Is "race" real?
I consider it real in the sense that other people believe in it. But I don't.
Today's Guest Post author looks at population differences. She writes that the notion of race is too imprecise to be useful in medical science.
Guest Post by Constance Hilliard
College classmate Constance Hilliard is an evolutionary historian who has devoted the past fifteen years to investigating the intersection of evolutionary history and human health. Her latest book, Ancestral Genomics: African-American Health in the Age of Precision Medicine, has been published by Harvard University Press with a release date of April 16, 2024. She maintains a website: Evolutionary History & African-American Health.
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| Hilliard |
In late August of 2008, the last item on my check-off list as I wound up a year-long visiting professorship in Japan was a medical wellness exam. Their national health insurance program made the task virtually free. At the age of 59, I had taken considerable pride in the few lifestyle changes that I had adopted over the course of that year. Strolling through a lush garden on the way to campus each morning and making culinary choices that favored the artistic presentation of broiled salmon bento boxes over the sheer poundage of steak and fries had lightened a load that I had not known I carried. But that was before the clinic called me back for an urgent consultation and informed me that I was suffering from kidney failure.
Returning home to Texas two weeks after that devastating diagnosis, my longstanding primary care physician informed me that I had been misdiagnosed. Handing me the lab report, he insisted that my kidneys were perfectly fine. It was then that I noticed a check-off box for “race” at the top of the form. When I asked him what that was about, he merely shrugged and said that it was some kind of algorithmic adjustment that laboratories used. Suddenly, I remembered a remark the Japanese doctor had made at the time of the diagnosis. “Given your lab results,” he said, shaking his head in puzzlement, “quite frankly I have never seen such a healthy-looking patient at such a late stage of renal disease.” Relief entangled with utter confusion launched me on the most iconoclastic journey of my academic career. After all, hadn’t I insistently taught my students over the years that “race” was not biological. It was merely a social construct?
This investigation led me as an evolutionary historian to vital clues that might broaden the way the medical community approaches population differences in health. For instance, the median Japanese daily intake of sodium is 10,000 mg. Americans consume between 3400 and 5000 mg/sodium/day. On the other hand, as an African-American of slave descent, my ancestors emanated from one of the most sodium-deficient regions of the world, that is, the deep interior of West Africa. They farmed in the sweltering heat of the tropics, consuming less than 200 mg/sodium/day. These communities had never tasted table salt, and seasoned their food with the burnt ashes of millet and other plant leaves, a compound high in potassium chloride.
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| Harvard University Press |
Modern medical researchers had for years puzzled over the fact that 75% of African-Americans over the age of 55 suffer from salt-sensitive hypertension, in some cases leading to kidney failure. But we can now see that an ancestral population carrying highly-sodium-retentive gene variants (APOL 1 g1 and g2) will fare poorly in a U.S. food culture, where the median consumption is 3400+/mg/sodium/day. It should also become apparent that an African-American professor who takes a blood test calibrated to a healthy Asian population genetically adapted to a sodium consumption pattern of 10,000 mg/day will appear to a local doctor to be on the verge of a serious medical crisis.
Race is a meaningful social tool in America’s civil vocabulary. It helps us celebrate our cultural diversity and calibrate how far we’ve come in addition to how much farther we need to go in order to realize our aspirations as a truly democratic society. It can also at times serve as an approximation of population differences as was the case in correcting my kidney failure misdiagnosis. Nevertheless, it is far too crude and imprecise a measurement of genetic populations and needs to be removed from medical science. This is especially the case now that we have the greater precision of DNA ancestry testing. The model that I have developed in my own health disparities research classifies populations according to the unique ecological niches to which their ancestors were genetically adapted. This methodology offers vital clues to chronic diseases and certain cancers whose etiologies have previously been misinterpreted.
24 comments:
Race is real, it just isn’t genetic. It’s a culturally created phenomenon. Biologically, there is one race – the race of humanity.
It is my understanding that blood type is a far greater distinguishing feature than race, but you can’t see blood type and you can see skin color, eye shape, and hair types. Some people are suspicious of anything that is different, whether it’s sexuality, female vs male, and most prominently so called race.
I think Jesus would have a hard time in the United States because of how he looked.
Supposed biological race is every bit as important--or should I say unimportant--as biological sex? These days, social constructs are the ties that bind.
Whatever works best. The field of genetics and genetic testing is affecting many aspects of our lives, including criminal justice, genealogy and privacy concerns.
I am not a medical professional, but in science and medicine they often talk about different populations. And by the way, there are major BIOLOGICAL differences between female and male. Only an ignorant, clueless person is unaware of the differences. Women's health needs much more funding and support.
Fun fact (side note): Direct to consumer DNA testing is banned in France to preserve "the peace of families." It is allowed for scientific, medical or judicial purposes.
Two opposite things can be correct at once. There is no race, as there is a gradation between color types and features. I learned that in my anthropology studies. Yet, if you walk down Harlem street, you know which race you belong to.I learned that by experience and in my sociology classes.
