posted 22 February 2005 07:03 PM            

I note your discussion with Shriver but admit to being puzzled. The reason is that his claim that only 17%-18% of the genes that African Amercians carry is of non-African origin does not mesh or fit with the claim that 85% of blacks have some non-African genetic inputs. Shriver also states that 10% of African Amercians have non-African inputs of more than 50%--which tells us that the 17%-18% is not evenly distributed throughout the group. And that's why Kittles's round number of 30% having European genetic inputs approximately makes more sense.

It would seem that there would be quite a bit of clustering at one end of the distibution--as is phenotypically evident in a general way.

In any case the following might clarify things somewhat.

posted 22 February 2005 07:28 PM            

But again note that the implicit use of the term "mixed" is really quite innacurate given that there are no pure races.

If you take the blondest Swede and the darkest Dinka from the Sudan you will note that the Swede will have inherited some 89% of his/her genes from Africa now being shared with the Dinka.

That's why Shriver claims that doing the research for black and white Americans is quite difficult because African populations in Africa show a great amount of genetic overlap with Europeans.

So it would seem then that the offspring of a Zulu and a Wolof--separated by thousands of miles--would be just as mixed as that Wolof and a Swede. This point about geographical distance is also compounded by the fact that Africans show the greatest genetic diversity among any lumped together groups. The reason being that Africans are the oldest breeding population thereby having enough time to build up the most mutations of any people.

posted 23 February 2005 01:19 AM            

Re: R1.

posted 23 February 2005 12:13 PM            

Useful reply but still a couple of questions:

1)Do you have the statistical evidence(research article, etc.) that there are 8 million blacks not born in the U.S. who make up some ~20% of the total black population in the U.S.

Note that the U.S. census claims that some 30 million(10%) of the U.S. population is foreign born; that would mean that blacks make up some 20% of the foreign-born U.S. population. I doubt it, but if you have the research data, just reference it.

2)If as Shriver claims 17%-18% of the total genetic evidence for Africa Americans is of non-African origin, it is difficult to see how that could spill over into 80% of the population--given high sociological levels of caste and race considerations.

3)Note that until 1865 the vast majority of the plantation captives were kept on the largest plantations(like how monopolies today control U.S. business).

This would mean that vast majority of blacks would have had no alternative but to multiply among themselves. This is what Shriver's data shows. If you have some research data that shows otherwise please post. In the meantime, you might want to access Stanley Engerman's "Time on the Cross"--an economic history of the Southern U.S. plantation economy.

posted 23 February 2005 02:09 PM            

Scientific research has already answered that question by looking at Y chromosome signatures among the African American population. There has obviously been some "blowback" because 50 million white Americans have at least one African ancestor. No doubt, some people would be surprised at the amount of ink that has seeped into their milk.

Science has also detected the impact of African Y signatures on the German population ever since the days of the extinct Neanderthals and more recently since the fondly remembered days of the aftermath of WW I and WW II--when robust African troops from the colonies and the U.S. were eagerly sought out for their Y signatured autographs. Such African Y quanta have already been established by the bioanthropological research of the German population.

But back to "trips to captive cabins".

Such trips may not have all been for the crime of heterosexual rape(it has always been a natural law crime to have intimacies with any captive female).

posted 24 February 2005 05:57 AM            

FOR THE OTHER QUESTION african american been in the u.s for cent. so they are not recent arrivals like other blacks.
other blacks like africans and west indians who came here within 30 years would be considered recently born in this the u.s. or just came in.

for the info on the west indian group,the census is recorded in the west indian papers in new york and the same with africans. a nigerian paper owner mention that there were 3.5 million africans a few years ago,by now that number is higher,same with the west indian groups-3.5 million,the current number for both if you add that up is around 8 million,and the african americans who been here since the 1600's to 1800's is around 30 million today or in the year 2001 or 2002

first edited in feb.

posted 24 February 2005 10:35 AM            

I also know this because nobody in my fathers immediate family was anything other than African-American.

posted 24 February 2005 12:05 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Horemheb:
If your family came here during slavery there is a good chance you have considerable white blood.

---

posted 24 February 2005 12:53 PM            

I have noted that you claim to have researched ant-bellum U.S. history so I am sure you are familar with Fogel and Engerman's(both are university professors of American history) "Time on the Cross--The Economics of American Negro Slavery". This text was controversial when it was first published because it focused primarily on the quantitative aspects of the pre-bellum(1865) South. The authors were concerned mainly with the economic numbers--and less with the subjective and human rights side of the planatation economy. Some even compared their approach to any historical study of the Holocaust that focused only on the efficiency and economic growth of Germany from 1939 to 1945.

So consider the following-- borne out by subsequent genetic studies.

"The fact that during the 23 decades of contact between slaves and whites which elapsed between 1620 and 1850, only 7.7% of the slaves were mulattoes suggests that on average only a small percentage of the slaves born in any given year were fathered by white men. This inference is not contradicted by the fact that the percentage of mulattoes increased by one third during the last decade of the ante-bellum era, rising from 7.7% to 10.4%. For it must be remembered that mulattoes were the progeny not just of unions between whites and pure(sic) blacks but also of unions between mulattoes and blacks....A demographic model of the slave population, which is presented in the technical index cannot be used to sutain the contention that a large proportion of slave children must have been fathered by white men....But the work of geneticists on gene pools has revealed that even the last figure[7.7%] may be too high. Measurements of the admixture of "Caucasian" and "Negro" genes among southern rural blacks today indicate that the share of of Negro children fathered by whites on slave plantations probably averaged between 1 and 2 percent".(pp. 131-135).

But the authors also tell us that a much larger percentages of persons of mixed ancestry lived in cities in urban areas:

"Acording to the 1860 census, 39% of freedmen in southern cities were mulattoes. Among urban slaves the proportion of mulattoes was 20%. In other words, one out of every Negroes living in a southern city was a mulatto"

Note too that by 1865 approximately 15% of blacks were free persons.

Fogel and Engerman also tell us that it was mainly the need to maintain as much discipline as possible on the plantations plus racial taboos that led to the low miscegenation numbers(p.135) plus the fact that there were urban brothels that employed white and mixed race prostitutes(p.135).

But consider too the following from "The Negro in America--the Chronological History" by Peter Bergman.

1920--U.S. Census
"The Negro population in the U.S. was 10,463, 131, or 9.9%. Of these, 15.9% were classified as of mixed blood. The life expectancy of Negro males was 45.5 years, compared to 54.4 years for white males....etc.

Thus Du Bois's number of 28% and Kittle's genetically confirmed number of approx. 30% representing blacks with some European ancestry seems very plausible.

Of course personal anecdotes while no doubt interesting cannot be a substitute for large scale data gathering subjected to controlled empirical tests.

posted 24 February 2005 05:39 PM            

Note that we can speak of humans being "mixed" only is there are "pure" humans. Well, all humans are "mixed"--given that each human inherits his/her gentic material equally from both parents. Human reproduction is not asexual so every human must be "mixed".

So if--to take a very obvious example--a "short" Twa(pejoratively known as "pygmies") produces offspring with a very tall Dinka the offspring will obviously and notably be mixed--in terms of empirically observed heights.

But even when 2 Dinkas produce offspring the progeny will also be mixed.

Now in Canada what may have been meant was that Canada is home to people or French and English extraction originally. There could be no other meaning since the non-white population is less that 4% if that much.