Think of all those soap opera characters who are in jail for crimes that they didn't commit...it was their EVIL TWIN!!! :D ;)

Yeah, I saw that too. On the same show, Henry Louis Gates (Harvard Professor of African-American Studies) had his done--and he was 50% European (probably from Scandinavia).

A quick hijack-there were no tribes in Africa until the colonial period where Europeans came in and screwed everything up. I have probably blown your mind with this information.

Carry on-but remember, no matter where you came from, you're 100% American now. Not Irish-Scottish-English-French-Italian-German-Antarctic-Russian-American. Just American.

If you really wanna get your DNA done, just commit a felony. They'll do it for free at the police station.

Oprah did get this done, but she found out that she was NOT Zulu. She thought she was, but she ended up being from a different tribe (can't remember the name at the moment though).

i always thought it might be interesting but not something i'm interested in spending money on

Cool...so where can this Canadian citizen (who was also Canadian born) get her American passport? ;)

Or go on Maury Povich. :D

After the Gates program, I was interested. I didn't know that it was so easy to do. The price is a little steep for my level of interest, but maybe I'll do it.

I think wide-spread general knowledge about individual racial background has interesting implications for discussions about race and how we think about history.

Think about the argument for reparations for slavery. Does Henry Louis Gates pay himself?

(I’m kidding about that, really, but it’s interesting to think about what it says about our ideas of race.)

One of my mom's brothers had it done, but just focusing on the African ancestry. Their side of the family, however, isn't as ethnically interesting as my father's side. Many of those aunts and uncles have very strong Native American features, red hair, and blue eyes.

On the Gates show didn't he say that a lot of people who thought they were Native American especially were surprised by the results that they weren't? (Or was it just his own family?)

I have it on reliable authority that the DNA tests are just a left handed way for the government to get your DNA on file . . . Big Brother and all that.

Are you kidding?

I'm curious what you mean by that. Tribes as in the sense of organized tribal political groups with extremely distinct identities and memberships? Or tribes in the sense of different cultures with different practices and systems of power?

I believe the first but not the second. There has always been cultural and ethnic variation in Africa.

I was under the impression that there were tribes but the colonial influence mucked things up by creating geographical groupings that didn't make sense in terms of the tribes.