Racism, Not Race
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
The science on race is clear. Common categories like “Black,” “white,” and “Asian” do not represent genetic differences among groups. But if race is a pernicious fiction according to natural science, it is all too significant in the day-to-day lives of racialized people across the globe. Inequities in health, wealth, and an array of other life outcomes cannot be explained without referring to “race”—but their true source is racism. What do we need to know about the pseudoscience of race in order to fight racism and fulfill human potential?
In this book, two distinguished scientists tackle common misconceptions about race, human biology, and racism. Using an accessible question-and-answer format, Joseph L. Graves Jr. and Alan H. Goodman explain the differences between social and biological notions of race. Although there are many meaningful human genetic variations, they do not map onto socially constructed racial categories. Drawing on evidence from both natural and social science, Graves and Goodman dismantle the malignant myth of gene-based racial difference. They demonstrate that the ideology of racism created races and show why the inequalities ascribed to race are in fact caused by racism.
Graves and Goodman provide persuasive and timely answers to key questions about race and racism for a moment when people of all backgrounds are striving for social justice. Racism, Not Race shows readers why antiracist principles are both just and backed by sound science.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Biologist Graves (The Race Myth) and biological anthropologist Goodman (Race: Are We So Different?) marshal data from genetics, medicine, and the social sciences in this insightful takedown of race as a matter of biology. In question-and-answer format, they detail the effects of race and racism on the health and socioeconomic status of marginalized people as seen in infant mortality rates, deaths from chronic diseases, and income inequality. Their questions cover historical matters ("Did the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians have a concept of race?" Short answer: no), hard science ("What explains human genetic differences?" In sum, mutation and migration), and practical concepts ("Are genetic ancestry and race the same thing?" Not according to Graves and Goodman). The authors show how racism has led to Black and brown people being subject to inaccurate stereotypes, and has also saddled them with health concerns, such as heart disease, being wrongly attributed to biological causes. The authors are most effective when they stick to their area of scientific expertise, and less so when they venture onto the well-worn territory covered by other anti-racist authors on general institutional reforms. Even so, this brings a new angle and an accessible approach to the ongoing reckoning with race in America.
