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Another response to Why Spawn Isn't Black:
Hello. I'll bite (a little) on the challenge in
http://www.bluecorncomics.com/deadhero.htm
"I'd say the Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster, Man-Thing, Ghost Rider (the skeleton, not his human host), and Casper the Friendly Ghost don't belong to any particular race. I'd put Spawn in the same category as them. No original skin, no race. Anyone who disagrees (Gnat, are you there?), please tell us which race the above five characters are. Or admit you can't. Good luck."
I'll try a few, without going to Wikipedia:
Here are my "original skin" guesses: The Mummy? Likely a semitic Caucasian, or Nubian ("Black African") type. That's what you had in Egypt then. Frankenstein's Monster? Almost certainly a typical ethnic Central European: what else would you have found in a German cemetery back then? I'll leave off of Man Thing and Ghost Rider due to my own ignorance of the characters (as I said, I'm not cheating with Wikipedia). Casper? I'm tempted to say "he's white" due to looking at him. However, if I recall correctly, one or two of his uncles has one of those strong Bronx or Brooklyn accents that tend to only be carried by white New Yorkers. That's the only clue I have that the lil phantom is white (racially).
Rob's reply
>> The Mummy? Likely a semitic Caucasian, or Nubian ("Black African") type. <<
Yes, but those are two distinct races. Which means we can't know since the Mummy no longer has any racial characteristics.
If he had some DNA left, maybe we could test it. But I'm not sure a mummy still has usable DNA.
>> Frankenstein's Monster? Almost certainly a typical ethnic Central European <<
So he may have been predominantly Caucasian, although there are many ethnic subtypes in central Europe. But the Mongols made it to Hungary, so maybe the monster was part Asian:
The Mongol invasions of Europe were centered in their destruction of the Rus states, especially Kiev. Subsequently they invaded Hungary and Poland, the former invasion commanded by Batu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, and the latter a diversion commanded by Kadu, also a grandson of Genghis Khan, though both invasions were masterminded by Subutai, who also masterminded the Russian campaign.
>> what else would you have found in a German cemetery back then? <<
Travelers from different lands? Besides, the Ottoman Turks made it all the way to Vienna in 1683. That's why parts of the territory formerly known as Yugoslavia practice Islam.
And this doesn't count all the remakes of "Frankenstein" set in modern times, when Europe has become more diverse. The monster is much more likely to be multiracial these days.
>> That's the only clue I have that the lil phantom is white (racially). <<
The Casper movie answered the question of who Casper was when he was alive. But can a ghost have a "race"? What makes him white if he has no biological characteristics?
The debate continues (9/29/06)....
>> In the Middle East area, these two races blend. Which brings us back to how contrived the very concept of race is. <<
Which was my point, of course.
>> For Frankenstein, I was considering the original Universal classics. <<
Even so, the monster's skin is bleached of its original skin color. You've assumed all the body parts came from Caucasians. But if you tested the monster's parts, could you prove it?
Without skin color, the skin could've come from any race. Similarly, the sparse hair might resemble that of any race. The facial features might resemble those of any race. You probably couldn't determine their race of origin.
For instance, I'm sure we could find Europeans whose noses or lips fall within the wide range of possibilities for blacks. That's because these traits aren't fixed enough to determine what constitutes a race. No trait is.
As you probably know, what we do is take a bundle of traits and declare that to be a race. The most prominent of these traits is skin color. Since the monster has dead, bleached-white skin, we can't be sure of his race from his skin color.
What else do we know about the monster? Well, he's usually tall. My understanding is that the Negroid race has the most variability in height, hence the tallest (as well as the shortest) people overall. Using the monster's height as a racial characteristic, we'd have to conclude he's "black."
The DNA question
Here's the latest information about DNA testing. It calls into question whether we could identify Frankenstein's monster, the mummy, or Spawn even if we had his DNA.
Out of Africa — but From Which Tribe?
DNA Tests of Blacks Promise Ancestry Answers, but Report Adds to Critics' Doubts
By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 19, 2006; A03
When DNA testing was offered as a way to trace black family heritage three years ago, it seemed, at long last, that African Americans whose histories were lost in the transatlantic slave trade had found a way home.
TV talk-show host Oprah Winfrey took a test that linked her to the Kpelle people of what is now Liberia. Composer Quincy Jones was informed that he is a likely descendant of the Mbundu or Kimundu tribe in present-day Angola, and Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was told that his ancestry is Nubian. Each test was conducted by African Ancestry Inc., a Washington firm that claims exclusive rights to the most comprehensive database of DNA sequences from Africans.
African Ancestry executives say this large database makes it possible to pinpoint a person's origin to a specific region and sometimes tribe. "It can be done," said Gina Paige, a co-owner of the company. "We don't always just find one group. We tell the client what we find. We determine our results based on the frequency of matches."
But ever since the tests began in 2003, questions have been raised about their accuracy, specifically whether tracing mitochondrial DNA — which is passed from the mother's side of the family — can reliably pinpoint a person's tribal origins.
Those doubts were given a public voice this week with the publication of an article in a British peer review journal. It said a study found that fewer than 10 percent of black Americans whose mitochondrial DNA was identified matched perfectly with a single African ethnic group, and 40 percent had no match.
The authors relied on a study that compared DNA sequences from 170 African Americans with DNA sequences from 3,700 Africans who live below the Sahara. "The finding . . . suggests that few African Americans might be able to trace their . . . lineages to a single ethnic group," the article said.
At best, said the article's co-author, Bert Ely, a professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina, the test can give people only a probability that they hail from a specific region on the African continent rather than a specific ethnic group.
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