Race is a social construct based on superficial regional differences such as melatonin levels. Unfortunately, we have far too many people to whom these superficial differences are an important means of maintaining their delusions of racial superiority. For example, so many Republicans believe in the Great Replacement Theory that it’s become a major campaign issue for them. Ironically, they accuse Democrats of playing racial politics, as if pandering to white supremacists isn’t. Their claims of white persecution and reverse discrimination would be laughable if they weren’t so malicious, perpetuating the outrageous disparities between Blacks and Whites in our society.
Last night viewers witnessed an outstanding and nostalgic performance by Tracy Chapman (black, female, late Baby Boomer, famous folk-rock singer-songwriter) and Luke Combs (white, male, Millennial, country artist) at the Grammys.
Chapman originally released the record ("Fast Car") in 1988. Performances like that can bring our country together. Both artists have Wikipedia pages. Since their performance last night, "Fast Car" has shot to the top of the charts, decades after it was originally released.
If you need a break from all of the negativity being thrown at us everyday, you can find their performance on the internet. It has been all over the news.
There are definite differences in biological subgroups of people that can be defined as races. Black people are more likely to have sickle cell anemia. Asian people are more likely to be lactose intolerant.
Leftist “critical social justice” ideology claims that race is merely “socially constructed.“ It doesn’t seem to me that social construction has anything to do with sickle cell anemia or lactose intolerance.
Ms. Hilliard is undoubtedly correct that a higher resolution analysis of the genetics behind phenomena like this would be useful. But God help the genetics researcher who discovers some racial difference that is not in accord with the politically correct view of these issues.
A trick question:
What race are you if you were born in Africa, and then move to the US as a permanent resident, and perhaps even become a citizen?
Before you state African-American, think about it for a while, first.
Same goes for those born in other countries like India, or any of the 300+ countries around the world that have multi-generations of people from elsewhere.
It's too bad that race is used as an identifier for many things; some good, some bad.
Remotely related: my son had applied to Oregon State University back in 2010. When he was offered admission, he also received a scholarship based on the race box he checked on his application. He checked "Other". Go figure.
He did not attend OSU, and he did not accept the scholarship.
Perhaps we do need a melatonin index to describe people for political purposes.
PS African-American is not a race. And not all Blacks come from Africa.
For the record, it isn’t “leftist critical social justice ideology” claiming that race is a social construct, but science:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue/
Race ? Human, and a member if the subspecies identified as Caucasian.
Scientific American has been taken over by critical social justice ideology.
“For the record“, how is the association between Black people and sickle cell anemia “socially constructed.”
In response to M2inFLA’s trick question:
Elon Musk was born and raised in (South) Africa and then emigrated to the United States and became a citizen here.
Is Elon Musk an “African American”? Should he be eligible for affirmative action? Should his kids? Are they mixed race?
If a subgroup of the population is genetically programmed to retain sodium. ...they need to.know that , so.they have the freedom of choice to.modify health risk factors or not.
IS The societal obligation to.care for and absorb the cost for people who disregard the guidelines.
Thinking No? You might reconsider as you have your second Crispy Creme bacon and cheese doughnut sandwich.
I suppose "Science" has also been taken over by leftist critical social justice ideology:
"Human geneticists have mostly abandoned the word “race” when describing populations in their papers, according to a new study of research published in a leading genetics journal. That’s in line with the current scientific understanding that race is a social construct, and a welcome departure from research that in the past has often conflated genetic variation and racial categories, says Vence Bonham, a social scientist at the National Human Genome Research Institute who led the study."
https://www.science.org/content/article/human-geneticists-curb-use-term-race-their-papers
It’s a funny thing about “race.” The left claims it’s “socially constructed” when they want to ignore it, and then they turn around and claim it’s super important when they want to use it as a basis for discriminating against whites or asians, like with affirmative action or DEI.
Herbert Marcuse came up with this approach for the New Left back in the ‘60s; he called it “repressive tolerance”, and it became part of the woke ideology that’s infesting so many of our institutions now.
It's a funny thing about race. We've had hundreds of years of racial oppression in this country, but ever since Blacks began demanding social justice, Whites have been up in arms over it. Now some Whites are actually claiming they're the ones being discriminated against. It sounds like a corollary of their Great Replacement conspiracy theory.
All you have to do is read Ibram X Kendi, leader of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, one of the foremost proponents of racial wokeism, who demands discrimination against white people in the name of “anti-racism.”
Here’s the quote, from his book, How to Be an Antiracist.
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
I guess two wrongs make a right for the woke far left.
Some social constructs appear to be more equal--more sacrosanct?--than others. Performative but sincere black person Rachel Dolezal is Zero Black, How Dare She? But performative yet sincere female person Dylan Mulvaney is All Woman, How Dare You Even Question? Native Canadian adoptee Buffy St. Marie lies somewhere in between....
Those pesky people of color! First, they didn’t want to be slaves anymore. Then they demanded the vote and now social justice. The typical Black household has over a tenth as much wealth as the typical White household, but still they want more. There’s just no satisfying some people.
So should those pesky people be “satisfied” via reverse discrimination?
Hard to say. First reverse discrimination would have to become a real thing, rather than a figment conjured by White Nationalist antipathy toward Affirmative Action.
I don't think a medical exam error, and that's what this was, is worth noting.
Glad the patient is doing well.
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