I would be more ashamed of having past relatives in the KKK / slave owners, than having black ansestery, African/American ansestery is a proud heritage of people who have fought hard for their place in todays society
Whenever someone asks, "what are you", you know they know you're "mixed". I'm 50, mom mixed West African, Scottish, Central Asian, dad Italian, Greek, Arab. We can detect each other😅 If you have a drop of West African ancestry and it shows, unfortunately people see it as a negative. I hate that, it's wrong. We're all "mixed" anyway. By the way, look up what was called "race films" in the '30s and '40s with all black cast, but most of the stars were mixed. This was hidden, I'm 50 and didn't know about actresses like Ethel and Lucia Moses, Hazel Diaz, Dorothy Van Engle, Fredie Washington, Gloria Press. Movies like God's Stepchildren (1938), Swing (1938), The Duke is Top (1938) with Ralph Cooper. At times when I watched these films recently, I see the actors looking white, then I see the African side, then I'll see both sides together 🤣 We're like chameleons. Hope no one takes offense. By the way, here's a video I found listening the actresses in these films. Looking at Johnny Cash's wife, I could have told she had West African Ancestry. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-U0fC2L9Fucw.html
4% African hardly makes you black, just a white person with distant African ancestry. My DNA contains 1% each of Jewish and Native American, hardly makes me either of those ethnicities does it?
Why did you change the title ? So now to get views you’re lying that Vivian Liberto Cash Distin was passing” or “lying about her race” as you have claimed and viciously incite. Vivian’s mother was virtually all European in ancestry (Irish, German) with according to the antiquated US color laws you hold so dear (however inadvertently) “1/32 Black ancestry” on one ancestral line of her four grandparents. If you believe 1/64 to 1/32 “Black ancestry makes Vivian Cash Black” then you need to examine your own privilege. I feel soiled just writing these eugenics style statistics and you’ve however unintentionally emboldened others to embrace them via their own racial trauma. Please look at that. You haven’t connected with anything but the racial trauma of black folks.
If she has a great great great black grandmother this means she has a whole lineage of african ancestry dumby. This is proven through her daughters dna and theirs absolutely nothing you racist can do about it. Johnny Cash loved, married, and had children with a woman mixed with African, get over it hater
Why aren’t you saying that his wife was half Sicilian? After all 90% of the comments online I’ve been that she was “pretending she was Italian” and “passing” which is now been completely disproven. Vivian was also Half Irish /German with a very small amount of black ancestry...Why are you racially reclassifying her and ostensibly reclassifying her descendents? Would you tell someone they weren’t their chosen gender? I don’t really like the way you’re taking ownership of this TBH. I really am the expert on being Italian with black ancestry not you and it really bothers me that you’re not mentioning any of my quotes and you’re only taking opinions of people who believe the white supremacy based notion that one drop makes you black.
@@laurawilloughby4000 No it wasn’t. You do not understand the history of the US color line. You’re looking at four or five photos not at a human being who was really clear about her racial identity and was born white, lived white and married, educated etc white . Had she been “African American “ there never would have been a Johnny Cash. Why her lived life as a white person is SO uncomfortable for people is baffling. I’m sure you’ve met many second great grandparents....
@@laurawilloughby4000 Well in Mississippi it would’ve been much more difficult to be out in the open as it was in places like Alabama Louisiana. But Vivian Liberto was not Black.
'' A white US police officer who discovered he has sub-Saharan African ancestry through DNA testing has won a payout after claiming racial abuse. Sergeant Cleon Brown, a police officer in Hastings, Michigan, sued the force after alleging his colleagues racially taunted him over his DNA test results.'' ...This officer to all intent and purpose looks a hundred per cent White unlike Vivian, who simply looks mixed race, and yet he still suffered racist abuse. If Vivian looked like Cleon Brown then I would accept that she is White but she doesn't look anything like Cleon Brown she looks at best like Eartha Kitt, who was also mixed race. Here is a link this is what a White person with a small of African DNA looks like not like Vivian. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oWy11mrpFfs.html
One droppers like yourself think that every single multi racial person or white person with remote black ancestry has the same experiences as every other. Wrong. You think some random photo like that speaks for every multi racial white person? One droppers do this, why? We don’t care if you have some cousin or know some random person. We don’t want to hear it! That cop didn’t get “racial abuse” he was bragging about his 17% black ancestry which is real and they made fun of him . You may not want to believe it’s real but that guy has probably five times the amount of so-called “Black ancestry” as Vivian Cash. If you’re basing race on the physical appearance which you seem to be I don’t see why Rachel Dolezal is so offensive? Her life is so much blacker than Vivian cash’s all white life ever was.
