Mixed Race Studies

MASC’s Thomas Lopez Discusses Mixed Latina/o Identity

Mixed Race Radio
Wednesday, 2012-10-17, 16:00Z (12:00 EDT, 09:00 PDT, 17:00 BST)

Tiffany Rae Reid, Host

Thomas Lopez

Thomas Lopez continues to amaze me. He has held various positions with Multiracial Americans of Southern California (MASC), Los Angeles, CA since 1995 and continues to organize numerous conferences, workshops and events such as “Race In Medicine: A Dangerous Prescription” and “A Rx for the FDA: Ethical Dilemmas for Multiracial People in Race-Based Medicine” at the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference, DePaul University, 2010.

Thomas is also a filmmaker, having produced, Mixed Mexican: Is Latino a Race? which was shown at the Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival (2010), Readymade Film Festival (2010), and Hapapalooza Film Festival (2011)

On today’s episode of Mixed Race Radio, Thomas will announce the start of a new program by Multiracial Americans of Southern California (MASC) called: Latinas/os Of Mixed Ancestry (LOMA).

The purpose of the LOMA project is to:

• Provide space for expression of mixed Latina/o identity.
• Provide culturally relevant material to the mixed Latino community.
• Raise awareness of this community to society at large.

This will be accomplished by:

• The establishment of a website with blog and forum discussions.
• Social media campaign.
• Attendance at conferences.
• A public relations awareness campaign.
• MASC seeks to broaden self and public understanding of our interracial, multiethnic, and cross cultural society by facilitating interethnic dialogue and providing cultural, educational, and recreational activities. In 2009 MASC celebrated twenty years of incorporation.

As a part of our mission, MASC has always worked to raise awareness of the impact of multiracial identification. During the 1990’s, we successfully worked to revise the Census to allow multiple racial classifications.

For more information, click here.

American Dilemma: The Negro problem and Modern Democracy

Harper and Brothers Publishing
1944
822 pages

Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987)

With the Assistance of

Richard Sterner and Arnold Rose

This landmark effort to understand African-American people in the New World provides deep insight into the contradictions of American democracy as well as a study of a people within a people. The touchstone of this classic is the jarring discrepancy between the American creed of respect for the inalienable rights to freedom, justice, and opportunity for all and the pervasive violations of the dignity of blacks.

