What is racism?

[pastafarian]

DasFX. I don't call you a racist, because I see no evidence that your misperceptions are based in racism. But you are wrong about race.

It has no biological meaning, only a social one.

You say you're in pharmaceutical research, designing a drug that is race-specific. I say nonsense. I know I can find at leat one other "racial" group who will respond in general like your target "race" to whatever drug you're trying to create. There are so many so-called "race-specific" genes whose specificity is BS. The mutant hemaglobin gene responsible for the condition of sickle-cell anemia is present in different forms in geographically separate populations, in West Africa, Sicily and India, suggesting that the predominant forms of the mutation arose independently among these diverse populations. The selective pressure for this mutation is the incidence of malaria in these regions and the resistance the mishapen red blood cells give to the inheritor of the mutant gnenes. "Race" has nothing to do with it.

Here is the state of the science:

Over the last thirty five years a major change has taken place in our biological understanding of the concept of human “race,” largely as a consequence of an immense increase in our knowledge of human genetics. As a biological rather than a social construct, “race” has ceased to be seen as a fundamental reality characterizing the human species. Nevertheless, there appear from time to time claims that racial categories represent not arbitrary socially and historically defined groups but objective biological divisions based on genetic differences.

There are four facts about human variation upon which there is universal agreement. First, the human species as a whole has immense genetic variation from individual to individual. Any two unrelated human beings differ by about 3 million distinct DNA variants.

Second, by far the largest amount of that variation, about 85%, is among individuals within local national or linguistic populations, within the French, within the Kikuyu, within the Japanese. There is diversity from population to population in how much genetic variation each contains, depending upon how much immigration into the population has occurred from a variety of other groups and also on the size of the population

Of the remaining 15% of human variation, between a quarter and a half is between local populations within classically defined human “races,” between the French and the Ukrainians, between the Kikuyu and the Ewe, between the Japanese and the Koreans. The remaining variation, about 6% to 10% of the total human variation is between the classically defined geographical races that we think of in an everyday sense as identified by skin color, hair form, and nose shape.

Third, a small number of genetic traits, such as skin color, hair form, nose shape (traits for which the genes have not actually been identified) and a relatively few proteins like the Rh blood type, vary together so that many populations with very dark skin color will also have dark tightly curled hair, broad noses and a high frequency of the Rh blood type R0. Those who, like Leroi, argue for the objective reality of racial divisions claim that when such covariation is taken into account, clear-cut racial divisions will appear and that these divisions will correspond largely to the classical division of the world into Whites, Blacks, Yellows, Reds and Browns. It is indeed possible to combine the information from covarying traits into weighted averages that take account of the traits' covariation (technically known as "principal components" of variation). When this has been done, however, the results have not borne out the claims for racial divisions. The geographical maps of principal component values constructed by Cavalli, Menozzi and Piazza in their famous The History and Geography of Human Genes show continuous variation over the whole world with no sharp boundaries and with no greater similarity occurring between Western and Eastern Europeans than between Europeans and Africans! Thus, the classically defined races do not appear from an unprejudiced description of human variation.

The fourth and last fact about genetic differences between groups is that these differences are in the process of breaking down because of the very large amount of migration and intergroup mating that was always true episodically in the history of the human species but is now more widespread than ever. The result is that individuals identified by themselves or others as belonging to one “race,” based on the small number of visible characters used in classical race definitions, are likely to have ancestry that is a mixture of these groups, a fact that has considerable significance for the medical uses of race identification.

Quotes are from R.C. Lewontin's article at this site, which is probably the most authoritative website on "race" and genomics.

 

[pastafarian]

Here's another great quote from one of the articles at the site: The Realities of Races
By Jonathan Marks*

To conclude, ultimately the issue in “racialized medicine” is about diminishing the quality of healthcare through the dissemination of incompetent biology.

It is thus like creationism, only with lives at stake.

 

[Summer]

Well, in DasFX's defense I will say that I too am aware that there are some variations that have been identified in how individuals of varying ethnic groups respond to certain medications and that this informtion can be used to tailor certain drugs to treat problems in patients from those backgrounds who are not responding as well as hoped to other medications used to treat those same problems. No, it 's not like, "Well Drug A works for all Africans and only Africans, and Drug B works for all Asians and only Asians, so we're going to prescribe based completely on someone's ethnicity." But there are some variations in response that have been generally (IOW, not in every case, just with more statistical frequency) observed from group to group.

That's an example of what I was talking about before, of those narrow circumstances in which the normally meaningless differences between groups can occasionally become meaningful. But it's still not racist.

 

[pastafarian]

But Summer, what's irritating is the need to mention "race" at all in the context you're talking about. It's known for example, that Ashkenazi Jews have a higher incidence of Tay-Sachs disease than others. This observation has no practical value in the development of, say, a drug to replace the inactive beta-hexosaminidase A of sufferers of this disease.

