“one of the more extraordinary aspects of the incident that has sparked worldwide headlines”
Not really extraordinary at all. Whoever their common ancestor might have been, it was long enough ago to be meaningless. Plus, you could already tell Gates was mixed-race just by looking at him.
Just as you can tell that virtually ALL ‘African-Americans’ are mixed race just by looking at them.
VERY FEW of them bear ANYTHING like the classic African tribal physiognomy, and increasingly, probably fewer and fewer Africans do too. So it makes NO sense for A-As to try to make a point about being “African”. They are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT AMERICAN, and they got that way by miscegenation. As such, they make PERFECT Americans, since America is Mutt Central. And all of us should be PROUD of that status, especially when we look at the monoracial cultures that exist now in the world, like China and Japan, ancient indeed, and “just starting” to get into the swing of things that America has been pioneering for 300 plus years.