George Zimmerman is Black. His mother is like half black. WAY MORE ancestry than Vivian Liberto... Gee I noticed that you’re not claiming him as black. Johnny Cash is cool so his wife therefore is going to be one dropped. But people like you conveniently ignore the George Zimmerman‘s. We see how that works. One drop mob it’s just a bunch of hypocrites picking and choosing and dissecting features just like the white supremacists taught you how to do it. It’s really sad and it’s disgusting!
@@Jenjen-qc5eq You’re a definitively ONE race person thus this is all foreign to your experience. Multi racial is a lived experience which is vastly different and is not a DNA strand. You can’t be mixed with ONE Black relative 174 years before you. One great great great grandparent.out of 32 is a eugenics joke. I have six full Italian great grandparents and 2 who were West Indian/Black. You just don’t understand. Zimmerman is VERY multi racial/ Black however. His mother is a Black Latino but I don’t see ANY of the one drop mob who want to destroy Vivian’s narrative mentioning him. It’s not real it’s just internalized white supremacy..
@@superamanda If I was a one race person I would be claiming that Vivian is Black or White and not mixed race, I am saying that she is mixed race, ie multi-racial, and I have said the samething about Zimmerman he is also mixed race anyone can see that by looking at him.
I never followed Johnny Cash although I listen to country music but I just watched the documentary about his first wife and right away I knew that she had African ancestry. Maybe also because I'm African American and I can recognize what I know 😏. But what I think is that her mother had an affair with a black man and never told her husband
It’s the treatment of Vivian that should be highlighted, it was not good. Shame on those who sought to dismiss her and even not protect her when the KKK went after her. She had to protect herself and her girls.
It was the first time I had seen her while watching Johnny Cashes bio, I looked at her and immediately knew she was part black. How people can be surprised IDK, you can look at her and see this. I don't think it would have matter to Johnny Cash if she was from Mars, he love her and she loved him and that is all that matters.
@@consolajohnson5830 - Cash did make statements that his wife wasn't black, so he could perform in the south again. It was all about making that money and being famous. You have to wonder how Johnny Cash would have reacted if he had known she was biracial. The "man in black" who wore black, he said for the underdog or the downtrodden, but he never once in that song defended those that had been discriminated against due to race. Johnny Cash was a confused man.
Her story reminds me of the film “skin” abt the African woman who was born to two white parents but she looked black. I just think a recessive gene from years ago from a black relative just happened to show up in the daughter. I think it’s fascinating
You can tell by looking at her she has some BLACK ANCESTRY. You can tell she had some blackness, SHE AGED SO WELL, and was so beautiful even in her 70s, Also her tanned skin and black looking features. At FIRST I thought maybe her mothers husband wasn't her father but a mixed race black man and there was no paternity tests back then so the father just went with it. Then I was watched the show and learned she has black ancestry. But I knew she had black ancestry just by looking at her. I believe JOHNY CASH SAW THE BLACK IN HER AND REALISED WHAT HE DONE. He may have been conflicted about it . I think that may have caused problems as well and her made sure to replace her with a PURE LOOKING WHITE WOMAN.
He admitted he was "colored" in a letter he wrote to Dr. Martin Luther King. He told him he needed to kill himself. I know... I know.. CRAZY!! I found out on Tiktok.. 😬😬
According to the show finding your roots her daughters maternal great great grandmother was black or biracial, but her father’s side was completely Italian. Her daughters ancestry test showed mostly European DNA, plus Vivian lived as a white woman not close to African American culture at all so I would categorize her as such. Side note: the daughter shares DNA with the actress Angela Bassett according to the show so again going back several generations someone was black
I hope for the day when this is no longer a "thing"; when everyone can be treated equally and not so much concern about what someone's ethnicity shows.
Exactly, I am black and when I first met white people, as a child, I was so excited. However, my excitement was met with, "You can't come to our house; Why is your hair like that? You are not allowed to play in our park; from white teachers- "Colored kids get in line, you Colored kids can't even get along in your own race, etc. Not to mention being told to leave stores, spoken to aggressively when I was not ever aggressive, etc. Whites, for the most part, never saw me or wanted to know anything about me. We live in a society that is race-based. It began that way. White supremacy was taught in schools for decades. How can we undo the damage our government has caused from slavery and legal segregation (I was born during legal segregation)? This video is only one example of the legacy of those systems.
