What’s Real About Race?: Untangling Science, Genetics, and Society

Bliss (Race Decoded), a sociology professor at Rutgers University, delivers a searching examination of how questionable science has been used to justify racism throughout history. She explains that as European naturalists traversed the globe in the 17th and 18th centuries, they sent back reports speculating that the people they encountered were of inferior “species,” claims that rulers used to rationalize their colonial conquests. Charles Darwin adapted race science to his evolutionary theories in the 1800s, Bliss writes, noting that while he “characterized races as being equally fit to survive,” he asserted that Europeans were the most advanced. Surveying a bounty of research from the past 30 years proving that race has no biological basis, she cites studies that found many traits colloquially believed to distinguish certain racial or ethnic groups are actually shared by diverse populations across the globe. For instance, the trait that causes sickle cell anemia, often described as a “Black disease,” is relatively rare in eastern and southern Africa while appearing with high frequency in Indian and Mediterranean populations. Bliss lays out scathing critiques of those who continue to uphold a genomic understanding of race, pointing out, for instance, the numerous flaws in political scientist Charles Murray’s claims about racial IQ differences. A sweeping refutation of scientific racism through the ages, this packs a punch. (Feb.)