“I’m connecting with my roots”
APR 25, 2024
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Let’s say a guy named Jim is living in Taiwan.
Six generations ago, his ancestor, a Cherokee, lived in the southeastern area of what came to be known as America.
One day, Jim tells his buddy he’s changed his name to Pius.
“Huh? Why?” his buddy says.
Jim says, “Because I wanted to connect with my Cherokee roots.”
Jim missed the boat by a mile. He picked a Christian-type name. Christians came to America LATER. And they weren’t Indians. Oops.
In the same way, some American black men have adopted Islamic names, to connect with their African roots. But Islam was a COLONIZER in Africa.
Islam came to Africa long after hundreds of African religions had been established on the continent.
Apparently, my ancestors were Italian Jews. If I decided to change my name to Pepperoni Pizza, to celebrate my Italian origins, I’d be missing the mark.
Suppose your ancestors were Druids in England? Should you change your name to Winston Churchill, to connect with your Druidic great-great-great-great grandfather?
Suppose your ancestors were Chinese? How about changing your name to Jerry Seinfeld, because in one episode of Seinfeld, Jerry and his friends spend a half hour waiting for a table to open up at a Chinese restaurant?
Too little, too late.
One day in the future, I expect a person living in Mongolia—discovering that an ancestor resided in San Francisco—will change his name to Puberty Blocker, to connect with his origins.
Not only do people screw up their roots, the whole subject is overrated.
Until recently, scholars and researchers pushed the notion that the whole human race came from “original people” in Africa. But now the prevailing wisdom seems to be: Europe and Turkey as the Adam and Eve locale.
Does it matter?
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