Somali Problems

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Hey.

It's been a while since I last went on Wattpad. There are lots of reasons but I don't feel comfortable right now telling you guys why. Sorry.

But right now I'm actually really upset because  I saw a ton of comments on YouTube that piss me off. In my recommended list, there was a video talking about East African genetics. So I decided to watch it. It was then I realized there was an entire internet debate about if East Africans—specifically the Eritreans, Ethiopians, and Somalis—are 'true Africans'.

Does no one else realize that Africa is THE most genetically diverse continent in the world? In a single family, you can have a range of colors. In my family, my mother has very light brown skin and my father has a dark brown chocolate colored skin. Most of my siblings are light skinned while my brother is darker than my dad. Why does everyone expect all Africans to have dark skin and wide noses? And why is it that East Africans are the ones with Europeans features or the Khoisan group in Southern Africa have the American standard of Asian features? [I say 'American standard' because most Americans consider  Asians as Chinese/Japanese. Not trying to offend anyone, this is merely my observation. I'm American myself.] Why can't it be that they have our  features? After all, they ARE the ones who are saying Africa is the birthplace of mankind.

Even more upsetting is the comments. Everywhere I see 'shut up sand n***** we don't accept you' 'you mixed no real african looks like you', etc. Really? You don't accept me? Those comments come from a guy who says he's African American. I'll have you know that most African Americans who descended from slaves* are more mixed than my family due to the prominence of white men raping slaves. Do some research before embarrassing yourself, you fool.

I then looked up other similar videos and saw that lots of Somalis that choose to disclose their ancestry on YouTube are more Middle Eastern than common. Then I did some research and came across eight or so East African DNA results. The lowest African result I've seen is eighty percent, with the highest being 100% East African. Many results were in the high nineties. So I decided for myself that if I had any non—African ancestry, it would be less than ten percent at the most. 

I know this doesn't represent all Somalis or East Africans and I know there are many East Africans that do have lots of non—African ancestry. But please, can we stop dividing ourselves? We all come from Africa. Shouldn't that be enough? 

*I put a star here because I consider myself African American, but I am a first generation American. My parents immigrated here. African Americans are usually descended from freed slaves, while my great grandparents were not slaves.