Ancestry and heritage have become major topics in recent years, especially as advanced DNA technology has made it easier than ever for some people to learn more about where they come from.
One man shared on Reddit that his girlfriend is taking her DNA test results a little too far. As he says, after finding out her ancestry is 1% Jamaican, the woman has started talking about how excited she is to be Black.
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He explains that they are both definitely white.
"I (25M) and my girlfriend Wendy (24F) have been together for 2 years," the original poster (OP) said. "She did one of those DNA test things to find out her heritage and the results said she was like 1% West Indian and it was most likely Jamaica. We’re both white just so everyone has all the information."
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Now she is telling everyone she's Black.
"We went out with friends the other night and she told everyone how she was Jamaican and how excited she was to learn that she was black," he explained. "One of our friends Kaylin, who is a black woman, became uncomfortable and said that being 1% Jamaican doesn’t mean she’s black."
He tried to be nice to her about it.
"I said I agreed and gently explained to Wendy that maybe she shouldn’t say that anymore. We were in front of our friends, so I tried to keep my tone kind and make sure the conversation didn’t turn into an argument."
His girlfriend got defensive.
"Wendy just said 'okay, sorry' and we continued the night without an issue," the man continued. "At home she started ranting about how Kaylin had no right to correct her like that and how I shouldn’t have 'piled on'. She said it’s a fact that she’s Jamaican and the test confirmed it and she was only repeating her test results."
Things are tense between them now.
"I apologized for correcting her in front of our friends but I said she really shouldn’t call herself black all of a sudden because of a ancestry/heritage test. Wendy hasn’t spoken to me a lot since then and we live together so it’s tense."
People totally get where the boyfriend is coming from.
One commenter made a great point by saying that the girlfriend has no idea what it means to be Black: "OP, your GF clearly feels special now and cannot see why it would be offensive to claim to be black when she has no life experience being black (because she is white). She needs to understand that claiming to be black is offensive to the experience of black people, today and in the past."
This could be a case of white people ... being white.
As another person put it, there are other stories of white people claiming ancestry that doesn't really exist: "My sister did one of those and it came back 1% African – we’re totally white. It’s the same as the mythical 'Cherokee princess' on my dad’s side of the family tree. If there was one, it was in the 1700s (and how consensual was that relationship) and we’ve got no business trying to claim that ancestry."
There is also a difference between nationality and ethnicity that is being ignored.
A third commenter pointed out that there's more that's not being discussed. They wrote, "Jamaican is not a race, it’s a [nationality]. Being Jamaican doesn’t make you black. There are white Jamaicans, Chinese Jamaicans, Indian Jamaicans, etc. While black people make up the majority of the population, they aren’t the only ones who inhabit the island.
"It’s like saying the fact that you are American makes you white, which we all know is not true. Does no one teach the difference between nationality and ethnicity in school?"
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