INTERRACIAL VOICE

Essay

Technology Uncovers Jefferson
By Emory Curtis

Technology is making today's times into an age of discovery of our past.

The orbiting telescope is discovering objects in deep space that are causing scientists to rethink old truths. The microelectronics world is harnessing atoms into motors; they are doing things now that was only a scientific dream a few decades ago.

And then in man's history, DNA research has upset the historical order that historians have fed each other, and us, as the gospel truth in book after book. For instance, a few years ago DNA research inconvertibility showed that modern man, homo sapiens, came out of Africa and man's Eve is an African woman who lived in sub-Saharan Africa about 200,000 years ago.

The Neanderthals, Java Man and other offshoots died out. DNA research shows that more than likely small groups of Eve's kin came out of sub-equatorial Africa about 100,000 years ago and conquered the world.

The DNA research behind those conclusions concentrated on the mitochrondial DNA which is passed from mother to daughter. When the egg meets a sperm and becomes fertilized, that single cell has DNA that comes equally from mother and father.

That one cell has all of the information needed to make a unique individual. Developed human bodies have billions of cells; every single one of them have all of the information carried by the DNA in that first fertilized cell. That DNA is in the nucleus of the cell.

Another set of DNA, mitochondrial DNA, is within each cell but it is outside the nucleus. It is the energy source for the embryo. Both egg and sperm have mitochrondial DNA but, when they combine, only the egg's mitochrondial DNA is kept and passed on from mother to daughter to granddaughter, etc.

Within that nucleus of the cell there are twenty three pairs of chromosomes numbered from one to twenty-two plus a couple of X chromosomes (females) or an X and Y pair (male). Just as the mitochrondial DNA follows the female line, DNA researchers have found that the Y chromosome follows the male line -- from father to son to grandson, etc.-- with only very slight mutations over generations.

Historically, that opens the door for researchers to use the Y chromosome to pinpoint the historical mixing of populations as invading forces invaded an area and left after a period. For instance, Genghis Kahn almost stretched his empire from the Pacific ocean to the Atlantic ocean. Are there a lot of Mongol Y chromosomes scattered over Europe?

Here at home, Y chromosome research has tied down the fact that Thomas Jefferson, the father of the Declaration of Independence, was also the father of at least one of Sally Hemmings sons. Black historians always believed that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemmings, his slave. White historians pooh poohed that notion.

Now, when researchers compared Y chromosomes from an unbroken male line from Thomas Jefferson with an unbroken male line from Sally Hemmings youngest child, they were able to nail down Jefferson's parentage to a certainty.

Some historians are having a hard time putting in context Jefferson's statements about slavery and the mixing of black and whites. Supposedly, he thought slavery was wrong; however, it wasn't so wrong that he couldn't have about 200 slaves.

Jefferson thought that it slaves were freed, they would have to be sent out of the country. Otherwise, there would be a problem because blacks and whites shouldn't mix. At that same time, he was steadily mixing it up in the bed with his slave, Sally Hemmings.

Those contradictions don't need a deep explanation. When you examine the lives of any of our leaders or even heroes, or ourselves, you will find a lot of "do as I say do, not as I do." And the closer you examine those contradictions, the wider you will find the gap between saying and doing.

That is especially true with sex and race. Look at what happened with politicians in the South. Prior to the Voting Rights Act and participation of African Americans in elections, Southern white politicians couldn't even say "Negro;" it came out Nigra or Nigger.

After blacks started voting, their pronunciation improved and they could address African Americans as Mr. and Mrs. However, I'm sure that both before and after the electorate changed, many of those white politicians didn't change their side issue with black women. On that side of Thomas Jefferson, there is a bit of him in a lot of white men in the power scene.

Exposing of Thomas Jefferson is good for the country. It will probably do more for race relations than all of President Clinton's panel on race or his conversations on race.

Jefferson's actions show that he was a human with frailties that all of us humans have more or less of. All of us, black, brown, yellow or in between are all traceable back to that African Eve. That means, whether we like it or not, we are all kin, we all have similar wants and needs.

Race is more of an imprint left on us because of the area where our long long ago forbearers trekked to as they left that section of Africa from which we all came. Evolutionary adaptations to particular areas shaped the externalities of our foreparents.

That little band of humans that spread out from Africa a 100,000 years ago have little genetic diversity within but are spread over a wide geographic area, the earth.

Contact me: (916)988-4439 (V); (916)988-5928 (FAX); e-mail; eccurtis@earthlink.net. To see back columns http://home.earthlink.net/~gacurtis