Race is Not Biologically Real, But It Is Socially Powerful: The Impact of Pseudoscientific Racism
Photo Illustration: Humanizing History Visuals. Photo: General Research Division, The New York Public Library. "Diagram of the facial goniometer" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1839.
Welcome to Humanizing History™! Every month, we feature a central theme. Each week, we dive into different areas of focus.
This month’s theme: Race Isn’t Biologically Real, But It Is Socially Powerful
This week’s focus: Racial Literacy 101, or facts we should know about race or culture, but likely weren’t taught.
Today’s edition of Humanizing History™ is over 1800 words, an estimated 7½ -minute read.
The Why for This Month’s Topic
This month, we’re examining the “both/and” of race, or how race is both a biological fallacy and a powerful social reality.
It’s essential that educators, caregivers, and members of society understand that race isn't a biological or genetic truth — or to put it simply, to understand that because it’s a social construct of invented, fluctuating categories, race does not equal traits.
Many people believe race is something that can be measured with science, but it can’t. Studies reveal that people who believe in the false idea of “biological essentialism,” or that race can be consistently contained with biology or genetics, are less likely to support racial equity initiatives, and often exhibit less desire to cultivate cross racial interactions and friendships.
Understanding that race is a biological fallacy — and, as we’ll examine in greater depth this month, how race is also a powerful social reality — can help us debunk stereotypes and cultivate paradigm shifts. This lens can help us see each other as relatable humans — a foundation for inclusion and belonging.
Content Warning
There’s a content warning for this newsletter, as we’ll examine pseudoscientific racism, providing a brief overview of how some people worked tirelessly — for centuries — to make the biological concept of race appear true, mostly in ill attempts to dehumanize others, and to try to justify racism.
But it’s important to review it. We’ve inherited much of this history, and if we don’t realize it, we may give life to these falsehoods.
While Race Is A Powerful Social Construct, It’s Not Something That Can Be Consistently Measured with Biology or Genetics
There is no scientific way to consistently measure race, or the common, distinct racial categories often used across society.
In fact, human beings share 99.9 percent of their genes. There’s no race chromosome, and no consistent collection of genes that belong to a specific racial group or continent.
If we take the social category of race into account, studies have indicated that there can be more genetic variation “within” (what is often considered to be) a racial group, than across racial groups.
Yet, ideas of biological race persist. Currently, we live in an era of take-home DNA ancestry tests which suggest that race can be slotted into distinct percentages, like slices on a pie chart, but it’s simply not an accurate take, as we’ll unpack in this newsletter.
Though it’s not a scientific truth, race is a powerful social construct. It has a big impact on our lives.
Through socialization, we are racialized. We live in a world that assigns a lot of meaning to phenotype, such as but not limited to skin color, facial features, hair texture, as well as concepts like citizenship, language, other aspects of culture, etc.
But, there’s a difference between what we see and the assumptions we make — and the values we assign — based on what we see. Meaning, we may see variations of phenotype and try to group them, but there is no scientific way to consistently group humans based on appearance, or the concept of race. As anthropologist Ashely Montagu stated, race is a “product of perceptions rather than a biological fact.”
While the invention of race has been/is still connected to dehumanizing, racist constructs, it’s also important to note that many people across time and place have strongly advocated to form a positive view of their social, racial (ethnic, cultural) identities. We’ll examine this idea in greater depth in upcoming newsletters.
For now, let’s try to understand how the false biologization of race took hold, and how it continues to circulate across society.
A Brief Overview of Pseudoscientific Racism, How Grave Robbers & Bone Collectors Created a False Myth of Race
For centuries, pseudoscientists collected brains and bones to make false claims that humans, of different phenotype or superficial, physical variations, were unequal to each other, and that a supposed, innate racial hierarchy existed.
These ideas were rooted in unsound practices, like the study of craniometry — which sometimes involved measuring facial angles, or stuffing bullets into skulls to supposedly measure intelligence via volume.
Sometimes people robbed graves, even stole brains, to add to the centuries-long legacy of “junk science” which aimed to dehumanize and rank people.
There were numerous people proclaiming such ideas, we’ll highlight some, not all.
In 1776, Johan Blumenbach, a collector of human skulls, falsely claimed that people could be delineated into 5 races: “Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian, American, and Caucasian.” At the top of his invented hierarchy, Blumenbach placed “Caucasian,” based on a skull he believed belonged to a person from the Caucasus Mountains, which Blumenbach described as “the most beautiful form” of the human skull, from which all “others diverge.” This work laid a troubling foundation for white supremacy, which was latched onto and woefully legitimized by enslavers and those who benefited from and/or were motivated by racist animus.
Throughout the 1800s, Josiah Nott, an enslaver from South Carolina, falsely claimed in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal that racial “mixing” between White and Black populations resulted in an “inferior,” “hybrid” racial group, who — he claimed — were “less capable,” unfit for reproduction, and would eventually die out.
