{"id":448,"date":"2020-06-07T05:13:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-07T05:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=448"},"modified":"2020-11-11T13:00:18","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T18:00:18","slug":"would-you-explain-to-folks-the-statement-there-is-no-genetic-basis-for-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=448","title":{"rendered":"Would you explain to folks the statement, \u201cThere is no genetic basis for race\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Question: <\/strong>I saw on a House hearing on COVID on Thursday, a House rep said that there may be a possible \u201cgenetic component\u201d for racial disparities in the COVID epidemic. The witness, a black woman M.D., pushed back by responding \u201cThere is no genetic basis for race\u2026race is a social construct.\u201d I won\u2019t ask you to take on the second part (unless you\u2019d like to), but I feel like it may be helpful if you could maybe explain to folks what Dr. Uche Blackstock said when she said that \u201cThere is no genetic basis for race\u201d. Aren\u2019t the features that make a person their race embedded in their DNA? Can you talk about how that\u2019s a dangerous assumption in a public health setting? [Sidenote: I personally agree with Dr Blackstock, but some people may not have heard this line of argument before\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Answer:<\/strong> Dr. Blackstock\u2019s words are true. There is no genetic basis for race; race is a social construct. The history of race science is a long, painful, and ugly one. And like so many other issues, its roots are in slavery. Here\u2019s a very brief (too brief) synthesis of race science and answer to your question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historians show that the concept of race stems from the Atlantic slave trade<\/a>, which began in 1441. At that time, Portugal played a leading role in the Atlantic Slave Trade and in response, Portuguese leaders, chroniclers, and the Catholic Church placed Africans in a new category of enslaveable people \u2014 a group of \u201cbarbaric savages\u201d who deserved \u201ccivilizing.\u201d This categorization served the economic interests of the enslavers and assuaged any moral concern they may have had about the horrors they were inflicting on fellow human beings. A well-articulated language of racial inferiority based on skin color was birthed and spread throughout Europe and her colonies. Over the centuries, enslavers looked for ways to confirm their beliefs in their own superiority and the in the inferiority of darker-skinned \u201cothers\u201d. This desire for confirmation (confirmation in the economic and social structures the enslavers developed at the expense of the enslaved) birthed race science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Race science used to just be \u201cscience.\u201d Its focus is on identifying biologic differences between the races and using these differences to create hierarchies. NYU provides this important timeline of race science<\/a>. And FacingHistory.org summarizes<\/a>, \u201cProminent scientists from many countries built upon each other\u2019s conclusions\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n