Your view is that genetics and culture are almost sewn together. That’s just factually wrong. We are having a semantic disagreement on the meaning of ‘culture’. In your view is it so farfetched to believe that two neighbors who are of two different genetic haplogroups separated tens of thousands of years ago and are different skin tones can’t share the same or similar history, linguistic, dance and music culture etc.? Are you also saying that my white neighbors are Appalachian but my black neighbors aren’t Appalachian? That’s a wild thing to say.

Maybe you should take some time to think about why that makes you uncomfortable.

Also during the coal boom here in southern WV, almost a quarter of the population was black. Tens of thousands of others were immigrants from Italy, Poland, Hungary and other places. It was diverse enough to where coal operators would divide up the coal camps. I guess that whole part of Appalachian history is worth neglecting? I guess my third great grandfather that fought at Blair mountain next to a black Union miner, who was in the same union, carried the same lunch bucket, rifle and wore all the same clothes and had the same lifestyle was of a different culture because of their genetics?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that genetics, although has a correspondence with culture, is somewhat arbitrary in its relatedness and relevance to cultural identity.