Mixed Race Studies

Author takes on modern myths about race

Skokie Review
Chicago, Illinois
2013-04-05

Mike Isaacs

he 8-year-old girl who had difficulty breathing had been misdiagnosed for a long time, but then a technician looked at her X-ray and asked incredulously why she had not been treated for cystic fibrosis.

The reason was because she was black, and cystic fibrosis was thought to be a white people’s disease. The technician had never met the girl when he asked his question.

“It’s bad medicine to look at someone’s race and say you should get this test or that test, because you may be completely wrong,” said distinguished author and educator Dorothy Roberts.

To Roberts, who penned “Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics and Big Business Re-Create Race in the 21st Century,” this is just one example of a distorted view of science and race playing out today.

“There’s no such thing as a white disease or a black disease or an Asian disease,” Roberts said during a provocative talk Sunday at Skokie’s Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago. “That doesn’t make sense, because there’s no gene that belongs to a particular race that doesn’t belong to other races.”

She argues that the tie between biology and race is a myth that has been resurrected again, this time with the help of a false reliance on modern-day science…

…Some of the same theories from the era of eugenics, she said, are being resuscitated in 21st century science.

Roberts isn’t saying, though that we’re all identical – one reason she isn’t keen on President Clinton’s famous declaration about the Human Genome Project that all human beings, regardless of race, are more than 99 percent the same.

“It makes it sound like we’re all alike, and you can see that everyone isn’t alike,” she said. “There’s lots of genetic variation in the human species, but it’s not grouped into races.”…

Read the entire article here.

The operationalization of race and ethnicity concepts in medical classification systems: issues of validity and utility

Health Informatics Journal
Volume 11, Number 4 (December 2005)
pages 259-274
DOI: 10.1177/1460458205055688

Peter J. Aspinall, Emeritus Reader in Population Health
University of Kent, UK

This article looks at the operationalization of race and ethnicity concepts in medical classification systems, notably the main bibliographical databases of MEDLINE and EMBASE. In particular, an attempt is made to assess recent changes, including the impact of the 2004 major changes to the MeSH headings for race and ethnic groups, and the introduction of ‘Continental Population Groups’. The underlying conceptual basis of the typologies, their relevance for capturing specific population groups, and their overall usefulness in appraising the literature on ethnic/racial disparities in health are examined. The bibliographical database thesauri reveal the pervasiveness of the notion of the biological basis of health differences by race/ethnicity as well as continuing use of antiquated racial terminology. Their system-oriented terminology is likely to limit the effectiveness of retrieval by users who may lack knowledge of their hierarchical structures.

Read or purchase the article here.

Beyond Race: Human Biological Diversity (Third Edition)

Cognella
2013

Joelle Presson, Affiliate Research Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
University of Maryland

Jan Jenner
University of Alabama, Birmingham

Race. It’s an idea that dominates our culture and continues to generate societal tensions. But what really are human races? Are races meaningful in a biological sense? What is the significance of the variety of human skin and hair colors? Are black, white, Asian, and Native American valid categories that reflect basic human differences?

Beyond Race: Human Biological Diversity answers these questions and provides the most recent scientific studies on human genetic groups and on the origins of the human family tree. Prepare to see racial stereotypes challenged as Beyond Race: Human Biological Diversity integrates basic biological knowledge with current understanding of human genetics, evolution, and human variation. Beyond Race allows students to view humanity through the lens of modern biology and re-evaluate society’s traditional ideas about human races. Exciting new findings about human evolution are presented along with DNA analyses that have revised our understanding of human history. In this context the reader will reflect on race and how racial distinctions have influenced society’s attitude to and treatment of different groups of people.

Beyond Race begins with discussions of the concepts that are the foundation of biology. These foundations provide the basic biological context that is essential to a genuine understanding of the current revolution in the study of human relationships. Coverage of Darwin’s principles, evolution, biological classification, the emergence of life from chemistry, cell reproduction, and genetics lead to a sophisticated appreciation of DNA lineages. The reader will find all of this invaluable in navigating the modern world of genetic and ancestry testing. The study of genomics also is central to understanding human biological diversity and is woven into the content of Beyond Race.

