Gary Younge explains that Wealthy African-Americans are using DNA kits to trace their roots:
Oprah is a Zulu. Never mind that she was born and raised in Mississippi and her great grandparents hailed from no further away than Georgia and North Carolina, Ms Winfrey, the queen of the televised confessional, is not just suggesting her lineage might stretch back thousands of years to a specific African tribe. She is asserting it as a definitive fact. “I always wondered what it would be like if it turned out I am a South African. I feel so at home here … Do you know that I actually am one?” she told an audience of 3,200 in Johannesburg last year. “I went in search of my roots and had my DNA tested, and I am a Zulu.”
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Whatever Oprah’s belief about her ancestry, her assertion that she is Zulu is no less misleading [than James Frey's fictionalized memoir].According to most historical accounts, the Zulu nation was consolidated only after the departure of slaves from West Africa to the Americas. Moreover, there is little in the way of genetic lineage that comes close to matching a particular linguistic group such as the Zulu nation. When Oprah had her DNA tested for the programme, the results suggested her most likely match was from the Kpelles tribe of Liberia. Indeed she was told that she could not have come from South Africa. None of this is likely to stop her claiming the Zulus as her kith and kin. “I’m crazy about the South African accent,” she said. “I wish I had been born here.”