CONTENTS

• Foreword, by Frederick P. Keppel
• Author’s Preface
• Introduction
  1. The Negro Problem as a Moral Issue
  2. Valuations and Beliefs
  3. A White Man’s Problem
  4. Not an Isolated Problem
  5. Some Further Notes on the Scope and Direction of This Study
  6. A Warning to the Reader
• PART I. THE APPROACH
  • Chapter 1. American Ideals and the American Conscience
    1. Unity of Ideals and Diversity of Culture
    2. American Nationalism
    3. Some Historical Reflections
    4. The Roots of the American Creed in the Philosophy of Enlightenment
    5. The Roots in Christianity
    6. The Roots in English Law
    7. American Conservatism
    8. The American Conception of Law and Order
    9. Natural Law and American Puritanism
    10. The Faltering Judicial Order
    11. Intellectual Defeatism
    12. “Lip-Service”
    13. Value Premises in This Study
  • Chapter 2. Encountering the Negro Problem
    1. On the Minds of the Whites
    2. To the Negroes Themselves
    3. Explaining the Problem Away
    4. Explorations in Escape
    5. The Etiquette of Discussion
    6. The Convenience of Ignorance
    7. Negro and White Voices
    8. The North and the South
  • Chapter 3. Facets of the Negro Problem
    1. American Minority Problems
    2. The Anti-Amalgamation Doctrine
    3. The White Man’s Theory of Color Caste
    4. The “Rank Order of Discriminations”
    5. Relationships between Lower Class Groups
    6. The Manifoldness and the Unity of the Negro Problem
    7. The Theory of the Vicious Circle
    8. A Theory of Democracy
• PART II. RACE
  • Chapter 4. Racial Beliefs
    1. Biology and Moral Equalitarianism
    2. The Ideological Clash in America
    3. The Ideological Compromise
    4. Reflections in Science
    5. The Position of the Negro Writers
    6. The Racial Beliefs of the Unsophisticated
    7. Beliefs with a Purpose
    8. Specific Rationalization Needs
    9. Rectifying Beliefs
    10. The Study of Beliefs
  • Chapter 5. Race and Ancestry
    1. The American Definition of “Negro”
    2. African Ancestry
    3. Changes in Physical Appearance
    4. Early Miscegenation
    5. Ante-Bellum Miscegenation
    6. Miscegenation in Recent Times
    7. “Passing”
    8. Social and Biological Selection
    9. Present and Future Genetic Composition Trends
  • Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics
    1. Physical Traits
    2. Biological Susceptibility to Disease
    3. Psychic Traits
    4. Frontiers of Constructive Research
• PART III. POPULATION AND MIGRATION
  • Chapter 7. Population
    1. The Growth of the Negro Population
    2. Births and Deaths
    3. Summary
    4. Ends and Means of Population Policy
    5. Controlling the Death Rate
    6. The Case for Controlling the Negro Birth Rate
    7. Birth Control Facilities Tor Negroes
  • Chapter 8. Migration
    1. Overview
    2. A Closer View
    3. The Great Migration to the Urban North
    4. Continued Northward Migration
    5. The Future of Negro Migration
• PART IV. ECONOMICS
  • Chapter 9. Economic Inequality
    1. Negro Poverty
    2. Our Main Hypothesis: The Vicious Circle
    3. The Value Premises
    4. The Conflict of Valuations
  • Chapter 10. The Tradition of Slavery
    1. Economic Exploitation
    2. Slavery and Caste
    3. The Land Problem
    4. The Tenancy Problem
  • Chapter 11. The Southern Plantation Economy and the Negro Farmer
    1. Southern Agriculture as a Problem
    2. Overpopulation and Soil Erosion
    3. Tenancy, Credit and Cotton
    4. The Boll Weevil
    5. Main Agricultural Classes
    6. The Negro Landowner
    7. Historical Reasons for the Relative Lack of Negro Farm Owners
    8. Tenants and Wage Laborers
    9. The Plantation Tenant
  • Chapter 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture During the Thirties: Trends and Policies
    1. Agricultural Trends during the ‘Thirties
    2. The Disappearing Sharecropper
    3. The Role of the A.A.A. in Regard to Cotton
    4. A.A.A. and the Negro
    5. The Local Administration of the A.A.A.
    6. Mechanization
    7. Labor Organizations
    8. The Dilemma of Agricultural Policy
    9. Economic Evaluation of the A.A.A.
    10. Social Evaluation of the A.A.A.
    11. Constructive Measures
    12. Farm Security Programs
  • Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture
    1. Perspective on the Urbanization of the Negro People
    2. In the South
    3. A Closer View
    4. Southern Trends during the Thirties
    5. In the North
    6. A Closer View on Northern Trends
    7. The Employment Hazards of Unskilled Work
    8. The Size of the Negro Labor Force and Negro Employment
    9. Negro and White Unemployment
  • Chapter 14. The Negro in Business, the Professions, Public Service and Other White Collar Occupations
    1. Overview
    2. The Negro in Business
    3. Negro Finance
    4. The Negro Teacher
    5. The Negro Minister
    6. The Negro in Medical Professions
    7. Other Negro Professionals
    8. Negro Officials and White Collar Workers in Public Service
    9. Negro Professionals on the Stage, Screen and Orchestra
    10. Note on Shady Occupations
  • Chapter 15. The Negro in the Public Economy
    1. The Public Budget
    2. Discrimination in Public Service
    3. Education
    4. Public Health
    5. Recreational Facilities
    6. Public Housing Policies
    7. Social Security and Public Assistance
    8. Specialized Social Welfare Programs during the Period After
    9. The Social Security Program
    10. Assistance to Special Groups
    11. Work Relief
    12. Assistance to Youth
    13. General Relief and Assistance in Kind
  • Chapter 16. Income, Consumption and Housing
    1. Family Income
    2. Income and Family Size
    3. The Family Budget
    4. Budget Items
    5. Food Consumption
    6. Housing Conditions
  • Chapter 17. The Mechanics of Economic Discrimination as a Practical Problem
    1. The Practical Problem
    2. The Ignorance and Lack of Concern of Northern Whites
    3. Migration Policy
    4. The Regular Industrial Labor Market in the North
    5. The Problem of Vocational Training
    6. The Self-Perpetuating Color Bar
    7. A Position or “Indifferent Equilibrium”
    8. In the South
  • Chapter 18. Pre-War Labor Market Controls and Their Consequences for the Negro
    1. The Wages and Hours Law and the Dilemma of the Marginal Worker
    2. Other Economic Policies
    3. Labor Unions and the Negro
    4. A Weak Movement Getting Strong Powers
  • Chapter 19. The War Boom—and Thereafter
    1. The Negro Wage Earner and the War Boom
    2. A Closer View
    3. Government Policy in Regard to the Negro in War Production
    4. The Negro in the Armed Forces
    5. …And Afterwards?
• PART V. POLITICS
  • Chapter 20. Underlying Factors
    1. The Negro in American Politics and as a Political Issue
    2. The Wave of Democracy and the Need for Bureaucracy
    3. The North and the South
    4. The Southern Defense Ideology
    5. The Reconstruction Amendments
    6. Memories of Reconstruction
    7. The Tradition of Illegality
  • Chapter 21. Southern Conservatism and Liberalism
    1. The “Solid South”
    2. Southern Conservatism
    3. Is the South Fascist?
    4. The Changing South
    5. Southern Liberalism
  • Chapter 22. Political Practices Today
    1. The Southern Political Scene
    2. Southern Techniques for Disfranchising the Negroes
    3. The Negro Vote m the South
    4. The Negro in Northern Politics
    5. What the Negro Gets Out of Politics
  • Chapter 23. Trends and Possibilities
    1. The Negro’s Political Bargaining Power
    2. The Negro’s Party Allegiance
    3. Negro Suffrage in the South as an Issue
    4. An Unstable Situation
    5. The Stake of the North
    6. Practical Conclusions
• PART VI. JUSTICE
  • Chapter 24. Inequality of Justice
    1. Democracy and Justice
    2. Relative Equality in the North
    3. The Southern Heritage
  • Chapter 25. The Police and Other Public Contacts
    1. Local Petty Officials
    2. The Southern Policeman
    3. The Policeman in the Negro Neighborhood
    4. Trends and Outlook
    5. Another Type of Public Contact
