Secret Ancestry?

I have been really excited about genetic testing.  I’ve always been curious about my ancestors (although not curious enough to do a family tree research project.  More like….I wish this information would drop into my lap…...  Hence the DNA testing!).  Deep down inside I admit, I was secretly hoping to discover some interesting ethnic heritage that I didn’t already know about.  Yes, I was hoping that somewhere in my ancestry there would be a different color besides white.  

Well….there wasn’t.  My ancestry is almost completely Eastern European.  Not even some interesting little countries with cool unknown cultures I could discover, but British (and maybe Irish) and German (and maybe French).  Maybe just a few secret German Jewish ancestors….please??

So, what does that information mean?  Just my underlying hopes belied a wish to be something other than I am.  To have an “interesting” background.  To be a mixed conglomeration of tastes, smells, colors, spices, and rhythms.  Without the oomph to dig into a family tree project, I’m not going to learn the juicy details of lives and stories that make up my ancestry, and I’m sure there are some.  

But here’s the deal.  My ancestors for hundreds of years identified as white.  They benefited from their skin color, and chances are they discriminated against someone else because of there’s.  I am on the wrong side of the fight for racial justice.  I don’t get to claim that I too have been negatively affected by racial discrimination.  Even if I have some Irish ancestors who were treated badly when they arrived in America.  Even if some of my 1600’s German immigrating ancestors were Jewish.  Why?  Because they benefited from being viewed as white, from my skin all the way back.  

But wait,  it says there might be .3% Korean ancestry in there….you know….from a million years ago when we all came from Africa and Asia.  Can I grasp ahold of that fact to make me feel better?  Unfortunately, no.  The truth is that in the conversation around whiteness I just have to own my shit.  My ancestry has been on the side of the oppressor ever since.  And that fact is mine to sit with and use to inform my daily examination of where my perspective comes from.  And that my friends, is my work.

And also, there’s another piece to that work.  Remember in the beginning my hope that my ancestry would contain something interesting and colorful.  Well, who says it doesn’t.  

Another side of the racial justice conversation is idealizing cultures that are different than yours.  Not just idealizing, but also idolizing and appropriating.  Nobody wants that either.  Each of us gets to be the messy human we are without expectations put on us based on what others see when they look at us.  

And so….my other work is to embrace my own cultures of ancestry.  What were the belief systems of my ancestors in Germany, Ireland, and Britain?  I know for sure that there was quite a contingent of Amish and Mennonite relatives (giving some credence to my family’s belief that I lean too far in the direction of Luddite on several issues).  What cultural traditions can I learn about and claim?  Is my affinity for all things sausage actually genetic?!?  

My point…..acknowledge the privilege of whiteness in my past and present,  consciously examine my perspective, speak out about racial injustice, embrace my lineage, learn about cultural traditions of my ancestors, and accept.  

Just as I accept and work to love the parts of myself that are not my favorite, I need to accept the parts of my inherited past that do not give me a racial pass to be on the side of the disenfranchised. Accept that it’s my work to acknowledge and renounce the privilege I inherited.  It is the owning of ourselves in our raw, true, in your face entirety, that allows us to move beyond the constructs that we’ve been given. 

So for now…..Lederhosen….here I come!