UsefulCharts: Which DNA test is best for African-Americans?

 

[VIDEO] I'm going through this now taking both DNA tests for MyHeritage & Ancestry. Hopefully next month I may well know what my admixture is. Admixture is basically what your DNA says about your ethnicity if you're descended from African, European, etc.

I would very much recommend taking the DNA test through Ancestry. I feel as if they have a much better website to build out your family tree and hopefully make the right connects with distant relatives. MyHeritage is OK, I might recommend that because you take a cotton swab sample as opposed to spitting in a tube with Ancestry. Both companies are offering autosomal DNA which basically looks at the DNA inherited from both your father & mother.

For this the subject of this video Jabari Walker who also runs the YouTube channel From Nothing - you may have seen a video from him on this blog recently - takes five different DNA tests. Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, LivingDNA, and African Ancestry.

African Ancestry is most expensive and what is good about them is through the use of Y-chromosome testing & X-Chromosome (mitochondrial) testing they are able to identify which African ethnicity from which you are descended. Of course what they have to be sure of is that your distant ancestor is in fact African because it is possible your earliest male or female ancestor could be European for example. 

However, if you want those results through your paternal line - basically your father and his father and so-on or your maternal line - your mother and her mother and so-on there are far more inexpensive options for that. However, they may not necessarily point to a specific African ethnicity.

As for my own DNA tests I plan to release my own video about that in the near future.

The mad-mad-mad-mad world of niche sports....

 I just wanted to share this article. There are some parents out there obsessed with getting their children into a top tier college. They're getting them ready early, but then do children not deserve their childhoods.

I don't have children but I don't mind they get involved with sports, however, my hope is that they enjoy playing and they should decide if they should do this for their livelihoods or to get into a top-tier school.

This quote kind of grinded my gears a tad:

On paper, Sloane, a buoyant, chatty, stay-at-home mom from Fairfield County, Connecticut, seems almost unbelievably well prepared to shepherd her three daughters through the roiling world of competitive youth sports. She played tennis and ran track in high school and has an advanced degree in behavioral medicine. She wrote her master’s thesis on the connection between increased aerobic activity and attention span. She is also versed in statistics, which comes in handy when she’s analyzing her eldest daughter’s junior-squash rating—and whiteboarding the consequences if she doesn’t step up her game. “She needs at least a 5.0 rating, or she’s going to Ohio State,” Sloane told me.

What's wrong with Ohio State? Why this pursuit of an Ivy League education? Don't get me wrong if you get in you're set, however, there are plenty of great schools to attend out there - like Morehouse for instance. :P

Another quote from this article I found:

In 1988, the University of California sociologist Harry Edwards published an indictment of the “single-minded pursuit of sports” in Black communities. The “tragic” overemphasis on athletics at the expense of school and family, he wrote in Ebony magazine, was leaving “thousands and thousands of Black youths in obsessive pursuit of sports goals foredoomed to elude the vast and overwhelming majority of them.” In a plea to his fellow Black people, Edwards declared, “We can simply no longer permit many among our most competitive and gifted youths to sacrifice a wealth of human potential on the altar of athletic aspiration.”

Thirty years later, in a twist worthy of a Jordan Peele movie, Fairfield County has come to resemble Compton in the monomaniacal focus on sports. “There’s no more school,” a parent from the town of Darien told me flatly. (She, like Sloane and several other parents, did not want to be identified for privacy and recruitment reasons.) “There’s no more church. No more friends. We gave it all up for squash.” She says she is working on a memoir that she intends to self-publish, titled Squashed.

This article went from obsessions of college admissions to obsessions with sports. I guess families have their obsessions with getting what's best for the young people. 

Parents, what's your read on this?

h/t Newsalert

Educational family vacation still an unexcused absence

If only I could do for my kids what this father did for his in running the Boston Marathon and noting Boston's importance in American history. Alas, his school district didn't appreciate that and apparently according to state law in Pennsylvania those absenses were considered unexcused.

I understand his frustration although I don't yet have children and therefore no need to take anyone out of school. Who knows if CPS could be flexible probably not since well most public school bureaucrats are known for making similar decisions. We only know about this one because this father made it public.

Which reminds me of many stories I've heard over the years where parents go up against the public school bureaucracy. Government agencies in general may have some stringent processes and when it comes to what a parent believes is best for their children even more stringent. Unfortunately in this case, this father ran into this stringent process with no flexibility.

DNA Info: Metropolitan Family Services To Host A Jazzy Fundraiser in Roseland

http://www.metrofamily.org/

If you're looking for some events add this to your calendar via DNA Info:

The nonprofit Metropolitan Family Services, which provides social services to needy families, is hosting an annual Jazz at the Met fundraiser featuring live jazz from local performers at its far South Side office.

Music will be provided by local DJ Mike Burns and jazz artists The Beverly All-Stars featuring Liane Williams and Margaret Murphy, Jamiah On Fire and The Red Machine, and Russoul.

The event runs from 3-7 p.m. Saturday, June 21 at 235 E. 103rd St. Tickets, which are available online, are $50.

This event takes place no more than one block away from Bennett School!

Mechanics: I Ran for Local School Council and Maybe I Even Won!

The author of this article - Phil Huckleberry - discusses his experience as a candidate for his neighborhood school's LSC. He apparently won the election, but discovered at a recent meeting that the results have been challenged. That school's LSC won't meeting until next year after new elections, and the school's LSC functions would be governed instead by CPS' central office. Something pertinent Mr. Huckleberry said in his piece:

Now, this story isn't about me and my awe-inspiring 21 votes. It's not about whether or not there was some sort of problem with the election.

This is a story about bureaucracy.

I can rail against charter schools or say negative things about the mayor just like a lot of people who write words that get put on the Internet. I can talk about how great Karen Lewis is just like the next cherished Chicago journalist.

But here is the crux of the situation: Bureaucracies put bureaucracy first. And the reality is that Chicago Public Schools is a horrifically clunky bureaucracy, steeped in nonsensical inefficiencies, ultimately overseen by an unelected board who are themselves nothing more than hand-picked highly privileged bureaucrats. The system is failing its students because the system is more important than the students.

There are a lot of smart and dedicated administrators within CPS. But things are never truly going to turn around so long as everything is about CPS and not about the actual students.

I suggest you read the whole thing, and of course we hope to hear your thoughts on this.

ICE Theaters Community Day...

Coming later this month at their locations in Chatham and Lawndale. ICE Theaters is holding this free family festival in conjunction with Black Pages International that features education, health & wellness, fitness, financial, business & economic development, and community empowerment resources, along with workshops, entertainment and $1 movies. Check out the flyer above for more information on this event.

Don't forget about ICE Theaters Kids RULE Summer that continues this month. The last scheduled movie is Dr. Seuss' The Lorax!

There are two albums at Concerned Citizen's of Chatham FB page that show scenes from the first two previous Community Day at ICE Theater's Chatham location.

• ICE Chatham 14 Community Day 2011
• ICE Chatham 14 Community Day 2010