LUPITA NYONG’O: ‘I PREDATE RACE!’

Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o was in for a surprise when she met in April 2023 with Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on his PBS programme, ‘Finding Your Roots.’ He could trace her ancestral DNA to a group of women who lived in Africa 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, long before humans ventured out of the continent in search of resources. Gates said those women existed when all humans were Black. To that news, Nyong’o replied, ‘I predate race.’

Lead study author Rebecca Cann said she and her colleagues first theorised ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ in 1980. She called the choice to use Eve ‘a playful misnomer’ because it referred to the first woman mentioned in the Bible. They said the study didn’t imply that Mitochondrial Eve was responsible for all human origins, as many women existed before and at the same time this theoretical figure lived. Instead, this Eve is the most recent female ancestor to whom all modern humans can trace their genealogy.

Genetic testing has become popular over the past two decades among many Black people in the United States, as we have only been able to trace our people’s roots to names listed on the manifests of trading ships that carried our kidnapped and chained ancestors from West and Central Africa.

Companies began offering consumer genetic testing in the early 2000s in the United States. Europe is another major hub for testing, while companies are looking at Asia and the Pacific Islands as potential sources of revenue and genetic material.

However, the fine print for some companies indicates they reserve the right to use DNA results in other ways. That has raised privacy concerns, especially given multiple people in the United States have landed in jail after their relatives’ DNA—not theirs—implicated them in crimes.

Have you taken a DNA test? Kindly share what you learned.