DNA tests gave these students ethnic shocks

When Don R. Harrison Jr. was growing up in Philadelphia, neighborhood children would tease him and call him ‘‘white boy’&#146...

When Don R. Harrison Jr. was growing up in Philadelphia, neighborhood children would tease him and call him ‘‘white boy’’, because his skin was lighter than theirs.

But Harrison, a ‘‘proud Black man’’, was still unprepared for the results of a DNA test, taken as part of a class at Pennsylvania State University, to determine his genetic ancestry.

He was shocked by results showing him to be 52 per cent African and 48 per cent European, ‘‘which I had no clue about, considering both my parents are Black,’’ Harrison said. ‘‘So I’m half White.’’

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Samuel M. Richards, who teaches Sociology 119, Race and Ethnic Relations, to 500 students each semester, said the DNA tests, which were conducted last year for the first time, were very popular with the class.

About half of the 100 students tested this semester were White, he said, ‘‘And every one of them said, ‘Oh man, I hope I’m part Black,’ because it would upset their parents. That’s this generation.’’

The tests also help to deepen conversations about race, he said.

In addition to race mising, modern migration patterns are also leaving a mark.

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Best and Harrison are members of the fastest-growing ethnic grouping in the United States, one that was acknowledged in the 2000 census for the first time: Mixed Race. —NYT

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