As a result of this comprehensive and integrated coverage, students will learn that the separation of humans into “races” is not biologically valid and that the idea of race can now be replaced with the concept of a more accurately detailed human family tree. The primary goal of Beyond Race is not to give students simple answers to complex questions concerning race, but rather to enable them to draw their own conclusions about the value of continuing to use “races” as labels for human beings.

Sections entitled Threads… begin each chapter and link the readings to real-world events that are already familiar to students. They demonstrate the clear, vital, critically important connections between the science studied in the classroom and life on a broader stage. Of special note are the Now You Can Understand, What Do You Think?, and Chapter Review sections that conclude each chapter. These offer opportunities for reflection and synthesis, reinforce important ideas and concepts, and enhance student retention of the material. Additional Reading, a short annotated bibliography that closes each chapter, links chapter content to a broader pool of intellectual resources.

Beyond Race: Human Biological Diversity is designed for use in courses on Human Biology and Genetics.

The Mismeasure of Man

W. W. Norton & Company
June 1996 (Originally published in 1981)
448 pages
5.5 × 8.3 in
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-393-31425-0

Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002), Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Geology
Harvard University

The definitive refutation to the argument of The Bell Curve.

When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits.

 Yet the idea of biology as destiny dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined. In this edition, Stephen Jay Gould has written a substantial new introduction telling how and why he wrote the book and tracing the subsequent history of the controversy on innateness right through The Bell Curve. Further, he has added five essays on questions of The Bell Curve in particular and on race, racism, and biological determinism in general. These additions strengthen the book’s claim to be, as Leo J. Kamin of Princeton University has said, “a major contribution toward deflating pseudo-biological ‘explanations’ of our present social woes.”

Racial Theories in Context (Second Edition)

Cognella
2013
224 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60927-056-8

Edited by:

Jared Sexton, Associate Professor of African American Studies and Film & Media Studies
University of California, Irvine

This book presents a critical framework for understanding how and why race matters — past, present, and future. The readings trace the historical emergence of modern racial thinking in Western society by examining religious, moral, aesthetic, and scientific writing; legal statutes and legislation; political debates and public policy; and popular culture. Readers will follow the shifting ideological bases upon which modern racial theories have rested, from religion to science to culture, and the links between race, class, gender, and sexuality, and between notions of race and the nation-state.

The authors of Racial Theories in Context discuss the relationship of racial theories to material contexts of racial oppression and to democratic struggles for freedom and equality:

• First and foremost in this discussion is the vast system of racial slavery instituted throughout the Atlantic world and the international movement that sought its abolition.
• Continuing campaigns to redress racial divisions in health, wealth, housing, employment, and education are also examined.
• There is a focus on the specificity of racial formation in the United States and the centrality of anti-black racism.
• The book also looks comparatively at other regions of racial inequality and the construction of a global racial hierarchy since the 15th century CE.

Contents

• Introduction / Jared Sexton
• A Long History of Affirmative Action—For Whites / Larry Adelman
• The Cost of Slavery / Dalton Conley
• Statement on Gender Violence and the Prison-Industrial Complex / INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and Critical Resistance
• Introduction To Racism: A Short History / George M. Fredrickson
• Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West / Darlene Clark Hine
• Understanding the Problematic of Race Through the Problem of Race-Mixture / Thomas C. Holt
• The Sexualization of Reconstruction Politics / Martha Hodes
• The Original Housing Crisis / Derek S. Hoff
• The American Dream, or a Nightmare for Black America? / Joshua Holland
• The Hidden Cost of Being African American / Michael Hout
• Slavery and Proto-Racism in Greco-Roman Antiquity / Benjamin Isaac
• Colorblind Racism / Sally Lehrman
• The Wealth Gap Gets Wider / Meizhu Lui
• Sub-Prime as a Black Catastrophe / Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro
• Unshackling Black Motherhood / Dorothy E. Roberts
• Is Race -Based Medicine Good for Us? / Dorothy E. Roberts
• Understanding Reproductive Justice / Loretta J. Ross
• The History of the Idea of Race / Audrey Smedley
• The Liberal Retreat From Race / Stephen Steinberg
• “Race Relations” / Stephen Steinberg

Race and Ethnic Relations in the Twenty-First Century: History, Theory, Institutions, and Policy

Cognella
2011
436 pages
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-93555-160-7

Edited by:

Rashawn Ray, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Maryland, College Park

This book examines the major theoretical and empirical approaches regarding race/ethnicity. Its goal is to continue to place race and ethnic relations in a contemporary, intersectional, and cross-comparative context and progress the discipline to include groups past the Black/White dichotomy. Using various sociological theories, social psychological theories, and subcultural approaches, this book gives students a sociohistorical, theoretical, and institutional frame with which to view race and ethnic relations in the twenty-first century.

