I Thought We Knew Too

Ta-Nehisi Coates expresses surprise at the apparent fact that most white people aren’t aware that African-Americans generally have some white ancestry:

I don’t raise it to highlight anyone’s ignorance, or to browbeat people, or argue for Black History Month starting in January. I raise it because this is as much about my ignorance as yours. Put bluntly — I thought you knew.

But you know what, I thought we knew this too. Certainly I knew and I didn’t consider this an obscure piece of trivia. How sure are we that white people are really that ignorant, as opposed to the press just being asinine in its coverage of Michelle Obama’s ancestry. There’s lots of asinine press coverage of lots of things.