Samuel Morton, a physician from Philadelphia, amassed a collection of over 1,000 human skulls in the 1800s — many of which were robbed from graves. In 1839, he published a book, Crania Americana, where he falsely asserted that “Caucasians” had the biggest brains — supposedly based on how many bullets he could cram into a skull — and therefore, represented the “superior” race.
Aleš Hrdlička, an anthropologist, scavenged thousands of human brains, many of which are housed at the Smithsonian, to falsely assert that “Old American Stock,” or the “Anglo-Saxon” immigrants who created the early U.S. colonies, were racially superior. Hrdlička was a proponent of Eugenics, a disturbing scientific field that gained global momentum in the 1900s, even inspiring Hitler as he established Nazi Germany.
Unfortunately, Pseudoscientific Racism Persists
Even though the vast majority of scientists today assert that race is not a biological truth, the false belief persists for many, often with harmful, deleterious impact.
A study, published in the National Library of Medicine, speaks to this: “The belief of race as a biological concept with human populations having a distinct biological basis is unconsciously embedded in many individuals’ thinking. These individuals think population differences in health and intelligence are the result of immutable, biologically based differences between ‘racial’ groups, despite overwhelming evidence that racial groups are not genetically discrete, reliably measured or scientifically meaningful.”
Another study reveals how a lack of understanding about race has impacted medical schools and training: “Race is not a biological category based on innate differences that produce unequal health outcomes. Rather, it is a social category that reflects the impact of unequal social experience on health. Yet medical education and practice have not evolved to reflect these advances in understanding of the relationships among race, racism, and health.”
Holding onto myths about race — knowingly or unknowingly — may impact the (medical) treatment people of different social racial identities may receive, as this study notes how some medical professionals believe that race is connected to pain tolerance, and other myths, such as “Black people’s skin is thicker than White people's skin.”
While enduring myths about race may be connected to a lack of education on basic facts about race (i.e. what race is and what it isn’t), sometimes, the false biologization of race is intentionally used to dehumanize — including when people in power wield harmful disinformation and propaganda, such as recent comments that immigration would negatively impact gene pools or the “blood” of a nation.
It’s also important to note that some scientists have poured their life’s work into debunking such myths, as we’ll see in an upcoming newsletter about Dr. William Montague Cobb. Though misconceptions about race are still present in society, facts are available to us, which can counteract dehumanizing myths.
What DNA Ancestry Tests Are and Are Not Capable Of
In the past decade, take-home DNA tests grew in popularity. For many, they were seen as valuable tools to better understand ancestry, especially if someone may not know the story of their biological family, such as but not limited to those who may have the African diaspora as part or their lineage.
DNA tests can identify biological relatives with great accuracy, but they cannot identify your race or ethnicity as distinct percentages. As geneticist Adam Rutherford states, “When it comes to ancestry, DNA is very good at determining close family relations such as siblings or parents… [But] for deeper family roots, these tests do not really tell you where your ancestors come from.”
The rise in popularity of take-home DNA tests kits, as noted in this study, may impact the public’s views on race, and how race is connected to inherited traits: “Concerns have been raised that the increase in popular interest in genetics may herald a new era within which racial inequities are seen as ‘natural’ or immutable.”
As documented by this study, erroneous ideas about race, such as the myth that it’s a genetically measurable entity, have conjured up new forms of online racism and false supremacy.
To better understand how many of these DNA tests function, we’ve included a brief overview.
What many of these tests are measuring are the minuscule variants in our DNA — remember, we only have 0.1 percent genetic difference, human to human. Single nucleotide polymorphisms, or “SNPs” are the most common type of genetic variation, and are key data for DNA tests.
Let’s say someone taking a DNA ancestry test carries the SNP for sickle cell anemia, and they submit their DNA sample to two companies. If “Company A” has more people in their database who share that SNP for sickle cell, and self-identify as broadly Western African, then they’ll assign that person percentages of West African ancestry, with varying levels of “confidence.” If the second company, “Company B” has more people in their database who carry the SNP for sickle cell, but self-identify as something else, such as South Asian, or Southern European, then they’ll assign those labels to the person’s race/ethnicity “pie chart,” with varying degrees of confidence. There’s a common misconception that sickle cell anemia is relegated to one racial group, but many SNPs, including sickle cell anemia, can be found in populations around the world.
In summary, a DNA ancestry test is making guesses based on a tiny fraction of your DNA, comparing your information with people who may have some SNPs in common with you, and how these other people (in a particular company’s database) reported or guessed their own race/ethnicity, and assigning some of these labels to you. See this video for more information.
Connecting To Ourselves & Each Other
Wanting to know “our story” is important to many of us, and while DNA tests kits and other tools may not be able to accurately portray a pie chart of our racial identity, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have a social race, or ethnicity or culture.
Next week, we’ll examine the social reality of race, and how enhancing our knowledge around race (through the lens of history and science) may indeed expand our worldview, and hopefully our ability to see the humanity in ourselves and in one another.
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