I’m in the middle of writing a novel about 21st century racial identity, among other things. Also, pioneering, mixed race farming communities in the 19th century Midwest, and the future Utopia that we are all not going to know we’re living in. I began writing this story in the fall of 2003, partly as an experiment with a new-fangled thing called Weblogs. Also because after being on this planet for 45 years, I’d finally learned the secret of my biological heritage.
I was adopted in 1958. There were numerous “stories” about that adoption people told. But no one really knew anything besides the fact that I had dark features and looked like I came into the world as a blend of different types of people. No one ever really understood that I’d spent my life on the outside of DNA conversations. I felt left out and that I was missing something in life, but I also kind of felt superior to people who thought that stuff mattered.
That thinking went on way into my adult years. In the end, my wife and I decided we needed to somehow address the whole heritage thing as it pertained to me (she’s a locked down Irish-American lass). It seemed like good parenting to at least take a shot for an answer to the very real and intimate question: “Where did Dad come from?” Also, for that matter, “How did he get here?” In the case of blended adopted people like me, those are very visceral and poignantly simple questions that legitimately require an answer for one’s children.
So in 2003 we went searching for those answers. That was just as Ancestry.com was becoming a functional possibility for easy solutions to the question of DNA inheritance. A few years later I would actually take a spit-in-the-tube test.
But here’s the point of this hopefully quick essay: Yes, I was somewhat aware I could determine my ethnic heritage (note I do not say race because there is actually no such thing) using the test tube method, but I was also aware that taking a trip to the middle of the country where I began life might be an adventure that would change our family’s whole sense of who we are in the world.
That was all a bit more than 20 years ago. I’m not going to give away any answers here, except to say that we learned so much more than where I came from and why I’m here. It’s kind of a funny thing for someone like me to even think that my physical heritage really has much bearing on who I am as a person. Some might argue that being able to identify yourself as part of specific ethnic groups is a simple enhancement to the beauty of life.
I’ll let that last sentence percolate there for all of us here in 2024.
I was a fortunate little sprout growing up as a Biddle. My father was buddies with Coretta Scott during their first year at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. They both loved music and were in classes and performances together. I was also raised in one of those weird, progressive families that periodically go to Friends Meeting when it’s convenient (or important) on a Sunday morning. Yup, we were Quakers (there’s a very long history for the Biddle family on that topic). I am proud of all that.
But what I want to close with here is that I was raised in a household where that oh so famous quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn’t simply a nice thing to claim you believe in:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
–MLK, Jr.
I know it’s still a vision and a dream, but I feel that in our hearts every single American believes in that vision, especially those who are the most cynical about Dr. King’s statement. Everyone knows about that character idea and the problem with judging people we don’t know. We do it anyway, but we all know better. We really do!
In the end, the history of my DNA doesn’t really matter, not compared to all the people I’m connected to in my life and all the groups of which I am a part — from baseball fan and lover of improvisational music to half-assed Quaker and proud, loving citizen of my country and the world. I will always be on the outside looking in when it comes to DNA and biological heritage. Won’t that be funny someday when everyone has that same perspective?
Watch for the story I’m working on sometime near the end of 2025. It should be a wild read.
A version of this quick-read commentary was originally published by The Good Men Project as well as in their "Equality Include You" publication at Medium.com
