Chip Away at the False Ideology that Race is Biological
This chapter in Dismantling the Racism Machine, 2nd ed. explores the following questions . . .
What does it mean to say that race is a social construct?
How is the belief that race is biological a false and dangerous myth?
How does racism have a biological impact on the body even though race is a social construct?
with the following Recommended Resources . . .
Online Videos
- “The Biology of Skin Color.” HHMI BioInteractive, 2015.
- “The Origin of Race in the USA.” YouTube, uploaded by PBS Studios,3 Apr. 2018.
- Parvaneh, Danush. “What DNA ancestry tests can — and can’t — tell you.” YouTube, uploaded by Vox.
- Roberts, Dorothy. “The Problem with Race-Based Medicine.” TED, 2015.
Podcasts
- Biewen, John. Seeing White. Scene on Radio, 2017.
- Davies, Dave. “How poverty and racism ‘weather’ the body, accelerating aging and disease.” Fresh Air, NPR, 28 Mar. 2023.
- Demby, Gene. Code Switch. NPR.
- Demby, Gene, host. “In the world of medicine, race-based diagnoses are more than skin deep” [transcript]. Code Switch, NPR, 13 March 2024.
- Elde, Nels, and Vincent Racaniello, hosts. “On racism, not race with Joe Graves.” This Week in Evolution (TWiEVO), 3 Feb. 2022.
- —. “Genetics of skin pigmentation in Africa.” This Week in Evolution (TWiEVO), 27 Feb. 2018.
- Rutherford, Adam, host. Bad Blood: The Story of Eugenics. BBC, 2022.
Websites
- “Educational Resources.” National Human Genome Research Institute, 2023.
- Race: Are We So Different? American Anthropological Association, 2016.
- Race: The Power of an Illusion. California Newsreel.
Articles
- Baldwin, James. “As Much Truth as One Can Bear.” New York Times Book Review, 14 January 1962, p. 1+.
- Dutchen, Stephanie. “Field Correction.” Harvard Medicine, Winter 2021.
- “For Black students, unfairly harsh discipline can lead to lower grades.” American Psychological Association, 7 Oct. 2021.
- “Genetics vs. Genomics Fact Sheet.” National Human Genome Research Institute, 2018.
- Graves, Joseph L. “Race ≠ DNA: If Race Is a Social Construct, What’s Up With DNA Ancestry Testing?” Teaching Tolerance. Southern Poverty Law Center, Summer 2015.
- Haskell, Rob. “Serena Williams on Motherhood, Marriage, and Making Her Comeback.” Vogue, 10 Jan. 2018.
- Hernandez, Joe. “White-sounding names get called back for jobs more than Black ones, a new study finds.” NPR, 11 April 2024.
- Lopez, German. “The Myth of Migrant Crime.” New York Times, 18 July 2024.
- Miller, Claire Cain, et al. “Childbirth Is Deadlier for Black Families Even When They’re Rich, Expansive Study Finds.” New York Times, 12 Feb. 2023.
- Somashekhar, Sandhya. “The Disturbing Reason Some African American Patients May Be Undertreated for Pain.” Washington Post, 4 April 2016.
- A Tale of Two Countries: Racially Targeted Arrests in the Era of Marijuana Reform.” American Civil Liberties Union, 16 Apr. 2020.
Books
- Blackstock, Uche. Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine. Penguin, 2025.
- Geronimus, Arline T. Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society. Little, Brown Spark, 2023.
- Goodman, Alan H., et al. Race: Are We So Different? 2nd ed. Wiley-Blackwell, 2020.
- Graves, Joseph L. Jr., and Alan H. Goodman. Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions. Columbia University Press, 2022.
- McGhee, Heather. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. One World, 2021.
- Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States. 3rd ed., Routledge, 2015.
- Roberts, Dorothy. Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century. The New Press, 2011.
- Rose, Tricia. Metaracism: How Systemic Racism Devastates Black Lives—and How We Break Free. Basic Books, 2024.
- Rutherford, Adam. Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics. Norton, 2023.
- Rutherford, Adam. How to Argue With a Racist: What Our Genes Do (and Don’t) Say About Human Difference. The Experiment, 2020.
- Saini, Angela. Superior: The Return of Race Science. Beacon Press, 2019.
- Tatum, Beverly Daniel. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and Other Conversations About Race. Basic Books, 2003.
- Villarosa, Linda. Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation. Doubleday, 2022.
- Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Random House, 2020.
- Winters, Mary-Frances. Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2020.
Films
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Your Face Goes Here Entertainment, 2017.
- No Más Bebés. Directed by Renee Tajima-Peña, ITVS, 2015.
- Race: The Power of an Illusion. California Newsreel, 2003. (Episode “The Difference Between Us”)
divided no longer: calling out white supremacy, understanding it, and dismantling it 