  • Chapter 26. Courts, Sentences and Prisons
    1. The Southern Courts
    2. Discrimination in Court
    3. Sentences and Prisons
    4. Trends and Outlook
  • Chapter 27. Violence and Intimidation
    1. The Pattern of Violence
    2. Lynching
    3. The Psychopathology of Lynching
    4. Trends and Outlook
    5. Riots
• PART VII. SOCIAL INEQUALITY
  • Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality
    1. The Value Premise
    2. a. The One-Sidedness of the System of Segregation
    3. The Beginning in Slavery
    4. The Jim Crow Laws
    5. Beliefs Supporting Social Inequality
    6. The Popular Theory of “No Social Equality”
    7. Critical Evaluation of the “No Social Equality” Theory
    8. Attitudes among Different Classes of Whites in the South
    9. Social Segregation and Discrimination in the North
  • Chapter 29. Patterns of Social Segregation and Discrimination
    1. Facts and Beliefs Regarding Segregation and Discrimination
    2. Segregation and Discrimination in interpersonal Relations
    3. Housing Segregation
    4. Sanctions for Residential Segregation
    5. The General Character of Institutional Segregation
    6. Segregation in Specific Types of Institutions
  • Chapter 30. Effects of Social Inequality
    1. The Incidence of Social Inequality
    2. Increasing Isolation
    3. Interracial Contacts
    4. The Factor of Ignorance
    5. Present Dynamics
• PART VIII. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
  • Chapter 31. Caste and Class
    1. The Concepts “Caste” and “Class”
    2. The “Meaning” of the Concepts “Caste” and “Class”
    3. The Caste Struggle
    4. Crossing the Caste Line
  • Chapter 32. The Negro Class Structure
    1. The Negro Class Order in the American Caste System
    2. Caste Determines Class
    3. Color and Class
    4. The Classes in the Negro Community
• PART IX. LEADERSHIP AND CONCERTED ACTION
  • Chapter 33. The American Pattern of Individual Leadership and Mass Passivity
    1. “Intelligent Leadership”
    2. “Community Leaders”
    3. Mass Passivity
    4. The Patterns Exemplified in Politics and throughout the American Social Structure
  • Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership
    1. Leadership and Caste
    2. The Interests of Whites and Negroes with Respect to Negro leadership
    3. In the North and on the National Scene
    4. The “Glass Plate”
    5. Accommodating Leadership and Class
    6. Several Qualifications
    7. Accommodating Leaders in the North
    8. The Glamour Personalities
  • Chapter 35. The Negro Protest
    1. The Slave Revolts
    2. The Negro Abolitionists and Reconstruction Politicians
    3. The Tuskegee Compromise
    4. The Spirit of Niagara and Harper’s Ferry
    5. The Protest Is Still Rising
    6. The Shock of the First World War and the Post-War Crisis
    7. The Garvey Movement
    8. Post-War Radicalism among Negro Intellectuals
    9. Negro History and Culture
    10. The Great Depression and the Second World War
  • Chapter 36. The Protest Motive and Negro Personality
    1. A Mental Reservation
    2. The Struggle Against Defeatism
    3. The Struggle for Balance
    4. Negro Sensitiveness
    5. Negro Aggression
    6. Upper Class Reactions
    7. The “Function” of Racial Solidarity
  • Chapter 37. Compromise Leadership
    1. The Daily Compromise
    2. The Vulnerability of the Negro Leader
    3. Impersonal Motives
    4. The Protest Motive
    5. The Double Role
    6. Negro Leadership Techniques
    7. Moral Consequences
    8. Leadership Rivalry
    9. Qualifications
    10. In Southern Cities
    11. In the North
    12. On the National Scene
  • Chapter 38. Negro Popular Theories
    1. Instability
    2. Negro Provincialism
    3. The Thinking on the Negro Problem
    4. Courting the “Best People Among the Whites”
    5. The Doctrine of Labor Solidarity
    6. Some Critical Observations
    7. The Pragmatic “Truth” of the Labor Solidarity Doctrine
    8. “The Advantages of the Disadvantages”
    9. Condoning Segregation
    10. Boosting Negro Business
    11. Criticism of Negro Business Chauvinism
    12. “Back to Africa”
    13. Miscellaneous Ideologies
  • Chapter 39. Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations
    1. A General American Pattern
    2. Nationalist Movements
    3. Business and Professional Organizations
    4. The National Negro Congress Movement
    5. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
    6. The N.A.A.C.P. Branches
    7. The N.A.A.C.P. National Office
    8. The Strategy of the N.A.A.C.P.
    9. Critique of the N.A.A.C.P.
    10. The Urban League
    11. The Commission on Interracial Cooperation
    12. The Negro Organizations during the War
    13. Negro Strategy
  • Chapter 40. The Negro Church
    1. Non-Political Agencies for Negro Concerted Action
    2. Some Historical Notes
    3. The Negro Church and the General American Pattern of
    4. Religious Activity
    5. A Segregated Church
    6. Its Weakness
    7. Trends and Outlook
  • Chapter 41. The Negro School
    1. Negro Education as Concerted Action
    2. Education in American Thought and Life
    3. The Development of Negro Education in the South
    4. The Whites’ Attitudes toward Negro Education
    5. “Industrial” versus “Classical” Education of Negroes
    6. Negro Attitudes
    7. Trends and Problems
  • Chapter 42. The Negro Press
    1. An Organ for the Negro Protest
    2. The Growth of the Negro Press
    3. Characteristics of the Negro Press
    4. The Controls of the Negro Press
    5. Outlook
• PART X. THE NEGRO COMMUNITY
  • Chapter 43. Institutions
    1. The Negro Community as a Pathological Form of an American Community
    2. The Negro Family
    3. The Negro Church in the Negro Community
    4. The Negro School and Negro Education
    5. Voluntary Associations
  • Chapter 44. Non-Institutional Aspects of the Negro Community
    1. “Peculiarities” of Negro Culture and Personality
    2. Crime
    3. Mental Disorders and Suicide
    4. Recreation
    5. Negro Achievements
• PART XI. AN AMERICAN DILEMMA
  • Chapter 45. America Again at the Crossroads in the Negro Problem
    1. The Negro Problem and the War
    2. Social Trends
    3. The Decay of the Caste Theory
    4. Negroes in the War Crisis
    5. The War and the Whites
    6. The North Moves Toward Equality
    7. Tension in the South
    8. International Aspects
    9. Making the Peace
    10. America’s Opportunity
• Appendix 1. A Methodological Note on Valuations and Beliefs
  1. The Mechanism of Rationalization
  2. Theoretical Critique of the Concept “Mores”
  3. Valuation Dynamics
• Appendix 2. A Methodological Note on Facts and Valuations in Social Science
  1. Biases in the Research on the American Negro Problem
  2. Methods of Mitigating Biases in Social Science
  3. The History and Logic of the Hidden Valuations in Social Science
  4. The Points of View Adopted in This Book
• Appendix 3. A Methodological Note on the Principle of Accumulation
• Appendix 4. Note on the Meaning of Regional Terms as Used in This Book
• Appendix 5. A Parallel to the Negro Problem
• Appendix 6. Pre-War Conditions of the Negro Wage Earner in Selected Industries and Occupations
  1. General Characteristics of Negro Jobs
  2. Domestic Service
  3. Other Service Occupations
  4. Turpentine Farms
  5. Lumber
  6. The Fertilizer Industry
  7. Longshore Work.
  8. Building Workers
  9. Railroad Workers
  10. Tobacco Workers
  11. Textile Workers
  12. Coal Miners
  13. Iron and Steel Workers
  14. Automobile Workers
  15. The Slaughtering and Meat Packing Industry
• Appendix 7. Distribution of Negro Residences in Selected Cities
• Appendix 8. Research on Caste and Class in a Negro Community
• Appendix 9. Research on Negro Leadership
• Appendix 10. Quantitative Studies of Race Attitudes
  1. Existing Studies of Race Attitudes
  2. The Empirical Study of Valuations and Beliefs
  3. “Personal” and “Political” Opinions
  4. The Practical Study of Race Prejudice
• List of Books, Pamphlets, Periodicals, and Other Material Referred to in This Book
• Numbered Footnotes
• Index