I think DNA can be felt,. Let me explain. I had always felt like I didn't fit in well or act like any of my 1st cousins on my mom's side. When I was 11 me & my mom was just sitting talking and I don't know what brought her to tell me at this time but she just comes out and says I want you to know your not any relation to " Hensley's"
There is a negativity around it as far as I’m concerned. What’s in the negativity is around is when you are changing somebody’s legacy to a different race. No one wants to be with they aren’t. Blackness is as much lived experience as a race. In fact it’s more a lived experience than anything else.
@@TrangPakbaby You don’t get it? Vivian was 1/64 black she was so incredibly white it’s astonishing. Or ancestry DNA has been gone through of the fine tooth comb most white people from the south have much more black ancestry or at least DNA. Dragging her kicking her corpse into the black race is stupid
Curling hair comes from African ancestor. Regardless white skin color. It's ok, it's sometimes survival thing at the time. Whites have been biracial for a long time. The history said so.
Why in the world is this even still an issue in our world? My dad is Irish, who cares??!!??? We all bleed red, and I hope and pray that someday we can all look at skin color the same way we do as what color eyes a person has. We all need more love, kindness, and acceptance.
It's sad but Americans really still care because America created a sick anti black African culture. I live in Rome and my husband is Sicilian Roman. His DNA test revealed he's 14% West African Senegal & Mali. 11% North African Berber. The Moors conquered Sicily, Spain and Portugal. They left not only good food, mathematics, philosophy, medicine, the culinary arts, music, hygiene and science but also a lot of their genes. Sickle cell anemia is very common in Sicily and Spain. It's a black African blood disorder. My husband has very dark skin, thick curly dark hair, built more like Idris Elba, muscular and tall with blue green eyes. He's a beautiful a mix of many things, black African being obvious. Here in Italy this mixture is all known and seen as beautiful thing. I am Afro Cuban/ Afro Puerto Rican and when my husband saw his African genes, he kissed me and said "we're probably cousins." Americans unfortunately have had 350 years of an ugly anti blackness campaign that's made them miss out on what it truly means to be human.
It’s important because in this country we had a thing cold white supremacy that made it dangerous to even admit you had a black parent. To deny all of who you are is wrong. So many Americans hid their true identity which is tragic. So that’s why it’s important to know the full truth. To be proud of ALL of who you are.
@@msflygurl3760 Because this is not one of those constructs or narratives. You're laying on some passing narrative under someone who wasn't passing. Which is a really really undignified.
I think I can speak for all Black people, one look @ her and we already knew she was black. What’s puzzling to me is that she supposedly had a 3rd generation grandmother that was of African descent. I feel like somebody lied. Mrs. Vivian definitely fitted the profile of a woman who directly came from interracial parents and I won’t believe nothing else. She was a beauty!
Most black Americans are like 15 percent white. That is not biracial, but admixed. The reason why numbers are skewed is because true biracials and other true mixed people are push into the black category. Why must many Americans still follow the one drop rule that basically states black blood is a taint ? And that the child has to assume the inferior parents racial stock? Im sorry but biracial is biracial and black is black. And that goes for every other mixture. Why must white be the beacon of purity, but black just a go to ? Wake up !!
I totally agree, she has Strong black Features, even though she identified as a Sicilian American. Her nose , lips cheek bones and her hair. Her mother also looked mixed. I can tell from a mile away that she was not completely white. She had olive skin and her hair was not completely straight.
I grew up only being told that I was English, Irish, Welsh and Scotch. I was born in 1961 on the outskirts of a middle size city that was going through rapid demographic change and a lot of unrest in the late 1960's and 1970's while I was attending school there. In my teens I had dark curly hair, high cheekbones and tan skin. As I entered college and into my 20's I was relentlessly asked about my ancestry by other's and I simply told them what I knew - British Isles ancestry to which they would come back and say - you really look like something different - Italian, Middle Eastern or even sometimes a little black. After doing genealogy for 42 years now and numerous DNA tests I have confirmed in addition to the British Isles I also have Italian, MIddle Eastern and a little African ancestry. I am now 62 years old and am only learning of this additional ancestry as a senior (I wish I could have known about it when I was younger. Prior to the TV series called Roots in 1977 and even later a lot of families that were mainly of NW European ancestry would cover up anything that wasn't NW European and not discuss it or pass that information down. The same is true anything not white (ie: Native American or African). Those that might have known about this ancestry in your family tree did not pass down that information so after several generations no one knew about it until now with DNA testing and improved genealogy services. As it turns out I have a 5x Great Grandfather that was Italian and also a 5x Great Grandfather that was a 1/2 African Indentured Servant and about 1/16 Native American ancestry from the Powhatan and Lumbee tribes. All this explains my looks in my earlier days.
