skinhead with swastika tattooed on bald head
SKOKIE, IL - APRIL 19: Neo-Nazi protestors organized by the National Socialist Movement demonstrate near where the grand opening ceremonies were held for the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center April 19, 2009 in Skokie, Illinois. About 20 protestors greeted those who left the event with white power salutes and chants. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

White supremacists taking DNA tests often don’t like what they reveal

Some are not as “white” as they thought they were and suggest the tests are a misleading “Jewish conspiracy”.

As genetic ancestry tests have become more accessible, there has been a rising trend of white nationalists using them to prove their racial identity.

In a new study, Aaron Panofsky and Joan Donovan, sociologists from the University of California in Los Angeles, investigated how these white nationalists reacted to the results they received from genetic ancestry tests (GATs).

As the researchers told the annual American Sociological Association conference in Montreal on August 14 (coincidentally, just 48 hours after the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville), they are often disappointed when the results are not as “white” as they’d like.

Panofsky and Donovan studied years’ worth of posts on white nationalist website Stormfront in which people had posted the results of their genetic test.

 

Read the full article by Alyssa Braithwaite at SBS.