Table of Contents

• Race and Ethnic Relations in the Twenty-First Century / Rashawn Ray
• The Embedded Nature of ‘Race’ Requires a Focused Effort to Remove the Obstacles to a Unified America / Dr. James M. Jones
• PART 1 THE SOCIOHISTORICAL CONTEXT OF RACE
  • The Science, Social Construction, and Exploitation of Race / Rashawn Ray
  • Science of Race
    • The Evolution of Racial Classification / Tukufu Zuberi
  • Social Construction of Race
    • Racist America: Racist Ideology as a Social Force / Joe R. Feagin
  • Exploitation of Race
    • White Racism and the Black Experience / St. Clair Drake
• PART 2 THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES
  • Racial Attitudes Research: Debates, Major Advances, and Future Directions / Rashawn Ray
  • Individual and Structural Racism
    • Racial Formation: Understanding Race and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era / Michael Omi and Howard Winant
    • From Bi-racial to Tri-racial: Towards a New System of Racial Stratification in the U.S.A. / Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
  • The Social Psychology of Prejudice and Perceived Discrimination
    • Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position / Herbert Blumer
    • Reactions Toward the New Minorities of Western Europe / Thomas F. Pettigrew
  • Racial Attitudes and Public Discourses
    • Racial Attitudes and Relations at the Close of the Twentieth Century / Lawrence D. Bobo
  • Race, Gender, and Sexuality
    • Getting Off and Getting Intimate: How Normative Institutional Arrangements Structure Black and White Fraternity Men’s Approaches Toward Women / Rashawn Ray and Jason A. Rosow
  • Colorism, Lookism, and Tokenism
    • “One-Drop” to Rule them All? Colorism and the Spectrum of Racial Stratifi cation in the Twenty-First Century / Victor Ray
  • Assimilation Perspectives: Group Threat Theory, Contact Theory, and Ethnic Conflict
    • The Ties that Bind and Those that Don’t: Toward Reconciling Group Threat and Contact Theories of Prejudice / Jeffrey C. Dixon
  • Citizenship, Nationalism, and Human Rights
    • Citizenship, Nationalism, and Human Rights / Shiri Noy
• PART 3 THE CUMULATIVE PIPELINE OF PERSISTENT INSTITUTIONAL RACISM
  • The Cumulative Pipeline of Persistent Institutional Racism / Rashawn Ray
  • Individual and Structural Racism
    • A Different Menu: Racial Residential Segregation and the Persistence of Racial Inequality / Abigail A. Sewell
  • Education
    • Cracking the Educational Achievement Gap(s) / R. L’Heureux Lewis and Evangeleen Pattison
  • The Labor Market, Socioeconomic Status, and Wealth
    • Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination / Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan
    • Black Wealth/White Wealth: Wealth Inequality Trends / Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro
    • The Mark of a Criminal Record / Devah Pager
  • The Criminal Justice System
    • Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality / Robert J. Sampson and William Julius Wilson
  • The Health Care System
    • Root and Structural Causes of Minority Health and Health Disparities / Keon L. Gilbert and Chikarlo R. Leak
• PART 4 CONFRONTING THE PIPELINE: SOCIAL POLICY ISSUES
  • Engaging Social Change by Embracing Diversity / Rashawn Ray
  • When Is Affirmative Action Fair? On Grievous Harms and Public Remedies / Ira Katznelson
  • Engaging Future Leaders: Peer Education at Work in Colleges and Universities / Alta Mauro and Jason Robertson
  • What Do We Think About Race? / Lawrence D. Bobo

DNA Ancestry Tests: Simultaneously Powerful and Limited

KQED QUEST
KQED: Public Media for Northern California
2013-04-08

Dr. Barry Starr, Geneticist-in-Residence
Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, California

Using a common DNA ancestry test, President Obama would be 100% Caucasian.

