Most American blacks have some white ancestry, but when LeVar Burton found out on TV from a genealogist, he was in shock. He was the Roots star, a film that covered the era of white men capturing and selling black people as slaves.
His great-great-grandfather was a white Confederate soldier named James Henry Dickson. So, does he pay reparations to himself?
Kunta was shocked at first.
Imagine if a white guy reacted like LeVar Burton does to finding out that his great great-grandfather was a white Confederate soldier
Racism is racism folks
And black on white racism is off the charts
Now tell me again how that reperations thing is going to work… pic.twitter.com/l5BjRQto7m
— Gummi Bear (@gummibear737) January 18, 2024
After he had time to think about it, he spoke with genealogist Henry Louis Gates Jr. He was “surprised to have 20% European ancestry,” but it’s “all who I am,” and he’s “grateful to know,” and he “embraces” it all.
“But at the end of the day, it’s all who I am. So I embrace it all.”
We caught up with #LeVarBurton after he learned some shocking discoveries in his “book of life”. Tune into #FindingYourRoots on Tuesday night at 8/7c to watch this all-new episode only on @pbs. @levarburton pic.twitter.com/QeWDinbl7r
— Henry Louis Gates Jr (@HenryLouisGates) January 16, 2024
WE ALL HAVE THE SAME GENETIC MARKER
The National Geographic Genome Project found a tribe in Africa that was hidden away in the jungle and who had lived as they had for eons. It was the most primitive they could find. They tested their DNA, and so far, every white person who was tested has one of the markers of this primitive people. It has led researchers to believe the cradle of civilization was somewhere in the Sudan or Ethiopia.
Genographic scientists confirm that African populations are the most diverse on Earth, and that the diversity of lineages outside of Africa is a subset of that found on the continent.
DNA has shown that genetically modern humans left Africa around 60,000 years ago and went eastward into Asia.
The project ran from 2005-2020.
We are all one. E Pluribus Unum.
Levar was Kunta Kinte in Roots, the author’s imaginary journey into his ancestry.
Some slaves were rounded up by other Africans, such as in Benin. That isn’t meant to absolve the Brits, French, and Portuguese and their slave trade. People came cheap and were plentiful in Africa, and that was the first tragedy in a long list of tragedies that followed slavery. We now have sex slave traders pouring across our open borders. When will people care enough to stop it?
The man who wrote this song, John Newton, started out searching for slaves until he was saved.
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