DNA testing is showing how racially diverse people are, complicating how we view race:
“I imagined we’d have a vigorous discussion about how DNA turns the historical concept of race upside down. But for my son, the traditional concept of race had already been overturned, and our discussions revealed a deep generational gulf between us. As in my case, the sources and percentages of my son’s ancestry were not surprising: 72 percent European, 25 percent African, and three percent Asian. But when I mentioned how revealing DNA had been to me, Patrick just shrugged his shoulders, as if the numbers meant little to him. ‘They don’t change the way I think of myself or the way I view the world,’ he said. ‘When people ask me, “What are you?” I generally tell them that I am American. And given how diverse my background is, it’s in my way of thinking, a background that could only come about in America.’”
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