MUTANTS AMONG US
Friday, January 17, 2014
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
After reading the amazing findings of Penn State University pathologist, Keith C. Cheng, MD, Ph.D., yesterday, that white people had mutated from black people about 10,000 years ago, when a single amino acid in three billion DNA base-pairs, in one man, near the region of the Caucasus Mountains, had flipped, producing white skin, I marveled. Apart from its scientific implications, such a discovery also carried profound sociological implications, in an American society founded upon the doctrine of white supremacy, and whose racist legacy yet affects every segment of American life, especially among some young blacks!
Ironically, I had written about the epigenetic effects of oppression on the outlook, behavior, fashions, and academic performance of too-many black youth, especially boys, in my self-published novelette, The Colored Green Tree, in January 2012.
“Epigenetics” means, in the book’s context, the baneful inter-generational transfer of debilitating environmental cues-like racism- from parent to child, person to person. From people to collard greens picked by them flows this phenomenon, in my book, resulting in sagging and yellowed greens. All forces were mobilized in my book to stamp-out this affliction, which affected many interests. It also threatened the green-grocers’ food industry, and the healthy diets of all races who eat collard greens, that most nutrient-rich of all foods according to USDA.
Of course, my book uses a figure of speech, a trope known as metonymy, wherein I transpose “colored” for “collard” in my book’s title, “The Colored Green Tree,” in a much-too-subtle play on words. It throws off or confuses too many people, which affects sales. But, the few see through my literary malarkey! Compounding the paradox, there really is such a vegetable known as a “collard green tree.” It is commercially available on line. I have seen, touched, and eaten from that tree, all as described in my book! These “tree” greens taste the same as regular collard greens, being indistinguishable in every way.
Given Dr. Cheng’s research, I would wonder whether there are “mutations” among the young blacks to account for their conduct, in my book? This acquires particular impetus given his statement that mutations occur “every day,” not just in the distant past! He states:
As every student of science knows, mutations are a fact. Mutations occur spontaneously from the normal chemical instability of DNA, from characteristic levels of inaccuracy of the cellular machinery that handles our DNA, and from normally-present mutagenic substrates for DNA and mutagenic influences of our environment (such as sunlight). These mechanisms have been my career interest (see the Cheng and Loeb paper above).
Mutations provide the fuel for evolution. Evolution, through mutation, provides a plausible scientific mechanism for the diversity of us as individuals, and the diversity of organisms. Geneticists watch evolution occur every day in their laboratories, whether in the form of new combinations of genes (recombinants) during mitosis or meiosis, spontaneous mutations that make bacteria resistant to viruses or fish strains with different patterns of pigmentation arise. Physicians see the results of evolution every day in patients in which bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, or cancers become resistant to chemotherapy. Unfortunately, that evolution will be accelerated in the presence of mutagenic chemical or physical agents.
http://www.pennstatehershey.org/web/pathology/faqs-cheng-lab.
I wonder if Dr. Keith C. Cheng, the geneticist/pathologist, would enjoy reading “The Colored Green Tree?” I know you would!
#30
After reading the amazing findings of Penn State University pathologist, Keith C. Cheng, MD, Ph.D., yesterday, that white people had mutated from black people about 10,000 years ago, when a single amino acid in three billion DNA base-pairs, in one man, near the region of the Caucasus Mountains, had flipped, producing white skin, I marveled. Apart from its scientific implications, such a discovery also carried profound sociological implications, in an American society founded upon the doctrine of white supremacy, and whose racist legacy yet affects every segment of American life, especially among some young blacks!
Ironically, I had written about the epigenetic effects of oppression on the outlook, behavior, fashions, and academic performance of too-many black youth, especially boys, in my self-published novelette, The Colored Green Tree, in January 2012.
“Epigenetics” means, in the book’s context, the baneful inter-generational transfer of debilitating environmental cues-like racism- from parent to child, person to person. From people to collard greens picked by them flows this phenomenon, in my book, resulting in sagging and yellowed greens. All forces were mobilized in my book to stamp-out this affliction, which affected many interests. It also threatened the green-grocers’ food industry, and the healthy diets of all races who eat collard greens, that most nutrient-rich of all foods according to USDA.
Of course, my book uses a figure of speech, a trope known as metonymy, wherein I transpose “colored” for “collard” in my book’s title, “The Colored Green Tree,” in a much-too-subtle play on words. It throws off or confuses too many people, which affects sales. But, the few see through my literary malarkey! Compounding the paradox, there really is such a vegetable known as a “collard green tree.” It is commercially available on line. I have seen, touched, and eaten from that tree, all as described in my book! These “tree” greens taste the same as regular collard greens, being indistinguishable in every way.
Given Dr. Cheng’s research, I would wonder whether there are “mutations” among the young blacks to account for their conduct, in my book? This acquires particular impetus given his statement that mutations occur “every day,” not just in the distant past! He states:
As every student of science knows, mutations are a fact. Mutations occur spontaneously from the normal chemical instability of DNA, from characteristic levels of inaccuracy of the cellular machinery that handles our DNA, and from normally-present mutagenic substrates for DNA and mutagenic influences of our environment (such as sunlight). These mechanisms have been my career interest (see the Cheng and Loeb paper above).
Mutations provide the fuel for evolution. Evolution, through mutation, provides a plausible scientific mechanism for the diversity of us as individuals, and the diversity of organisms. Geneticists watch evolution occur every day in their laboratories, whether in the form of new combinations of genes (recombinants) during mitosis or meiosis, spontaneous mutations that make bacteria resistant to viruses or fish strains with different patterns of pigmentation arise. Physicians see the results of evolution every day in patients in which bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, or cancers become resistant to chemotherapy. Unfortunately, that evolution will be accelerated in the presence of mutagenic chemical or physical agents.
http://www.pennstatehershey.org/web/pathology/faqs-cheng-lab.
I wonder if Dr. Keith C. Cheng, the geneticist/pathologist, would enjoy reading “The Colored Green Tree?” I know you would!
#30