From pages 102-106

If white Americans can believe that Negro Americans belong to a lower biological species than they themselves, this provides a motivation for their doctrine that the white race should be kept pure and that amalgamation should, by all means, be prevented. The theory of the inborn inferiority of the Negro people is, accordingly, used as an argument for the antiamalgamation doctrine. This doctrine, in its turn, has, as we have seen, a central position in the American system of color caste. The belief in biological inferiority is thus another basic support, in addition to the no-social-equality, anti-amalgamation doctrine, of the system of segregation and discrimination. Whereas the anti-amalgamation doctrine has its main importance in the “social” field, the belief in the Negro’s biological inferiority is basic to discrimination in all fields. White Americans have an interest in deprecating the Negro race in so far as they identify themselves with the prevailing system of color caste. They have such an interest, though in a lower degree, even if their only attachment to the caste order is that they do not stand up energetically as individuals and citizens to eradicate it…

…In adhering to this biological rationalization, specified in the six points stated above, the white man meets certain difficulties. A factual difficulty to begin with is that individual Negroes and even larger groups of Negroes often, in spite of the handicaps they encounter, show themselves to be better than they ought to be according to the popular theory. A whole defense system serves to minimize this disturbance of the racial dogma, which insists that all Negroes are inferior. From one point of view, segregation of the Negro people fulfills a function in this defense system. It is, of course, not consciously devised for this purpose, and it serves other purposes as well, but this does not make its defense function less important. Segregation isolates in particular the middle and upper class Negroes,” and thus permits the ordinary white man in America to avoid meeting an educated Negro. The systematic tendency to leave the Negro out when discussing public affairs and to avoid mentioning anything about Negroes in the press except their crimes also serves this purpose. The aggressive and derogatory altitude toward “uppity” Negroes and, in particular, the tendency to relegate all educated Negroes to this group also belongs to the defense system.

Since he has a psychological need to believe the popular theory of Negro racial inferiority, it is understandable why the ordinary white man is disincline to hear about good qualities or achievements of Negroes. ‘The merits of Negro soldiers should not be too warmly praised, especially in the presence of Americans,” reads one of the advices which the French Military Mission, stationed with the American Expeditionary Army during the First World War, circulated but later withdrew. It should be added that white people who work to help the Negro people and to improve race relations see the strategic importance of this factor and direct their work toward spreading information about Negroes of quality among the whites.

Another difficulty has always been the mulatto. White Americans want to keep biological distance from the out-race and will, therefore, be tempted to discount the proportion of mulattoes and believe that a greater part of the Negro people is pure bred than is warranted by the facts. A sort of collective guilt on the part of white people for the large-scale miscegenation, which has so apparently changed the racial character of the Negro people enforces this interest.

The literature on the Negro problem strengthens this hypothesis. Only some exceptional authors, usually Negroes, gave more adequate estimates of the proportion of mixed breeds, and it was left to Hrdlicka and Herskovits in the late ‘twenties to set this whole problem on a more scientific basis. The under-enumeration of mulattoes by the census takers decade after decade and also, until recently, the rather uncritical utilization of this material, indicate a tendency toward bias. The observations of the present author have, practically without exception, indicated that the nonexpert white population shows a systematic tendency grossly to underestimate the number of mulattoes in the Negro population.

