Oddity: Black Harvard professor related to white cop who arrested him

This is one of those stories that demonstrates the lunacy of labeling people by color.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., the now infamous black professor who was arrest outside his Cambridge, Massachusetts home last week, and Sgt. James Crowley, the officer who arrested him, both trace their ancestry back to a legendary Irish clan called the Niall of the Nine Hostages.

While hosting a PBS series in 2008, Gates discovered that he was descended from a black slave girl and an Irish immigrant.

He had his DNA analyzed at Trinity College in Dublin and learned that he was descended from a fourth century Irish warlord who beget and beget and beget until his became one of the dominant strains in Irish genealogy.

Oddly enough, Crowley can also trace his lineage back to the same Irish warlord.

So when they share a beer with President Obama at the White House on Thurday, Gates can look at Crowley and say, “What up, bro?” and almost mean it literally.

How weird is that?

Source: ABC News