You know how white supremacists worship Northern European, particularly Scandinavian genetics? Believe in the inherent superiority of such? Here's my counter argument to this spectacularly ignorant and hateful idea. Me.
Being crammed full of Scandinavian derived DNA, and the process of evolution being what it is, both my brother and I have lived with the results of some seriously malicious dominant genes from the Norwegian side of the genetic family tree.
Dad's side of the family is primarily stuffed full of Swedish genes with some German and other pasty region continental European genetic material. Picture tall, statuesque, blond haired, and green eyed stereotypes. Yeah, that's the Nordenstrom side of the family. To see a picture of my dad in the late 50s and early 60s is like staring into an intricately rendered version of a Superman comic.
This side of the family is largely builders. Even to this day, my paternal family builds shit. Taking a tour of Mora, MN with my dad or grandfather was always a history lesson in local construction. "Your father and I built that, that, and that building. That building over there? Your great grandfather and I built it when your dad was a baby."
I never developed that Nordenstrom compulsion to build things, to craft things with wood, metal, or brick. I took after the Auseth side of the family, the Norwegian side... to an extent.
The Norwegian side of the family all resided in a small town along the MIssissippi River just south of Winona, MN on the Wisconsin side. It's a gorgeous little town... and I mean little. Mora was like a sprawling metropolis in comparison. The Auseths and Nelsons came over from Norway in the early 1900s. Their gene pool forms a neat little triangle between the Oslo, Lillehammer, and Bergen regions. They were farmers. They dug up the land and grew plants you could eat in it. Hills everywhere. Rocky soil. It's fucking cold with a short growing season. Also, as much as the Orange Mussolini in the White House, likes to use Norway as an example of one of the "non-shithole countries", in the late 19th century and early 20th century, Norway was very much a shithole country. So much so that Grampa Auseth vowed never to return there upon his arrival at Ellis Island in 1904.
With their centuries of farming experience, they could have come to the New World and moved to somewhere flat and spacious, with lush soil just daring you to grow giant tomatoes in it. But no... my great grandmother was homesick for Norway and decided on a particular spot in Wisconsin that was rife with hills, and the soil was full of rocks.... and it gets fucking cold in the winter. My grandfather taught my mom how to be a farmer. It was inevitable... he looked like a farmer! His genes screamed Norway. Not in the "Viking out to conquer all of Europe" way, but in the "we haven't been Viking for 800 years now, but have changed into rather adorable diggers of holes out of which plants emerge while we wear cute wool sweaters" way. Grampa Auseth had a full head of salt and pepper hair until the day he died near the age of 90. He wasn't tall, but even in his old age when I knew him, he was chock full of the strength that comes with nearly a century of working the land.
Now that I think about it, both of my grandfathers were incredibly strong men, like bone crushing handshake strong, even in their final, very advanced years. Mom got a full dose of generation upon generation of Norwegians sloppily exchanging genetic material. Not tall, but very strong. An affinity and talent for gardening. Full head of dark hair that the grey was never fully able to overcome even in her final years. When I set foot in Bergen, Norway for the first time, I was a little shocked.
Holy shit! As an American, cis, straight, white guy, I'm used to seeing a version of me represented across all forms of media to a ridculous, socially damaging extent. White guys are everywhere. There's no escaping us.
However, upon setting foot in Bergen, it was the first time I realized where my particular genetic variants came from. Everywhere I looked, someone looked like grampa or gramma, mom, my brother, aunts Helen and Thelma, uncle Norman. It was eerie and fascinating. This truly was my genetic and cultural homeland. Farmers and fishers.... all walking around staring at iPhones.
About 5 days later, after basking in the beauty of Bergen, Flam, and Oslo, Kasia and I arrived in Stockholm, about a 2 hour drive east-ish from the Nordenstrom ancestral grounds in Mora, Sweden. We get off the train and walk a circuitous route through the city to our hotel because Obama is in town and the most direct path to our hotel is blocked off. As we're wandering through the city we're struck by something.