I suppose I could concede that advertising firms trying to market treatments for certain identifiable demographics might be able to benifit by using klezmer music rather than rap in their jingles, but it hardly seems wothwhile in a scientific context...

 

[DasFX]

Re: RE: What is racism?

But Summer, what's irritating is the need to mention "race" at all in the context you're talking about.

It is because people have made the word race into a negative one.

 

[Summer]

Pasta, you kind of missed the point. For one thing, I personally *didn't* mention race in my post, but the crux of my post is that there actually are some statistical differences in how people of African descent respond to drugs for certain diseases. I worked temporarily as a departmental secretary at a major medical school a few years ago and part of my job involved typing up some of the research reports for various projects underway. One of the things I learned in the process is that there are some differences in how blacks and whites respond to different drugs. Granted, they are small in comparison to differences in response within each group, and therefore race should not be a primary factor in a doctor's decision to prescribe a particular drug, but on the other hand race may explain cases where a person does not respond as well as hoped to a particular drug therapy and this may help guide the doctor to a more appropriate medication for that particular patient. Future research may help to refine this concept and make it more useful.

 

[DasFX]

He's not suggesting that one race is better than the other, just that they are different in some respects.

Exactly! It isn't like I claim a one race is better than the other overall. People are people, but to be blind about pointing out any differences is silly.

 

[DasFX]

He's not suggesting that one race is better than the other, just that they are different in some respects.

Exactly! It isn't like I claim a one race is better than the other overall. People are people, but to be blind about pointing out any differences is silly.

I mean, so much anger here. All I said is that we were different and that some of these differences can be placed into groups. It is called taxonomy.

Why can't we just all get along?

 

[bhoour]

You can't categorize by race. DasFx, in what category will your kids fit into. Some like me, with multi ethenic background (Asian,European,Hispanic, Native Canadian and Slavic), have trouble choosing just one ? :roll:
On a questionare I usually check other, or just write in human.

 

[HTO]

I guess I probably did misinterpret your point Summer. At least my tone was a little harsh.

DasFX: exactly. Since the term "race" came into fashion to categorize humans, it has been associated with Imperialism, slavery and oppression. Is it really so surprising given the historical baggage the word "race" carries, coupled with its uselessness as a biological descriptor, that people are knee-jerk hostile to it?

Particularly on a Leftist board. Go to a right-wing board, and the reception would be a lot less touchy I'm sure.

"When in Rome..." and all that.

 

[DasFX]

Re: RE: What is racism?

You can't categorize by race. DasFx, in what category will your kids fit into. Some like me, with multi ethenic background (Asian,European,Hispanic, Native Canadian and Slavic), have trouble choosing just one ? :roll:
On a questionare I usually check other, or just write in human.

My kids will be hydbrid or biracial. By the way Hispanic aren't a race. They are decendent of europeans but with a touch of native. I can't wait to see how you respond to that.

 

[DasFX]

Re: RE: What is racism?

Particularly on a Leftist board. Go to a right-wing board, and the reception would be a lot less touchy I'm sure.

"When in Rome..." and all that.

Well that would be silly. Change my view because it doesn't conform to the majority?

Are you GWB? You're either with us or against us? I express my opinion even more when it goes against the grain. I know there are at least a few people here through my constant arguement who at least see some of what I say and those who can accept where I am coming from and what point I am trying to make.

 

[HTO]

By the way dasFX, when people believed that races were real things there were classification schemes containing as few as 2 and as many as 23 distinct "races". Of course the good old tried and true foursome: red, yellow, black and white, has a large following. How many "races" do you believe in?

 

[peapod]

No one is stopping you from expressing your opinion, you are the one that brought "race" up. inperialism...how true.

 

[HTO]

DASFx, I'm not suggesting you change your beliefs to suit the tone of the board. I only suggest you examine them in the light of science as opposed to superstition. I was merely expressing surprise that you found the hostility to the legitimacy of race as a concept on this board remarkable in any way.

Personally, I don't find it any more offensive than I find geocentrism or creationism and I think the accusations of racism against you on the basis that you accord some fundemental significance to the concept of "race" are unfair.

That's my opinion in this thread.

 

[HTO]

Sorry, pasta is posting as HTO again. She's the friendly sensible one; he's the prickly pedantic one.

 

[peapod]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: You know...I wondered what the hell pastaman was up to.. 8)

 

[Summer]

I figured out this morning that HTO and Pasta were the same.... it was something on another thread.

Didn't realize there were both a he and a she in that head, though.

 

[peapod]

Well I noticed it a long time ago, summer, but than I special powers. I think hto and pastaman are mates.

 

[pastafarian]

We are mates. Sometimes, I just post away on our shared computer without logging her out. She'll likely never post as me. Then again, she doesn't leave the toilet seat up.