It may, of course, be said against this assumption of a hidden purpose that one should not assume the ability of uninformed and untrained persons to distinguish a mulatto from a pure bred Negro. But the facts of historical and actual miscegenation are fairly well known, at least in the South, and are discussed with interest everywhere. And if a wrong estimate systematical goes in the same direction, there is reason to ask for a cause. It has also been observed that the ordinary white American gets disturbed when encountering the new scientific estimates that the great majority of American Negroes are not of pure African descent. Similarly, the ordinary white American is disturbed when he hears that Negroes sometimes pass for white. He wants, and he must want, to keep biological distance.

But the mulatto is a disturbance to the popular race theory not only because of his numbers. The question is also raised: Is the mulatto a deteriorated or an improved Negro? In fact, there seems never to have been popular agreement among white Americans whether the mulatto is worse than the pure bred Negro, or whether he is better because of his partially white ancestry. The former belief should per se strengthen the anti-amalgamation doctrine, in fact, make adherence to it to the interest of the entire society. The second belief can serve a purpose of explaining away Negro accomplishments which are, with few exceptions, made by mulattoes and which then could be ascribed to the white blood. Actually, I have often heard the same man use both arguments…

Read the entire book here.

Playing the Gene Card? A Report on Race and Human Biotechnology

Center for Genetics and Society
2009
95 pages

Osagie K. Obasogie, Associate Professor of Law
University of California, San Francisco
Also: Senior Fellow
Center for Genetics and Society

Preface by:

Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology; Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights
University of Pennsylvania

Executive Summary

Race has become a prominent focus for human biotechnology. Despite often good intentions, genetic technologies are being applied in a manner that may provide new justification for thinking about racial difference and racial disparities in biological terms—as if social categories of race reflect natural or inherent group differences.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) and subsequent research showed that there is less than 1% genetic variation among all humans. Patterns of mating and geographic isolation over thousands of years have conferred genetic signatures to certain populations. Yet scientists have found little evidence to support lay understandings that social categories of race reflect discrete groups of human difference. While HGP findings initially led many to conclude that race (as it is commonly conceived and used) is not genetically significant, the hope that science would promote racial healing has largely not materialized.

In fact, trends in life science research have shifted the other way. There are increasing efforts to demonstrate the genetic relevance of race by mapping this less than 1% of variation onto social categories of race to find genetic explanations for racial disparities and differences.

From page 21

Figure 2: The essentialist and population concepts of race contrasted with the actual patterns of genetic variation (simplified to three geographic categories). Based on the work of Dr. Jeffrey Long at the University of Michigan and depictions created by the Race—Are We So Different? project of the American Anthropological Association.

A Essentialist concepts of race that were popular throughout the 19th and early 20th century held that the human species was divided into several mutually exclusive yet tangentially overlapping groups based largely upon physical features such as skin color and facial features.

B Population approaches treat race as clusters of local populations that differ genetically from one another, whereby each group is considered a race. As depicted, this concept suggests an outer periphery of unshared distinctiveness as well as substantial genetic similarity that is highlighted by the overlapping regions.

C Contemporary data on human diversity supports a “nested subset” approach to race. This reflects the fact that “people have lived in Africa far longer than anywhere else, which has allowed the population in Africa to accumulate more of the small mutations that make up [human] genetic variation. Because only a part of the African population migrated out of Africa, only part of Africa’s genetic variation moved with them. For this reason, most genetic variation found in people living outside Africa is a subset of that found among Africans.”

Many celebrate these developments as an opportunity to learn more about who we are and why certain groups are sicker than others. Yet some are struck by the extent to which these new conversations aimed at benefiting minority communities communities echo past discussions in which the science of biological difference was used to justify racial hierarchies.

Although this new research is rapidly evolving and is fraught with controversy, it is being used to develop several commercial and forensic applications that may give new credence to biological understandings of racial difference—often with more certainty than is supported by the available evidence. This unrestrained rush to market race-specific applications and to use DNA technologies in law enforcement can have significant implications for racial minorities:

• Race-based medicines have been promoted as a way to reduce inequities in healthcare and health outcomes. Yet the methodological assumptions behind them raise as many issues as the questionable market incentives leading to their development.
• Genetic ancestry tests rely on incomplete scientific methods that may lead to overstated claims. The companies that sell them often suggest that biotechnology can authoritatively tell us who we are and where we come from.
• DNA forensics have been used to exonerate those who have been wrongly convicted and can provide important tools for law enforcement. However, some forensic applications of genetic technologies might undermine civil rights—especially in minority communities.

While each of these applications has been examined individually, this report looks at them together to highlight a fundamental concern: that commercial incentives and other pressures may distort or oversimplify the complex and discordant relationship between race, population, and genes. Applications based on such distortions or oversimplifications may give undue legitimacy to the idea that social categories of race reflect discrete biological differences.

The concerns raised in this report should not be read as impugning all genetic research that implicates social categories of race. There is evidence that socially constructed notions of race may loosely reflect patterns of genetic variation created by evolutionary forces, and that knowledge about them may ultimately serve important social or medical goals. Yet, given our unfortunate history of linking biological understandings of racial difference to notions of racial superiority and inferiority, it would be unwise to ignore the possibility that 21st century technologies may be used to revive long discredited 19th century theories of race.

Advances in human biotechnology hold great promise. But if they are to benefit all of us, closer attention should be paid to the social risks they entail and their particular impacts on minority communities.