Italians ( especially North and central Italians ) and middle Easterners don't look alike at all unless it's not a Middle Easterner that sticks out in his country as well for being Euro looking. People has this deranged idea because they are accustomed to see Americans that cheat on their lineage or don't know nothing at all of their roots.
Maybe she knew maybe even Johnny Cash knew. But they hid it out of fear. I don't care what her so called parents looked like. First of all you're mama's baby and daddy's maybe - Vivian looked more like a black woman than a white one.
Nobody is saying anything negative about her ancestry is just the recognition that she was indeed mixed. If anything that says a lot about Johnny Cash and him being the outlaw that he was. He was going to love whoever he wanted to, no matter what she was. Didn't matter to him and that's what's important.
Vivian was biracial. I wish Americans are not so literally black and white. What's wrong with stating the fact that some Americans are of mixed race. To say she is of African decent is like saying she is of European decent. She was biracial. Obama is biracial too, he is not a black man, he was raised by his white mother and grandparents. I really don't understand American's obsession with race.
Vivian was not biracial, she was, as we all are, multiracial. She had an ancestor, far back in her lineage, that was African, just as all of us have. Current DNA only goes back, as I understand it, about 500 years. So, when we do a DNA test it will give us the ancestry of our ancestors going back about that far but won't clarify which ancestor at that point was fully anything. Meaning, you can show a small amount of African ancestry in your genetic mix going back that far, but that individual or individuals may have been mixed at that point, too. "White" folks who grew up indoctrinated in a certain opinion about race may not like it, but we are, all of us, mixed, I don't care how "white" you may look.
You realize that she had 4 full-blooded German, great great grandparent German ancestors on the same generation as the ONE multi racial slave. Why don’t you have her listed as Vivian Cash is German? Why are you so racist about black ancestry?
Yes she wad indeed of black heritage I could see it when I first seen her face & so what why would that be shameful we are a proud & intelligent race of people & I know my people when I see them I don't care how many times they or their relatives try to discount it
I looked, if I have it right, Vivian's GGGrandfather who was born between 1844-46, was listed as Mulatto, meaning he was mixed, white with black, and his mother, Sarah Shields, born around 1825 or so, was either AA or half AA. At that generational point in time, there are 36 - or going back one more generation (if Sarah was 1/2 black) 72 ancestors from whom Vivian descended. All those other ancestors were probably all white - or whiter versions of Europeans. Funny, isn't it: there were all these other people Vivian EQUALLY descended from at that time, but we're focusing on only the one who was AA and because of this 1/35th or 1/72nd ancestry, trying to call Vivian "Black". If we're going to do the "one drop" thing, then just go ahead and call everyone "Black", seriously. People think of ancestry as some straight line lineage - but we say "family tree" because that's what lineage looks like - a tree with many branches - and no one mentions what really puts it into perspective: that our ancestry doubles each generation we go back - meaning each of us obviously have many thousands of people who are our direct line ancestors from which we descend. So silly to pick out one of the thousands to focus on and say that's what you are. As a people at this time in history, we are quite stupid about this "race" thing.
A lot of southerners look white but have a black great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandmother or Native American
Still European though. A few percentages of something else doesn't change someone's ethnicity. Vivian's dad was Italian which means that her male relatives would have Italian DNA making her Italian. I think her mother also was Italian with some French and Irish. Not sure. But she is not an African American by ANY means. This one drop rule foolishness needs to be flushed down the toilet where it belongs and America needs to get over this idea of someone needing to be "pure" to be a European "white" person. These people are all still Europeans at the end of the day.
Unfortunately back in the day a rumor hit that vivian was black and it caused a huge stink becuz back then mixed marriages were frowned upon. So glad ppl are more accepting nowadays.
Vivian Liberto Cash was NOT "African American." Her looks would come from her Sicilian father's genes and NOT from an antebellum slave. Also, Vivian went to WHITE schools in the segregated South. That alone was enough to confirm your whiteness.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤦♂🤦♂🤦♂🤦♂🤡🤡🤡🤡 Ahahahaah Yeah sure..from his Sicilian father and i'm Santa Claus..ahahaah To have that phenotipe there have been antebellum slave, deal with it. 🤡🤡
She wasn't African-American(lineage). She was a white woman with some African DNA. She had one black ancestor from her mom's side and her Dad is full-blown Sicilian. Her daughter came out 92% European and 4% African( in which Johnny also had the same about of African and Vivian).
