed out that nationality and ethnicity are not the same thing. They wrote, “Jamaican is not a race; it’s a country.” Being Jamaican doesn’t make you black. Jamaicans can be white, Chinese, Indian, or any other color.
Even though most of the people on the island are black, they are not the only ones who live there. It’s like saying that being an American makes you white, which we all know is not true. Doesn’t anyone teach kids in school the difference between nationality and ethnicity?
What do you think about what this man’s girlfriend says?