Contents

• Executive Summary
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Preface by Dorothy Roberts, Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law, Northwestern Law School
• Race Cards and Gene Cards: A Note About the Report’s Title
• Introduction | Are 21st Century Technologies Reviving 19th Century
  • Theories of Race?
  • How Have New Genetic Theories of Racial Difference Developed?
  • Context: After the Human Genome Project
  • Key Concern: Will Commercial and Forensic Applications Revive Biological Theories of Race?
  • In This Report
  • Sidebar: What Does It Mean to Say that Race Is Not Biologically Significant or that It Is a Social Construction?
• Chapter 1 | Race-Based Medicine: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?
  • Pharmacogenomics: The Concept Behind Race-Based Medicine
  • First on the Scene: BiDil
  • Concerns about BiDil
  • Addressing Disparities in Health Through Race-Specific Pharmaceuticals
  • Conclusion: Evaluating Race-Based Medicine
  • Recommendations
  • Sidebars: Major Projects on Human Genetic Variation
    • Why Genetic Variations Matter
    • Top-Down Marketing to the Black Community
    • Historical Theories of Race
    • Are More Race-Based Medicines Around the Corner?
    • The Slavery Hypothesis
• Chapter 2 | Ancestry Tests: Back to the Future?
  • African American Ancestry
  • Context: Population Genetics
  • From Groups and Populations to Individuals
  • Techniques Used by Ancestry Tests
  • Concerns about the Genetic Ancestry Industry
  • Conclusion: Resisting Racial Typologies
  • Recommendations 30
  • Sidebars: Native Americans and Ancestry Tests
    • Race, Intelligence, and James Watson
    • Bioprospecting and Biopiracy
    • From Race to Population and Back
    • The Business of DNA Ancestry Testing
    • Special Types of DNA
    • Human Genetic Variation—A Work in Progress
• Chapter 3 | Race and DNA Forensics in the Criminal Justice System
  • How Does It Work?
  • How Reliable Are DNA Forensic Technologies?
  • DNA Databases
  • Cold Hits and Partial Matches
  • Whose DNA Is in These Databases?
  • Sifting DNA Databases to Catch Family Members
  • Predicting Criminality
  • Using DNA to Build Racial Profiles
  • Conclusion: Effects on Minority Communities
  • Recommendations
  • Sidebars: DNA Entrapment?
    • The Scandal in Houston
    • The Innocence Project
    • “The Informer in Your Blood”
    • Juking Stats
    • “The Birthday Problem” and the Limits of Forensic Database Matches
    • Minority Communities and the War on Drugs
    • Civil Liberties and DNA Databases
    • Phrenology, a Classic Pseudo-Science
• Conclusion
  • Racial Categories in Human Biotechnology Research
  • Race Impact Assessments
  • Responsible Regulation
• Endnotes
• About the Center for Genetics and Society

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Race-Based Medicine: Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Biopolitical Times: The weblog of the Center for Genetics and Society
2012-09-18

Osagie K. Obasogie, Associate Professor of Law
University of California, San Francisco
Also: Senior Fellow
Center for Genetics and Society

Race-based medicine has been one of the more contentious issues in pharmaceutical research and development over the past few years. Some argue that drugs specifically labeled to treat particular racial groups offer an invaluable way to fight racial disparities in health by targeting at-risk populations. Others claim that race-based medicine inappropriately treats race as a biological cause of racial disparities when broader social and environmental factors may offer better explanations.

Much of this debate involves the FDA’s 2005 approval of BiDil, which became the first drug to be labeled for a specific racial group – African Americans with heart failure. The heat generated from this debate has largely faded due to BiDIl’s market failure.  But, it seems like a new drug may reignite a few flames.

Tradjenta was developed by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly to treat Type 2 diabetes. But results from a Phase III clinical trial recently showed that Tradjenta was particularly beneficial for controlling African Americans’ blood sugar levels…

…Is another BiDil on the horizon? It’s important to acknowledge that Tradjenta had already received FDA approval to treat type 2 diabetes in the general population prior to the announcement of these race-specific results. This is different from BiDil, where investigators sought a race-specific indication from the FDA because they could not otherwise win regulatory approval as a race-neutral drug. Despite these differences, treating racial disparities in diabetes as a naturally observed group difference that can be at least partially resolved with a pill shares some similarities with the BiDil saga. In both cases, there is a tendency to naturalize racial disparities as a function of group difference rather than having a deeper engagement with the social determinants of health.

This leads to an important question: if Tradjenta already received approval for use in the general population, why would it not be effective in African Americans? Put differently, why go through the time and expense of conducting a clinical trial to demonstrate efficacy in a particular racial group when the drug has already been approved for everyone regardless of race?

It’s unclear how these recent clinical trial results might be used. Perhaps this is another example of using a clinical trial as a marketing device in the hopes of capturing a larger share of the market…

Read the entire article here.

Racial Labels Have Limited Use In Personalizing Medicine

Shots: NPR’s Health Blog
2011-05-09

Eliza Barclay

For all the fanfare around personalized medicine, the idea has been fairly slow to take off.

Boosters have said if doctors had a patient’s DNA information it would be revolutionary: They could look for genetic risk of certain diseases or mutations that determine whether certain drugs are likely to work or not.

The cost of DNA sequencing keeps falling, yet genetic sequencing for medical use isn’t commonplace. In the meantime, doctors can, in theory, consider a patient’s race in anticipating health conditions that could pose a higher risk.
 
But a study published recently in PLoS One suggests that using race as a stand in for truly personalized genetic information may not work, especially in the most diverse cities (like New York and Los Angeles) that attract immigrants from around the world.