Sometimes genetic tests aren’t as useful as you think they will be. For example, if President Obama were to take a common ancestry DNA test, it would almost certainly come back as 100% Caucasian. Useful, huh?

This sort of test, a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) test, can look into the deep past but it can only see mom’s side of the family. And it isn’t even really that powerful. It not only ignores dad’s side of the family, but in reality it can only see a sliver of mom’s as well…

…The other kind of test, the Y chromosome test, can go as far back along the paternal line as the mtDNA test can along the maternal line but it suffers from the same problems. In fact, a surprising number (35%?) of African-American men actually have Caucasian Y chromosomes (well, given plantation life, maybe not so surprising). None of these men will learn anything about their African heritage with this test.

So the bottom line is don’t put too much faith into DNA testing alone. It is kind of fun to trace back your history this way but you are really only following one strand of your ancestral web back in time. The rest of the web is invisible to DNA testing…

Read the entire article here.

Racial Myths

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
UNESCO Publication 891
1951
51 pages

Juan Comas (1900-1979), Professor of Anthropology
Mexican School of Anthropology

CONTENTS

• I. General observations on racial prejudices and myths
• II. The myth of blood and of the inferiority of cross-breeds
• III. Colour prejudice: the Negro myth
• IV. The Jewish myth
• V. The myth of «Aryan» or «Nordic» superiority Origin of the Aryans
  • Doctrine of Aryanism and Teutonism .
  • Anthroposociology and social selection
  • The «Aryan» thesis of contemporary nazism and fascism
  • The alleged «Anglo-Saxon» type
  • «Celticism»
  • Criticism and refutation of these theories
• VI. Conclusion
• Bibliography

…II. THE MYTH OF BLOOD AND OF THE INFERIORITY OF CROSS-BREEDS

Human miscegenation has been and is the subject of infinite debate. Opinions on the subject are conditioned by the views of the disputants on race and racial differences, the opponents of miscegenation starting from the assumption of racial inequality, whereas its defenders take the view that the differences between human groups are not such as to constitute an objection to cross-breeding between them. Hence the first thing needed in the study of the problems raised by human inter-breeding is a clear definition of what is meant by race and the selection of criteria for deciding whether or not any pure races exist.

Even under the loosest definition, race implies the existence of groups presenting certain similarities in somatic characteristics which are perpetuated according to the laws of biological inheritance, allowing for a margin of individual variation.

The peoples of Europe are of such mongrel origin that any attempt at classification according to only two characteristics (colour of eyes and hair) would exclude two-thirds of the population in any region studied; the addition of a third characteristic (cranial formation) would leave us with a still smaller fraction of the population presenting the required combination of all three characteristics; and with the inclusion of stature and nasal index, the proportion of «pure» types would become infinitesimal.

We may take it then that there are no pure human races; at the very most it would be possible to define a pure race in terms of the incidence of one selected somatic characteristic, but never in terms of all or even of the majority of hereditary traits. Nevertheless there is a widespread belief that there was a time in antiquity when racial types were pure, that miscegenation is of relatively recent date, and that it threatens humanity with a general degeneration and retrogression. This belief lacks the slightest support from science. The mixing of races has been going on since the very beginning of human life on earth, though obviously the improvement of communications and the general increase in population has stimulated it in the last two centuries. Migration is as old as the human race, and automatically implies cross-breeding between groups. It is quite possible that the Cro-Magnon type of the upper Paleolithic interbred with Neanderthal man, as seems to be indicated by the discovery of remains displaying intermediate characteristics. Moreover the existence of Negroid and Mongoloid races in prehistoric Europe is a further proof that cross-breeding is not a recent phenomenon, and that the oldest populations of Europe are no more than the product of such miscegenation over thousands of years. Yet they show neither the disharmony nor the degeneration which many writers believe to result from racial interbreeding.

History shows us that all the areas in which a high culture has developed have been the scene of the conquest of an indigenous race by foreign nomadic groups, followed by the breaking down of caste divisions and the creation of new amalgams; these, though regarded as racially homogeneous nations, were in fact no more than new  nationalities comprising different races.

