Race Today? Scientific, Legal, and Journal of Anthropological Sciences Social Appraisals from Around the Globe Vol

JASs forum What is race today? Scientific, legal, and Journal of Anthropological Sciences social appraisals from around the globe Vol. 95 (2017), pp. 283-290 doi 10.4436/JASS.95008 Reflections on “race” in science and society in the United States Alan H. Goodman School of Natural Science, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA 01002, USA e-mail: [email protected] This commentary on the discourses, use, and For example, have genomics and the prom- salience of “race” in the United States has two linked ise of personalized medicine had any impact purposes. First, I would like to provide readers with on the use of race in medicine (Bonham et a glimpse of the “state of race” in science in America, al., 2016)? focusing on both the current relationship among • How is race used in legal documents and studies of race, racism, and human variation and the legal proceedings? Have there been any de- relationship of these studies to “race” in society. I will bates about changing the definition or use reflect on how race is discussed, the underlying ideol- of the word race and related terminology, ogy of race, and how the word race is intended and especially as they might reference informa- used in science and society. Second, the editors would tion about human genetic variation? like to initiate a thoughtful forum on the current state • What are the current political and cultural of race, racism, and human biological variation. The points of tension, or “hot spots,” with re- hope is to provide an opportunity to compare current gard to race and racism? Do they intersect discussions and debates that center on race, human in any way with the scientific and legal sta- biological variation, and racism in science, law, and tus of race? other intersecting domains, such as in popular cul- • Has progress been made in improving the ture (race in media and public forums, for example) study and understanding of human variation? in different countries within and beyond Europe. What progress might be made to use a full This essay is the first in the forum. I begin range of humanistic and scientific expertise to by summarizing the state of race in the United eliminate (instead of perpetuate) racism? States, the country in which I live, was trained, and work. Subsequently, others will contribute their own analyses of the state of race in the Race in the United States country or countries they are most familiar with. Among the guiding questions are the following. I must start with a blunt disclaimer. In a brief commentary, it is impossible to systematically • How is race - both the concept and the word summarize the diverse ways in which race is dis- itself - used in science today? Although sci- cussed - and the multiple ways in which the word ence is international in scope, have there race is used - in the United States. Mine is a hugely been notable changes in how race is con- complicated nation. It would be difficult to sum- ceptualized and used in your country or in marize the state of race on my college campus, the language of your country? more challenging to summarize the state of race • Is there a decline in the salience of the term in my town, and almost unimaginable to summa- “race” as a proxy for human genetic varia- rize race in a single discipline such as linguistics. tion, and if so, in what ways is it evident? It is impossible to systemically summarize “race” the JASs is published by the Istituto Italiano di Antropologia www.isita-org.com 284 JASs forum: What is race today? Scientific, legal, and social appraisals from around the globe in any larger social or institutional group because are in fact due to subtle and overt forms of racism racial discourses and how race is used move in (Goodman, 2000; Olshansky et al., 2012). many directions at once. The “revolution” in how we think about race With that caveat, some general trends are clear. as distinct from human biological and genetic First, the inability to summarize the state of race variation is still in its early stages. Whereas social is itself meaningful: it is the result of, in part, the epidemiology is showing the deep and multiple size and heterogeneity of the United States. More pathways by which racism affects health (Krieger, important, though, is the fluidity of its meaning. 2003), many doctors and medical researchers still The word race is a chameleon. While it harks back believe that racial differences in health are innate to old tropes of difference and hierarchy, it is also and natural (Satel, 2002), and many scientists still a constantly changing concept, and it veers from use race as a convenient shorthand for human institution to institution, person to person, and variation (Wade, 2014). Race is used without from one moment to the next. Race, as an actor, much notice in medicine as a biological grouping does not sit still. (Goodman, 2000). And race also appears in legal In the United States, as it was through- documents, again without much questioning of out Europe, race was once accepted as a fixed, its meaning (Haney López, 1997). unchanging, natural way to characterize individu- Despite a national obsession with race, my als and groups. This idea of race supported Euro- sense is that most individuals in the United States American empire building, taking of lands, and are confused about how biology, genetics, and race slavery. It naturalized differences and the status interrelate; how the categories of race, ethnicity, quo of a racial hierarchy. color, religion, and so on were formed; and how The science of the seventeenth century to the they intersect today (Goodman, 1997). Although twentieth added insult to injury by elevating the some clearly see race as a socially constructed folk idea to objective and natural truth. In Linné’s category with biological consequences, most still first classification of humans into subspecies or consider it a natural division of humans, just as races, in 1755, race was used to explain unchal- Linné did in 1755. Most European-Americans are lenged biological differences such as skin color, confused about what race is and is not. And they as well as temperament, mode of governance, are also confused about the underlying causes of and, by extension, socioeconomic conditions and racial differences in wealth and health. That con- accomplishments. That view of race as the expla- fusion, I believe, is problematic: It inhibits acting nation for biological and social differences lives on on racial differences in access to resources and on in the United States. racism itself. A few, starting as far back as the middle of the What is true today in the United States is that nineteenth century, challenged this view, most one hears a cacophony of opinions about race. notably the antislavery activist Frederick Douglass President Obama has tried to promote a national (1858), who argued that environment shapes dialogue on the subject, but we have not gotten human biology and that the idea of racial types very far in our understanding of what race is and is flawed. In the last half century, evidence has what it is not. As many have commented with mounted at an exponential rate that race simply regard to discussions about race and racism, there does not explain or account for human genetic is more talk than understanding, more smoke variation (Lewontin, 1972; Yu et al., 2002). than fire. With increasing data on genomic diversity since In short, although evidence suggests that the the 1990s, the usefulness of race as a biogenetic concept of race-as-genetics is losing credibility, construct seems to be slowly losing acceptance change in this hegemonic worldview is painfully among scientists in the United States (Yudell et al., slow (Mills, 1997). We in the United States are 2016). Moreover, research is beginning to dem- obsessed with race but we do little to address rac- onstrate that persistent racial differences in health ism. We collect information on racial inequalities JASs forum: What is race today? Scientific, legal, and 285 social appraisals from around the globe but then do not alleviate them. Race is the cor- American president (https://www.ted.com/talks/ nerstone of an unwritten social contract in which nate_silver_on_race_and_politics). Among some whites of European ancestry have greatest access to groups, such as southern Republications, the race power and resources and everyone else has the least of a candidate is shockingly relevant. access (Mills, 1997). Why has the race-as-genetic On the positive side, one can point to a younger worldview changed so slowly with fifty years of generation that seems to hold less firmly some of data to show it to be obsolete? the divisive racial stereotypes. This change, how- I would say that the racial worldview has ever, does not seem to be very deep. I recently gave remained largely intact because the political- a talk on race to a group of two hundred young economic stakes are so high (Goodman, 1997; teenagers at a school in my university town. Even Goodman et al., 2012). in this educated community, kids tend to eat lunch What follows are further observations and with individuals they see as within their own race some examples of the state of race in the United or ethnicity. I asked them how they see or explain States. My comments are divided into three race. For most, race is real and biologically based. overlapping domains: sociopolitical and public The reported rate of racial intermarriage is on discourse, law and institutional race, and race in the rise in the US, but this might be related, at least science and among scientists.

Load more