There’s a lot of genetic variability among races. And the genetic risk profiles for many people with mixed ancestry don’t fit neatly into any category…

Read the entire article here.

Slooooooow Sales for BiDil^®

Biopolitical Times: The weblog of the Center for Genetics and Society
2006-10-18

Osagie K. Obasogie, Associate Professor of Law
University of California, San Francisco
Also: Senior Fellow
Center for Genetics and Society

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that sales for BiDil^®—the first drug to receive FDAapproval to treat a specific race—are unexpectedly slow. Marketed as treating heart failure in African-Americans, BiDil^® was expected to generate $130 million in sales this year; thus far, only a little over $5 million has come in. Estimates show that only 1% of the 750,000 Blacks suffering from heart failure are using it.

There’s no shortage of explanations for why Black people are about as unlikely to take BiDil^® as they are to name a newborn child Katrina…

…But, perhaps there’s another explanation that the Wall Street wing tips are missing: a sense of history.

During a conference I attended earlier this year on BiDil^® and race specific medicines, an older Black woman in the audience stood up and said “If I were sick and somebody told me that they had a drug just for Black people to help me, I’d say to them: give me what the white people are taking.”…

Read the entire article here.

A.C.T.O.R. presents Dorothy Roberts

Busboys and Poets
14th & V Streets, NW
Washington, D.C.
Langston Room
2012-10-07, 17:00-19:00 EDT (Local Time)

Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology; Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights
University of Pennsylvania

Dorothy Roberts is author of “Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century.”

A.C.T.O.R. A Continuing Talk on Race – Open discussion. The A.C.T.O.R series is hosted by Busboys and Poets as a community service. This discussion  series provides the opportunity for people to come together and speak openly and honestly about issues of race.  The intent is that each person walks away from the discussion feeling something: challenged, educated, uncomfortable, enlightened, refreshed, reassured and hopefully inspired and moved to action!  Regular discussions take place the first Sunday  of each  month a new topic is discussed, with Busboys and Poets sponsoring a facilitator.

For more information, click here.

Personalizing Medicine: Beyond Race

Virtual Mentor: American Medical Association Journal of Ethics
Volume 14, Number 8 (August 2012)
pages 628-634

Timothy Chang, MD-PhD Student
University of Wisconsin, Madison

McNearney TA, Hunnicutt SE, Fischbach M, et al. Perceived functioning has ethnic-specific associations in systemic sclerosis: another dimension of personalized medicine. J Rheumatol. 2009;36(12):2724-2732.

Considering the explosion in medical technology, from genomics and genetic biomarker testing to computerized imaging and detailed electronic medical records, personalized medicine may one day be common practice in our medical system. In “Perceived Functioning Has Ethnic-specific Associations in Systemic Sclerosis: Another Dimension of Personalized Medicine,” Terry McNearney et al. [1] found that “clinical, psychosocial, and immunogenetic variables had ethnic-specific associations with perceived functioning” in patients being treated for systemic sclerosis (SSc). The relationship of ethnicity both to the clinical, psychosocial, and immunogenetic variables and to perceived functioning raises ethical questions, especially if clinicians “personalize” treatment based on these findings.

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease characterized by fibrosis of the skin and internal organs, commonly preceded by autoantibody production and vasculopathy [3]. Although management of complications has improved, the median survival after diagnosis is 11 years [4]. Currently, SSc is incurable, and health-related quality-of-life (QOL) measures are important indicators of disease outcome [5-9].

Conclusions from Study
 
In this cross-sectional study, Caucasian, Hispanic, and African American patients with recent-onset SSc were assessed for perceived physical and mental functioning using validated surveys and a self-reported physical disability instrument. Perceived functioning scores were then tested for association with demographic, socioeconomic, clinical, immunogenetic, psychological, and behavioral variables. Among Caucasians, immunogenetics, fatigue severity, helplessness, and social support were associated with perceived functioning, while among African Americans and Hispanics, immunogenetics, autoantibodies, illness behavior, and helplessness were associated with perceived functioning. This study is the first to identify associations between perceived SSc functioning and ethnically specific genetic markers and autoantibodies…

…Limitations…

..Using race and ethnicity to alert clinicians to greater likelihoods of certain health conditions became more controversial with the development of what was considered a race-specific drug. In 2005, the FDA approved isosorbide dinitrate/hydralazine (BiDil), a combination antihypertensive and vasodilator drug, specifically for African Americans. Major controversy ensued over whether a drug should be approved for use in a specific race since most drugs have long been tested on white subjects but not approved only for whites. Moreover, approval of BiDil for African Americans was not granted for biological or genetic reasons—the proposed differences in mechanism of nitric oxide uptake in African Americans were never tested…

…Is race a biological concept? Until now, I have been talking as though race has biological meaning. There is clear evidence, however, that race is not a genetic concept , and some would argue that it has no biologic basis. Only 5-10 percent of genetic diversity is explained by one’s membership in a given “race”. In actuality there is as much or more genetic diversity within a racial group as there is between racial groups.

Race is more a sociopolitical concept than a biologic one. The concepts of race and ethnicity were not developed for scientific use but are popular concepts, which, in the United States, were made official for census taking by the Office of Management and Budget Race and Ethnic Standards.

