{"id":36254,"date":"2014-04-13T11:59:04","date_gmt":"2014-04-13T11:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=36254"},"modified":"2014-04-13T11:59:04","modified_gmt":"2014-04-13T11:59:04","slug":"approaching-race-as-a-social-rather-than-biological-construct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=36254","title":{"rendered":"Approaching race as a social rather than biological construct"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedp.com\/r\/bfdb0713\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Approaching race as a social rather than biological construct<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedp.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Daily Pennsylvanian<\/a><br \/>\nPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania<br \/>\n2014-04-08<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laura Anthony<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.programonracescienceandsociety.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Program on Race, Science and Society<\/a> will examine the role of race in scientific research at <a href=\"https:\/\/africana.sas.upenn.edu\/future-race-and-science-regression-or-revolution\" target=\"_blank\">upcoming symposium<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>In 1851, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine graduate <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Samuel_A._Cartwright\" target=\"_blank\">Samuel Cartwright<\/a> delivered a report to the Medical Association of Louisiana claiming that blacks\u2019 health was improved by slavery.<\/p>\n<p>He theorized that forced physical labor improved blacks\u2019 inferior lung capacity, so slavery was actually a necessity to bettering their health.<\/p>\n<p>Penn Law School professor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.upenn.edu\/cf\/faculty\/roberts1\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dorothy Roberts<\/a> first heard this anecdote from a talk by Brown University professor <a href=\"http:\/\/brown.edu\/Departments\/Africana_Studies\/people\/braun_lundy.html\" target=\"_blank\">Lundy Braun<\/a> detailing the history of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spirometer\" target=\"_blank\">spirometer<\/a>, a medical device used to measure lung capacity.<\/p>\n<p>Some spirometers historically, and even in modern medicine, adjust the measurements according to the race of the patient. Cartwright used the device to justify the need for continued slavery to protect blacks\u2019 health. Braun\u2019s presentation included a picture of a modern spirometer with a button labeled \u201crace,\u201d and through numerous conversations with medical students, Roberts has found that some medical students are still trained to use spirometers based on patients\u2019 race.<\/p>\n<p>For Roberts, this is a major problem. \u201cMy definition of race is that it is a political system to govern people based on invented biological demarcation, and it is not a natural division of human beings,\u201d she said. \u201cSo it is much more plausible that inequities in health that fall along racial lines are caused by social determinants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Braun\u2019s talk sparked an idea for a future project in the new program she developed at Penn this year called the Program on Race, Science and Society&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedp.com\/r\/bfdb0713\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Approaching race as a social rather than biological construct The Daily Pennsylvanian Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2014-04-08 Laura Anthony The Program on Race, Science and Society will examine the role of race in scientific research at upcoming symposium In 1851, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine graduate Samuel Cartwright delivered a report to the Medical Association [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2039,8,20],"tags":[10773,10148,1272,17215,2083,10772],"class_list":["post-36254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-health-medicine","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-daily-pennsylvanian","tag-dorothy-e-roberts","tag-dorothy-roberts","tag-laura-anthony","tag-lundy-braun","tag-the-daily-pennsylvanian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}