CVK
Columnist Phil Hogan just wrote a great piece for U.K. paper The Observer about finding out his great-grandfather was a black man from Antigua. Not only is it pleasantly free of the usual hysterics that accompany this kind of discovery, but it’s also nice to see that he’s aware of how it might be problematic for him to make too much of his newly-found Carribean heritage:

My own children think it is pretty cool to have a black ancestor, especially one who drifted around playing music. But in following this particular thread of family history (rather than, say, embracing my more prominent Irish roots), I find myself cowering at the unspoken charge of genealogical ‘tourism’ - of cherry-picking the past to make myself seem more interesting or, worse, of trying to flaunt my liberal credentials by ‘outing’ myself as a descendant of slaves (!) in an era more sympathetic to such disclosures. Maybe I am guilty of both. Certainly it is not as though I claim or crave black awareness or sensibilities (if such things exist). I don’t like reggae. I have yet to find myself hesitating before ticking ‘white British’ on forms - except for the usual wet reason of not wanting to sound like a member of a colonial power.