Membership in race is defined differently across research studies, time, and geography. Most studies do not report how race information is obtained, e.g., self-identified or clinician determined, let alone standardize the process. The definition of race is also time- and geography-dependent. How “black” and “white,” for example, are defined in the United States has changed from the 1800s to the 1900s. Because race is identified by one’s parents at birth and can be assigned by the medical examiner at death, a person may be born “black” but die “white”. Geographically, a light-skinned person may be considered white in the Bahamas but black in the United States. Inconsistencies in the definitions of race make its usage problematic at best…

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The United States Census in Its Relations to Sanitation

Public Health Paper Report
Volume 15 (1889)
pages 43-46

John S. Billings, Surgeon, U.S.A. (1838-1913)

I have several times inflicted upon this patient and long-suffering Association papers relating to statistical matters and methods, which, it must be confessed, were better fitted to serve for occasional reference than to occupy any of the scanty time available for listening at our annual meetings. To-day, however, I have a very short discourse on the same subject which I want you to listen to, because, if the suggestions in it have any value, some of them should be acted on before the paper will probably appear in the volume of our proceedings.

Theoretically, we all agree that vital statistics are the foundation of public medicine, but, practically, I suppose that the majority of sanitarians and physicians think that they are not essential to the work of a health officer or board of health, although they may be desirable; that the main objects in sanitary work are to see that the water-supply is pure; that garbage and excreta are promptly removed or destroyed; that no filth is allowed to accumulate in the vicinity of habitations; that contagious diseases are controlled by isolation and disinfection; that plenty of fresh air be provided in schools, churches, etc.; and that all this can and should be done whether death-rates are known or not.

This is not my own view, because my observation of the progress of public health work in this and other countries for the last twenty years leads me to believe that this progress, in any locality, for any considerable length of time, depends upon the completeness of its vital statistics and the use that is made of them; because upon such completeness and use depend mainly the amount and regularity of appropriations from state or municipal funds for the payment of the expenses needed to secure the objects of the health department. Occasionally it is possible to get up a cholera, or yellow-fever, or small-pox, or typhoid fever scare, and to then get a little money for sewerage, or for street and alley cleaning; but these spasmodic reforms do not last long, and in most cases do not amount to much. You have got to produce constant, undeniable evidence that the work is needed, and is useful, evidence that will convince the press and the majority of the community; and this evidence must be mainly death-rates, to which should be added all the sickness rates that can be obtained…

…In investigating the details of the records of deaths kept in different cities, I have noted deficiencies in a few of them to which I wish to call the attention of all who have to do with the registration of vital statistics.

First. All deaths occurring in hospitals should be charged to the ward or district of the city from which the patient was taken to hospital, when this can be ascertained. Otherwise the death-rate in the ward in which the hospital is located will be too high, and in the other districts it will be too low.

Second. The birthplace of the parents of the decedent should be reported. We want to know the race of the decedent, whether he was Irish, German, Italian, or American, and to give merely his own birthplace is not sufficient.

Third. It is very desirable that in all cases of deaths of colored persons it should be stated whether the decedent was black or of mixed blood, such as mulatto or quadroon.

One of the most important questions in the vital and social statistics of this country relates to the fertility, longevity, and liability to certain diseases of those partly of negro and partly of white blood, and the only way to obtain data on this subject is through the registration of vital statistics.

Under the provisions of the law providing for the census, the living colored population is to be enumerated with distinction as to whether each person is black, mulatto, quadroon, or octoroon; and we need the same distinctions for all colored persons dying during the census year, to enable us to calculate comparative death-rates. Wherever there is a fairly accurate registration of deaths, which now exists in several states and in over one hundred cities, the next census will afford the means of calculating death-rates with distinctions of color, sex, and age, which will furniish important indications for sanitary work. For all cities of io,ooo inhabitants and upward, it is proposed to collect as complete information as possible with regard to altitude, climate, water-supply, density of population, sewerage, proportion of sewered and non-sewered areas, and other points bearing on the healthfulness of the place, which will permit of interesting comparisons with the death-rates.

Read the entire paper here.

“Vulnerable” Populations—Medicine, Race, and Presumptions of Identity
 
Virtual Mentor: American Medical Association Journal of Ethics
Volume 13, Number 2 (February 2011)
pages 124-127

Karla F. C. Holloway, Ph.D., MLS, James B. Duke Professor of English and Professor of Law
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

At the beginning of the twentieth century, renowned sociologist William E. B. Du Bois warned that “the problem of the twentieth century” would be “the problem of the color line”. I suspect that Du Bois would not have imagined that this color line would be as enigmatic and troubling in the twenty-first century. But the fact is that today’s issues of race and identity reveal an arguably more complicated terrain. To illustrate this point, consider the background of the following patients.

• Ms. A’s father is Nigerian and her mother is British.
• Ms. B’s mother and father are both from Jamaica. She has lived in the United States since birth.
• Ms. C’s parents were both born in the United States. Her father is from Detroit’s inner-city and her mother is white.
• Ms. D’s parents were born in Ghana and South Africa.
• Ms. E, who has curly blond hair, fair skin and green eyes, has checked the box for “black or African-American” on her medical history form. She was adopted at birth.

In fact, each of these patients has checked that same box—“black or African American”—on their patient history forms. What does this tell us?…

…The black folk whose souls Du Bois worried over in 1903 had a peculiar history of visibility and vulnerability. It is a history replete with narratives about medical care of lesser quality and exploitation sutured to institutionalized racial biases and stereotypes. When contemporary medicine takes up the category of race as a biologic rather than a social indicator, it ignores the complexity that is resident in “African American communities.” A community-based medicine or research ethic cannot escape this history of identity and vulnerability and the significant variables that accompany the experience of race. This is not an occasion when new and good intentions erase the impact of past bad acts. Language has a habit of entanglement…

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