Those who, like Jon A. Mjöen, consider miscegenation dangerous for the future of mankind, assert that it is a source of physical degeneracy and that immunity against certain diseases diminishes. They allege that prostitutes and vagrants are commoner among half-bred than among purebred races, while an increased incidence of tuberculosis and other diseases is observable among the former group, with a diminution of mental balance of vigour and, an increase in criminal tendencies (Harmonic and Disharmonic Race Crossing and Harmonic and Unharmonic Crossings, 1922). These data are not valid because the writer does not specify the types of individuals studied nor the general characteristics of the races which have interbred; he ought also to prove that the specific families whose interbreeding produced the half-breeds examined were physically and mentally healthy and free of any sign of degeneracy or disability. Mjöen also entirely overlooks the influence of the social background on the subjects’ behaviour.

C. B. Davenport also demonstrates (in The Effects of Racial Miscegenation, 1917) the existence of disharmonic phenomena in half-breeds-relatively small digestive organs in a bulky body, well developed teeth in weak jaws, large thighs out of proportion to the body, etc. It is not disputed that there are individuals displaying such characteristics, but it has not been shown that the phenomena are due to miscegenation; similar cases are found among old families while generally speaking crossbreeding between black and white produces well proportioned individuals…

…The notion of humanity as being divided into completely separate racial compartments is inaccurate. It is based on false premises, and more particularly on the «blood» theory of heredity which is as false as the old racist theory. «Of one blood» is a phrase without meaning, since the genes or factors of heredity have no connection whatever with the blood, and are independent elements which not only do not amalgamate but tend to become most sharply differentiated. Heredity is not a fluid transmitted through the blood, nor is it true that the different «bloods» of the progenitors are mixed and combined in their offspring.

The myth of «blood» as the decisive criterion regarding the value of a cross persists even in our own day and men still speak of «blood» as the vehicle of inherited qualities, «of my own blood», «the voice of blood», «mixed blood», «new blood», «half blood», etc. The terms, «blue blood» and «plebeian blood» have become a permanent part of everyday speech as descriptions of the descendants of aristocratic and plebeian families respectively, the last being used in a depreciative sense. «Blood» is also to mean nationality: «German blood», «Spanish blood», «Jewish blood», etc. The criterion reaches the nadir of absurdity in such cases as the classification in the United States of those individuals as «Negroes» or «Indians» who have one-sixteenth part of Indian blood» or «black blood»—that is, when one of their sixteen direct ancestors (great-great-grandparents) was a Negro or an Indian…

…Accordingly we can sum up the position more or less as follows: (a) miscegenation has existed since the dawn of human life; (b) miscegenation results in a greater somatic and psychic variability and allows of the emergence of a great variety of new gene combinations, thus increasing the range of hereditary characteristics in the new population group; (c) speaking biologically, miscegenation is neither good nor bad, its effects being dependent in every case on the individual characteristics of the persons between whom such crossbreeding takes place. As, in general, miscegenation occurs more frequently between individuals on the lower social levels and in unsatisfactory economic and social circumstances, the causes of certain anomalies observable must be sought in this fact rather than in the fact of miscegenation as such; (d) examples of «pure races» or of isolated human groups having developed a high culture independently are the exception; (e) on the contrary the great majority of areas of high civilization are inhabited by obviously cross-bred groups….

Read the entire book here.

TEDxNorthwesternU – Rick Kittles – The Biology of Race in the Absence of Biological Races

TEDxTalks
2011-01-25

Rick Kittles, Professor of Medicine
University of Illinois, Chicago
College of Medicine

Defining “race” continues to be a nemesis. Knowledge from human genetic research is increasingly challenging the notion that race and biology are inextricably linked, engendering tremendous ramifications for human relations, identity and public health. It has become fashionable for geneticists and anthropologists to declare that race is a social construction. However, there is little practical value to this belief since few in the public believe and act on it. Thus race is mainly a social concept which in the US has been based on skin color and ancestry. Yet biomedical studies continue to examine black/ white differences. Kittles discusses why using race in biomedical studies is problematic using examples from U.S. groups which transcend “racial” boundaries and bear the burden of health disparities.

