So this article, while interesting, seems like it could have used the expertise of a greater number of historians of the slave trade and slavery to clarfify and more importantly, complicate certain aspects of this history. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/science/23andme-african-ancestry.html

The shock at Nigerian ancestry proliferating among US descendants of enslaved people until consulting an unnamed historian about the fact of previous stops in the Caribbean in the trade before reaching what became the mainland US? Slave trade 101 guys.

The thin explanations in the piece, for instance of the differences in regional ancestry of enslaved people’s descendants in the US vs Latin America, are bc theyre utterly devoid of references to colonialism. European colonial controls at particular ports meant who went where.

Noting enslaved women as the main source of US enslaved descendants’ DNA *really* needed expansion w texts on the gendered aspects of this history. Bc it wasnt that black men died while black women “mysteriously” procreated. Start w rape & the concept of partus sequitur ventrem.

Very glad to see @alondra was consulted regarding the complexities of DNA as a source of info on identity. But theres a host of scholars worth consulting to expand the world of issues hinted at in this piece.

Got kids to deal w but check out black feminist historians of the trade like @somustakeem & Jennifer Morgan for ex. See @sojournerlife for this & everything else. Folk like @prof_smallwood. So many thinkers on the slave trade worth reading- #twitterstorians drop more names below.