Remember the 80s and the Swedish Bikini Team and all the other stereotypes about Swedes being unrealistically beautiful? Well, turns out there's a lot of frustrating truth to it! Everywhere we looked, people were beautiful! Beautiful to the point of inspiring anger, friendly, and happy. I swear Peter Jackson's casting director just picked people at random off the streets of Stockholm to fill the ranks of the elves in the Lord of the Rings movies! You couldn't tell who was a model or who was a checker at 7-11.... which had frustratingly delicious calzones and fresh, mouth watering salads!
It was within 15 minutes of being in Stockholm that I truly realized that most of my genes came from west of here over the mountains in the land of fjords and achingly cute sheep farms. I was a troll among elves in Stockholm! But they are modern elves who are very welcoming of other cultures, so they didn't make a pin cushion out of me with their bows and arrows.
In the space of 7 days, I got a crash course in the jumble of genetic soup that make my brother and me, what we are. We just look Norwegian. Like we should be tilling fields or herding sheep in the hills of Biri. Both Eric and I got our sexes from Dad, but we also got the height from the Swedish side of the family. I'm 6'4", and I'm the third tallest on that side of the family after a couple of uncles. Eric is just under 6'3". Yup, we're tall. Both sides of the family tend to live a long time, with some notable outliers. If anyone ever talks to you about the superiority of Northern European, particularly Scandinavian DNA... seriously, rid yourself of that nonsense. That's some white supremacist bullshit right there! Fuck that shit! Here's where that theory completely falls apart... in me.
Dad was almost superhuman in appearance when he was young... think the dad from The Incredibles before he had kids... then again as the dad from The Incredibles after he had kids and a desk job. Eric and I got a lot of that. We were both tall. Eric was always more of the beanpole than me. He definitely got the Swedish gene there. I got more of the broad shouldered, "you should carry heavy things for a living", Norwegian gene. We both got the tall genes from the Swedish side.
Here's the big genetic prank that evolution played on us. Between the ages of 12-15, both my brother and I would endure severely painful growth spurts as the Swedish genes started doing their thing. Ok, fine. No one was surprised by this. Everyone was prepared for us to be big kids.
What no one saw coming was that mom's Norwegian genes for shitty knees would also kick in around this time as well! 12-15 was basically a time of severe pain for me as my vertical growth combined with improperly constructed knees at a genetic level. Between 15 and 17, I had to two surgeries on my knees to deal with this combination of tall Swedish genetic material and the shorter, crappy-knee genes from my farming ancestors.
Genetic superiority my ass! I'm 15 years old and I can't run without excruciating pain! You know the "fight or flight" response? Yeah, my genetic material determined that I would only have one of those options. Luckily, being a large white man in the modern world it doesn't come up all that often.
Luckily for my brother, he wouldn't get the knee problems to the same extent I would, but it was no picnic for him either. At least he still has some cartilage in his right knee and hasn't been grinding his knee joint into glass dust for over 30 years. My nephew just turned 13. He's the spitting image of our dad at the same age! It's uncanny! I started warning him a few years ago that the ages of 12-14 might be pretty painful for him if he got the same knees that his dad and I got. Sure enough at age 12, he started complaining of shin splints. Ugh. Yeah. No fun. In the last year he has shot up in height a great deal! His joints, particularly his ankles and knees hurt, and sometimes limit his ability to play soccer, the sport he adores. So, we're not clear at this point if he got the same shitty knees that his dad and I do, but he certainly did get a huge dose of the Swedish genetic goop rather than the Norwegian brand. I'm hoping for his sake that the introduction of his mother's genetic material shook things up enough that he can avoid the pain, and surgeries that made being a teenager such a painful experience for me. And he LIKES to run! Nothing would be worse than him not being able to play soccer because of shitty genetic chance. I swam because I couldn't run. He has no desire to be a swimmer. PLUS!
He lives in an area where fight or flight is a necessary instinctual response! Rural Montana where they go out into natural areas where animals want to eat you!
So there you have it. Some anecdotal evidence that the idea of Scandinavian genetic superiority is complete bullshit. Me.
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