My Birthday is today
The American concept of “race” is a farce.
Some 40 years ago, as a medical student, I got into trouble when I asked my mentors why we were supposed to describe patients as Black or White?
My mentors answered that there were genetic disorders. Excited by this idea, I began to take race histories. Some of my white patients told me that some or all of their ancestors came from one country … Ireland and Italy were common. The situation for African-Americans was completely different. I don’t think I had a single “Black” patient who could trace her ancestry entirely to any place in Africa. The bulk of my Boston Black patients told stories of the slave master who bred his slaves with Cherokee or contributed his own sperm. After 1865 there were marriages with a Scott or a German or… even with a Jew.
This race business was even more confusing to me as a Jew. Black folks and many Jews call us “white.” What does that mean? I already knew that Jews can be traced back to the same Semitic, non-European origins as the Arabs. Were Arabs white too? If we Jews were “White” how come the Nazis and KKK were so concerned about our breeding with their women?
Later on when I purchased my own genome from 23&me, I got a shock. After I sent in my DNA swab, the website emailed me the answers. My father’s genome did not trace to the Semites! My paternal genome traced back to the precursors of the Europeans, the Cro Magnons! Now I had a new source of pride. My far off ancestors were the wonderful people who made the cave paintings and the Venus figures. 
These folk lived in Europe about 30,000 years before the white folk arrived from the Caucuses. The KKK was right, at least in my case. We descendants of the cave people may have light skin but we are not Caucasian.
My mom’s side of the family was even more confusing. She also showed very little Caucasian genome. Good Semitic roots but her closest relatives are the Maori of New Zealand. Maybe back in the frsit wave out of Africa, some Black lady got lost and met up with a proto Canaanite? Now the same California genetics company that did my genome, 23andMe, has teased out the ancestry of Americans who submitted their DNA along with a self described race. (for the record, I never describe my “race” as White.” I am Jewish.)
According to 23andMe, “We have, now, hundreds of thousands of people who’ve contributed their genetic information as well as answered survey questions about how they self-identify and where they were born, and so on,” “And so we put all that information together to create a genetic portrait of the United States.” 23andMe said the major ethnic groups do not have the clear-cut ancestry their names imply. “If you look at African-Americans, European-Americans and Latinos, people in all of those groups can have ancestry from any of those three continental regions. Even all three.” About one in 30 Americans who identify as white has 1 percent or more African ancestry. Looks like the KKK may be on a firm basis there!
For “Black” Americans the 23&me data confirmed my impressions from medical school. “The genetic data that we are looking at really kind of fit with those stories about interactions between these groups hundreds of years ago”. People in this study who call themselves African-American had on average almost one-quarter European ancestry.
Ooops. All this is going to be worse now that America has shown its obsession with Mr. Obama’s race. Coming from Kenya, it is likely that Pres. Obama’s father had African genes intermingled with Arab genes. The Arabs who settled all over the east coast of Africa must have left their spoor behind. This does not make Obama’s race a confusing problem for the KKK because they know that Semites are not White! For liberals devoted to the idea of helping “people of color” the problem is a bit harder.
What to do about those wonderful Ethiopians? Beautiful people! Genetically, however, Ethiopians are Semites… Like my wife! If Jews are “White” are Ethiopeans “White” too?
The biggest farce, however is the use of the word “Latino” as if it were a race. DNA of Latinos in the 23&me study reflected almost two-thirds European ancestry. I cannot understand why this should surprise anyone. Despite similar efforts of the Republicans in Arizona and Texas and liberal Democrats to US to call “Latinos” a racial minority, it’s pretty difficult to identify a Latina based on her appearance. What sort of “race” are the Cubanoes? The finding of European genome in that population is predictable. Do Cubans look all that different form Spaniards or Italians? Some, like Marco Rubio, have rather angelic faces. It’s probably not a coincidence that the great Italian painters of the Renaissance used Rubio -like faces for their cherubs! I was interested that 23&me used the word “Latino.” That word is generally used by descendants of immigrants from the Caribbean .. people like Eric Holder of Colin Powell as well as Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. It is not surprising that 23&me would not find Asian genomes in the Latin population for the Caribbean. While indigenous Americans are all of Asiatic “blood,” the indigenous population of Spain’s new empire was quickly enslaved and worked to death by the (White) Europeans. The Indian slaves were replaced by more durable African slaves. Mexicanoes may be a different case, Most Mexican Americans I know do not call themselves “Latinos” .. rather they are Mexican Americans, Chicanos or members of La Raza. Mexican immigrants are may be too poor as a group to show upon the 23&me database (current price is $100). Still, the idea of Chicano identity as “La Raza” makes me wonder why Asians were not included in this study.
Of course the “Native Americans Race” comes from Asiatic roots. Contributions from the indigenous Americans of Mesoamerica mingle with generous donations from the European colonialists. Hell, some of that contribution must be Jewish since a lot of Jews fled the Inquisition to hide out in the new world. Sadly we can not determine race by looking at folks. Maybe we need to think more about the word breed?