An excerpt from the Washinton Post -
To bring a divided country together, start with a little spit
By Susan Svrluga
Anita Foeman’s students had just gotten the results from their genetic tests, and they couldn’t wait to talk.
One said her dad cheered when she told him she has Zulu roots. A girl with curly red hair said her family always gathers around a Nativity scene on Christmas Eve and sings carols over the baby Jesus, and this year, after learning that she’s 1 percent Jewish, she said: “We’re going to sing the dreidel song!”
When a white student said that 1 percent of his ancestry was African, two black students sitting next to him gave him a fist bump and said: “Yes! Brother.”
“Some people have never had a happy conversation about race,” Foeman said. But in her class at West Chester University, there’s laughter. Eagerness. And easy connections where there might have been chasms. “Our differences are fascinating,” she said.
At a time when tensions over race and politics are so raw, the stakes, Foeman said, seem particularly high. Her students have been talking all fall about riots, building walls, terrorist attacks, immigration, the election. “You can feel it buzzing around the halls like electricity,” Foeman said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/12/24/to-bring-a-divided-country-together-start-with-a-little-spit/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_dnatesting-830pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.73ef2f745961
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