Not at all , the fact her daughter came out 4% african means that her mom was at least 8% and no Sicilian has 8% SSAfrican dna, deal with it. 🤡🤡 Unless you don't mean North African, that is a complete different thing, no European has 4% SSA go figure 8%- 🤡🤡
@@ikalesunflowerno, she looked mixed race. Im sorry that African Americans have an inferiority complex and cannot for the life of em to give up the one drop rule. But let me tell you something, its an ideology that teaches your blood is sub human. Its 2024, you decide what you are.
Judaism is a religion but being "Jewish" is considered an ethnoreligion, and is supposed to be passed down through maternal lineage. Ashkenazic Jew is one thing that can show up in DNA tests even if the person is not a follower of Judaism.
What a crazy world it was in the South in the 50's. I read about cancelled work for Johnny Cash because of this whole subject. Also, travelling around and being away from your family in the entertainment industry sure can cause problems. The question I want to ask as gently as possible is: Did this subject of African American descent of Vivian (back in the 50's) and the tensions it caused have anything to do with their subsequent divorce? I am old enough to have lived through Johnny Cash's rebound years. Vivian was never mentioned back in that time. We never knew she existed. It was like she was erased. Did questions about her descent have anything to do with this? Life sure can be tough sometimes for such weird reasons. RIP Vivian.
Vivian Liberto was from a prosperous Italian family that owned grocery stores in Texas. Everyone knew her Italian family in Texas. Their family successful grocery stores are still a topic of discussion in Texas history. Vivian was 96% European according to DNA results. Johnny Cash was 98% European.
So what?? The time passes and dna waters down but she was part African and she looked nothing Italian, not even like the most exotic Sicilian, deal with it.
@@alessandrom7181 It's strange how Black people take pride in claiming Europeans as African Americans, with even one Black ancestor out of thousands, who never identified as Black. Europeans are not claiming Blacks with one drop of European blood. I have worked with a few dark Italians. That's how some of them look. They live mostly in New York, New Jersey or become snowbirds in Florida.
@@alessandrom7181Black people always trying to claim someone is Black who don't want to identify as Black. No other race is claiming Black people with mixed blood as European, Asian etc.
Also, the same episode revealed that Johnny Cash had black ancestry. *ducks* please don’t shoot the messenger, lol I read the comments from the related post,,, sad that race is still a touchy subject.
Johnny Depp has black ancestry too. His 8th great grandmother Elizabeth Key Grinstead was one of the first Black slave women in the American colonies to sue and win her freedom. The Grinstead sisters from the R&B group 702 are also descendants of Elizabeth Key Grinstead.
Thank you for this information! It will be interesting to see how people react to this. If it was known earlier "walk the Line" would not have been made, I don't think. She was a lovely woman and was horribly mistreated.
The only reason walk the line would’ve been different is because of the excellent my Darling Vivian documentary. It has nothing to do with a ridiculously tiny amount of ancestry.
@@superamanda I think you are viewing this subject from within today's lens. Keep in mind that many people chose to deny black amcestry because it was prudent to be white and allowed all rights associated with being white.
@@gmaxie6578 Vivian Cash wasn’t passing. That’s a vicious lie. She’s also wasn’t African American unless you plan to include about a two hundred million other people in that grouping. She was a European American woman with a tiny amount of Black ancestry.
Please check your facts the woman had a great great great grandmother that was biracial. Besides who cares?! By the time you get to Vivian the traces left are tiny and if you are Christian then we all come from Adam and Eve and are one people.
Guess what Sara "Pena" (doesn't sound very European to me), it doesn't matter how far you go back the fact is she descended from African ancestry, period! You remove that ancestor from the gene pool, she doesn't exist neither do her descendants. The "traces" as you call them are more than traces, hence, why it showed up clearly in her daughter's DNA. You need to learn more before you speak.
You can be Black and be from any nation. Vivian Liberto may have been from Italy and she was Black and descended from an enslaved person. They are not mutually exclusive.
The first generation of Italians who came to America, usually to work seasonally and return to Italy seasonally. Were notorious for ignoring American social conventions regarding race and intermarrying, often bigamously, with African Americans. It was not until communities of Italians started to put down permanent roots, that the need to create distance between the two communities became imperative so as not to be regarded as black themselves, as the Italians arriving here could be quite dark, in comparison to the local colonial descended whites
@@valuecalc it depends on how you define white. Italians are part of the movement of the ancient world. Their gene pool has significant amounts of middle eastern and Mediterranean ancestry. When Italians first started coming to America they were not classified as white by the local white population and were a frequent target of groups like the KKK. Italians in America today are considered white and many are members of hate groups like the KKK that used to target them
@@clementmckenzie7041, and there are Italians who well tell you that they're not white. However, many truly are, and your point about some joining up with a group that attacked them at one point is insane.
