How African are African-Americans?

Hello everyone, it's Jabari here. As some of you may know from one of my first videos, I took a DNA test kit a few years ago and found out my heritage with some very surprising results. Recently, AncestryDNA has readjusted their results based on new data, and I'm going to share them with you guys. However, before I do, I think it's important to cover the identity crisis faced by most black people living in the United States, as centuries of history, culture, and heritage were forcibly taken away as a result of the transatlantic slave trade. It's no secret that black people are descended from Africans, and thus are considered to fall into an ethnic group which we refer to as African American. This ethnic group is something taken very seriously by most people. Even those of mixed race are typically considered black if their skin is even moderately dark in comparison to a white person. People who fall into this category will never be considered white by their peers. Barack Obama, for example, is considered America's first ever black president, despite the fact that his mom is white. All that aside though, just how African are African Americans really? And I'm not talking about Barack Obama either, I'm talking about the average, undeniably black people whom we see the most frequently, those who don't show any clear evidence of recent white admixture, like Terry Crews or Oprah Winfrey. So firstly, it's quite obvious that the majority of African Americans fully acknowledge their African heritage, with a few exceptions. However, despite acknowledging their African heritage, very few blacks in the United States really truly know the specific countries, regions, or ethnic groups that their ancestors belonged to. It's also very common for people of African descent to make claims of significant Native American admixture in the past. Even in my own experience from my own family, Native American heritage is something that both my mother and my father claim to have from both sides of my family, with Blackfoot and Cherokee admixture respectively. Seeing as this is a very common trend among the black community, most of my life, I assumed that a very significant amount of African American genetics would bear signatures from Native American peoples. However, upon researching this topic further, I discovered that the average African American only carries around 0.8% Native American ancestry, with studies from the National Library of Medicine showing that only roughly 22% of African Americans carry any Native American ancestry at all, and that the average African American genetic makeup goes as follows, 73.2% African, 24.0% European, and 0.8% Native American. However, these figures only add up to 98%, and where that extra 2% belongs is really not mentioned. However, my guess is that it may just be a vague other category. So let's see how my old DNA results compare. They reveal that I'm 90% African, and of that 90%, plus or minus 23% was from Mali, 21% was from the Cameroon-Congo region, 16% was from Nigeria, 10% from the Benin and Togo region, 10% from the Ivory Coast-Ghana region, 8% from Senegal, and less than 1% was from South Central hunter-gatherers, and then another less than 1% was Southeastern Bantu. Another 8% of my DNA was from Europe, with about 5% of that being from the British Isles, 2% from Scandinavia, and 1% from Eastern Europe. Only a mere 1% of my ancestry was Native American, despite what my parents told me about the Native American heritage on both sides of my family. And then finally, another less than 1% Central Asian. Odd. So as mentioned before, AncestryDNA had a recent update using the same samples, but using updated analytic procedures for specimens yielding more accurate results. This resulted in some dramatic differences. My African DNA increased from 90% to 91%, which isn't really that much, but Mali was reduced to only 16% rather than 23%, Benin-Togo almost tripled to 29% rather than 10%. The Cameroon-Congo and Southern Bantu peoples categories were merged together into one, likely due to the fact that the Bantu expansions were relatively recent in history thus creating a group with less genetic drift, making up about 37% rather than 21% as it did before, Ivory Coast and Ghana making up about 7% rather than 10%, Senegal dropping all the way down to 2% rather than 8%, and South Central hunter-gatherer being reduced to 0%. As for my European ancestry, it dropped down to just 6% instead of 8%. The British Isles was merged with Northwestern Europe for a total of 3% down 2%, Scandinavian being divided into two separate categories of Sweden and Norway with 2% and 1% respectively, an increase of 1% for the total, and then Eastern Europe being totally omitted altogether dropping to 0% rather than 1%. My Native American ancestry increased from 1% to 2%, and then that less than 1% Central Asian seems to have increased to a full 1%, but it was also recalculated to Southern Asia rather than Central. So to compare my DNA to the average African American, I'm 16.8% more African than the average Black American, 16% less European, 1.2% more Native American, and uh, 1% South Asian just confuses me. I honestly have no idea where or when it could have happened, but my best guess is that it has something to do with the 37% Bantu. The Swahili peoples fall within the Bantu category, and are known to have had extensive maritime trade relations with India since ancient times. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine. It's also important not to take these results at face value. We're all human beings with remarkably similar DNA to one another, so genetic markers are more of guidelines rather than absolutes. We are so similar, in fact, that we may very well have more similar genes to someone of a different race than to someone of our own. This is evident in a study conducted by Drs. James Watson, Craig Venter, and Kim Seong-Jin, where both of the white doctors were more genetically related to the Asian doctor than each other. So anyway guys, I hope you enjoyed the video, and I'm very curious to know whether or not you have taken a DNA test yourself. If so, I'd really love if you could send me your results, including screenshots, family history, and how surprised you were with the results of the test. And I'll even share your results on videos periodically. If that interests you at all, you may contact me at theempire at fromnothing.info. More information can be found below. Can't wait to see your results, and always remember, we don't come from nothing.