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Seeing is not always believing

Source: PeopleImages / Getty

Black folks are generally leery when comes to providing our DNA to the government, medical institutions or any other party. And for good reason. With J. Marion Sims being the “father of modern gynecology” using enslaved Black women as test subjects, the Tuskegee experiment, and the radiation experiments that burned a hole in Lyles Station’s head, we have more than enough reason.

And while Black people are particularly curious about our ancestry, considering the fact that we have been stolen from our homes, we might want to be careful about the companies we entrust with our DNA, particularly when they’ll create commercials that suggest they’re not entirely sensitive to the realities of Black life in America’s history.

Recently, Ancestry.com released a commercial that features an interracial couple living in the 1800s. We can assume it was before 1865 because the White man in the video offers a ring to a Black woman and tells them, he knows of a place where they can cross the border and be free.

The problem with this commercial is that it pretty much ignores history, in an attempt to make White people seem more benevolent than they actually were during this time period. More often than not, unions between White men and Black women involved rape. But a commercial about rape wouldn’t go over too well. What Ancestry could have done was depict a Black woman in the 1800s that didn’t include a White man saving her. Our stories are worthy of being told without the influence of White people. But in order to appeal to both Black and White folks, the employed a White man to play hero.

And it was more fiction than fact in an attempt to sell a product that is supposed to be about historical and scientific accuracy.

If Ancestry thought the ad would go over smoothly, they were wrong. See what people had to say about the ad on the following pages.

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