Rick Kittles, PhD, received a BS in biology from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1989 and a PhD in biological sciences from George Washington University in 1998. He then helped establish the National Human Genome Center at Howard University. Currently, Kittles is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), as well as the associate director of the UIC Cancer Center.

Kittles is well known for his research of prostate cancer and health disparities among African Americans. He has also been at the forefront of the development of ancestry-informative genetic markers, and how genetic ancestry can be used to map genes for common traits and disease. His work on tracing the genetic ancestry of African Americans has brought light to many issues, new and old, which relate to race, ancestry, identity, and group membership.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.

The Growing Need for a National Eugenic Program

Bios
Volume 7, Number 3 (October, 1936)
pages 176-187

Sue D. Comer
Mississippi Stale College for Women

This paper received second award in the 1936 undergraduate competition.

There has been much discussion during the past half century concerning Eugenics. This discussion has not been limited to scientists but has interested laymen as well who have looked upon the subject as something mysterious and new. As a matter of fact, however, Eugenics is not new. The old saying “There’s nothing new under the sun” holds true again. In very early times a sort of Eugenics program was carried out by nature herself; there was natural selection or to put it in another way the survival of the fittest. In ancient Sparta there was a rather ruthless program in which all the defective children were abandoned because there was no place for them in society. Thus on up through the years men have given the subject of human betterment consideration. “As early as the first half of the sixth century B.C. the Greek poet, Theognis of Megara, wrote: ‘We look for rams and asses and stallions of good stock, and one believes that good will come of good: yet a good man minds not to wed an evil daughter of an evil sire, if he but give her much wealth. . . . Wealth confounds our stock. Marvel not that the stock of our fold is tarnished, for the good is mingled with the base.’ ” A century later Plato set forth a eugenic plan in which the best were to mate the best and the worst, the worst. The best were to be encouraged in having large families; the worst, small families or none at all, and the children of the unfit were to be done away with. At about this same time, Aristotle had a program for eugenics which was based on the belief that the state should have the right of intervention in the interest of reproductive selection.

“For nearly two thousand years after this, conscious eugenic ideals were largely ignored. Constant war reversed natural selection, as it is doing today, by killing off the physically fit and leaving the relatively unfit to reproduce the race, while monasticism and the enforced celibacy of the priesthood performed a similar office for many of the mentally superior, attracting them to a career in which they could leave no posterity. At the beginning of the last century a germ of modern eugenics is visible in Malthus famous essay on population, in which he directed attention to the importance of the birthrate for human welfare, since this essay led Darwin and Wallace to enunciate the theory of natural selection, and to point out clearly the effects of artificial selection. It is really on Darwin’s work that the modern science of eugenics is based, and it owes its beginning to Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton.”…

…We have considered the inbreeding of the human race; now let us turn to the question of outbreeding.

The outbreeding of the human race may result happily or unhappily depending upon elements entering in the cross from either side. There is undoubtedly a difference of temperament among the races and, though this difference may seem small, it is to this that a nation may owe its success or failure. Between races of such great diversity as European and Japanese there is hardly likely to result a happy blend. “The genes now carried by each group are the foundations of at least moderately successful and distinct racial types, and it is hardly likely that a mixture of genes would produce an equally coherent and satisfactory type.” There are records of extremely successful crosses of such nature but these should not lead us to expect such lucky accidents each time. If, however, the races to be blended are of the same fundamental type, there should be no hesitancy concerning the success of the marriage on the racial score.

Professor Thorndike has made measurements in comparing the white and colored races and finds the difference to be from five to ten per cent lower intellect in the Negroes. It is evident from this information that interbreeding with the colored race will tend to lower the intellect of the population as a whole. Such a cross is undesirable, therefore, not only from a social view which everyone, particularly those in the South, readily sees but also from the biological or eugenic standpoint…

…One of the greatest dysgenic forces of both the past and the present is war. In the time of conflict the young and the most able men both physically and mentally are used in the army. By far the greater per cent of these men are either killed or seriously disabled. This leaves the weaklings to marry and bring forth the next generation. Not only is war a menace but also the preparation for war. Army and naval academies and the army service as well are factors in cutting down on the birth rate of the upper middle classes for the men, if they marry at all, marry rather late in life. War must be abolished…