There are many good things about biology and I enjoy biology a lot. But one thing I dislike about Biology is that it plays a role in racism. Scientific racism is a belief that there is biological difference among races. For example, that blacks have a smaller brain than other people. It is sad that there are some biologist who still believe that one there will be proof to show the world that there is, indeed, a biological difference among races. When saying "biological difference", I do not mean minor differences like hair type, eye color, height, or even speed of metaboloism. Instead, I mean major biologcal differences, like smaller brains.
I
never thought race was something that was biologically formed. The concept that
race is biology started in 1800s the same time as imperialism. To me, that
sounded extremely ignorant and it never even crossed my mind. It was a shocker
to me to learn that people and scholars in the past actually believed that. In
the documentary Race: The Power of an
Illusion Series, the Difference Between Us showed that scholars from
history compared skull sizes, brain color, and eyes between Africans and whites
to find an big biological difference between blacks and whites. However, a
microbiologist stated in the movie that all of our (people) genetics are
telling us that is not the case and there are no genetic markers that a certain
race has and the others do not. In fact, people are among the most similar
species. Only one nucleotide is different between people which create the individuality
among people. In sports, race being related to biology is big. The video is from Race:The Power of an Illusion Series, the Difference Between Us
There
are people who think black folks are good at basketball or track because they
have some genetic or biological form that whites or others do not have. Some
people think blacks have an extra muscle in their body that gives them an
advantage over other players. In the article A Feckless Quest for the Basketball Gene, states that genetics do
not give a certain race the achievement or the abilities over other race. It
makes no sense to me how people think there is an biological advantage in
blacks, for example, in sports, but a person’s intelligence is not based on
biology. This concept, of genetic advantage for some race, was new for me
because I never thought race had anything to do with sports or intelligence or
even heard about it before. I know that majority of the basketball players are
blacks, but for me the reason for that was because they enjoy playing
basketball and they are good at the game because they play daily and practice loads,
not because they are blacks and have an extra muscle or their bone structure is
different from others. Everyone has a different definition of what race is, and
so for some people I guess biology is their definition, but to me that just
sounds silly. Regardless of one’s skin color, people all have two eyes, two
ears, a nose, a heart, and almost everything the same as one another; so there
is no biological difference between me, Pakistani, and my friend who is Cape Verdean.
I
read an article that discusses this issue of biology and racism. A researcher by
the name of Dr. Bruce Lahn released genetic data that showed that brain size of
an African was smaller than other people. This news was spread all over via
newspaper and other media. However, other researchers studied his research
found out that his research was wrong along with his mathematics. Unfortunately,
people disregarded this Dr.Lahn’s mistakes and believed that there is some biological
difference among different races. The article goes on of released biology
research and information that show that there are genomic differences among
people but it is minor and cause the different types of skin, hair, and etc.
The article also states that scientist do believe that one day they will gather
data and information that will prove that there is a biological difference in
the various races that exist.
I fail to understand why people cannot just accept the different races in the world. Imagine a world where there's only white, or only black, or only asians. Everybody would be a clone of one another. Why can't people see how beautiful it is to have so many different traditions and culture and food that come along with the different races.
Racism is a pernicious disease that has infected the human race. I’m not aware of any society that has not experienced some aspects of it. I grew up in the American south where it still openly exists. Just last week there was an article from Salon.com about a segregated prom in South Georgia. Yes, last week! Seems the school has never held an integrated prom. The school does not officially sanction the event, but from what I can tell in the article, steps have never been made to put an end to the policy. The parents have traditionally held separate proms for the kids at their own expense.
ReplyDeleteApplying racism to scientific research is also very frightening. I believe it’s done with willful and malicious intent, in order to create confusion in the understanding of scientific data. Take this New York Times article for example: it relates the story of scientists being mislead to believe that they would be attending a scientific convention. Turns out it wasn’t the “leading professional association” that they were led to believe it was. But it was close enough that anyone, for a fee, was permitted to present or submit an academic article to the convention, without going through the peer review process, and thus giving the work an appearance of credibility. Instances like this seek to undermine credible scientific research for dubious reasons.
All you have to do is turn the television to CSPAN to see amazing feats of ignorance and dereliction of duty. It’s where we get great terms like “fuzzy science” and “catastrophic success”. Follow the money; look into who funded the studies, and who is promoting the information as being credible. For an example, the Brookings Institution is funded by Exxon, among others. I wonder if their climate research is universally agreed upon within the scientific community? (Great topic by the way)
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/04/georgia_high_school_students_fight_for_first_ever_integrated_prom/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/health/for-scientists-an-exploding-world-of-pseudo-academia.html?ref=science&_r=0
I took a class RIC called Minority Group Relations and it was all about racism in America. That is where I learned so much about racism today. My Prof, Prof Saucier, stated that there is more racism now than there was in history. It is just that now it is done very slyly. He stated that blacks have to pay 1% more for, I believe, mortage. And television is best way to spread racism. Disney channel serves the best example. Just try to examine the characters in the shows, not cartoon but the real life shows.
DeleteWhat I found interesting was that the movie King Kong was an allegory of slavery. King Kong is supposed to be an African slave, who the white forcefully bring to the U.S.
There is so much more I could share about racism in these days!
I couldn't agree with you more. I can't imagine a world where we are all the same and I often struggle to understand why being a different race is a problem. We're all the same on the inside shouldn't that matter more? Racism is still present and will not change unless we change how we participate in it.
ReplyDeleteI once read an article entitled "Who me? What It Means to Be Involved in Privilege and Oppression" by Allan Johnson. The article discusses this similar ideal. Johnson says in his article that just because we do not intend to make people suffer (as a result of race/skin color), does not mean that we are bad people, but instead involved because we are part of the system that produces it. We are unaware. And by being unaware we chose not to address the problem. This keeps the existence of the social systems alive.
I think you might find it an interesting read!
It is ridiculous how racism is expressed. In my class of Minority Group Relations at RIC, the prof stated that people who proudly claim that they have a black friend is the one most racist and they use this excuse of show people that they are not racist.
DeleteSuch a sad yet true fact of life. Its interesting how scientific facts can be so easily twisted. This also reminds me of how Germans found "scientific facts" saying that jews were more like animals. Not true but of course people will agree and believe anything sometimes. I wish the world wasn't like this, but sadly it will never stop.
ReplyDeleteThe scariest aspect of "scientific" racism was certainly the "Eugenics" movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which led to legally-snactioned forced sterilization in many states.
ReplyDeleteOne of the journals that promoted this idea, Mental Hygeine is still on the shelves at Adams Library! There was also many popular lectures and pamphlets, such as this one from the collections of the Library of Congress.