Mixed Race Studies

Panel to discuss racism and medical issues

The Daily Bruin
University of California, Los Angeles
2012-02-10

Ariana Ricarte

The topic of racism in health care, genetics and other medical issues will be the central point of discussion at a panel in De Neve Auditorium on Saturday [13:00-15:00 PST].

The panel, called “Race in Medicine: A Dangerous Prescription,” will discuss disparities between people of different races in the health care system and the ways a patient’s ethnicity can affect decisions made by doctors and insurance companies. The event is hosted by UCLA’s Mixed Student Union, a student group founded in 2010 that aims to provide a safe and open environment for people of multiracial and multiethnic heritage, said chairwoman Camila Lacques.

The panel will go over topics such as the role of ethnicity in prescription medicine and bone marrow and stem cell transplants. When it comes to transplants, multiracial people have a more difficult time finding matches because of their unique genetic composition, said panelist Athena Asklipiadis…

[Note by Steven F. Riley: Everyone—except their identical twin—has an “unique genetic composition.”  Race is a social, not biological construction and as such, is not linked to genetics. Please read Dorothy Roberts excellent (and sobering) monograph on race and medicine titled, Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century for more information.]

…G. Reginald Daniel, a panelist at Saturday’s event and a sociology professor at UC Santa Barbara, said he plans to focus on the positive and negative images applied to multiracial people, as well as talk about the issue in terms of genetic variety.

“I think people need to step out of mono-racial thinking,” Daniel said. “We need to see the connections we have with each other, whether we like it or not.”…

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Use of Blood Groups in Human Classification

Science Magazine
Volume 112, Number 2903 (1950-08-18)
pages 187-196
DOI: 10.1126/science.112.2903.187

William C. Boyd
Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts

—Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him!
Plato, The Republic

In recent years there has been an increasing feeling, on the part of both geneticists and physical anthropologists, that genetical methods ought to be applied to the problems of the classification of man, and a number of proposals to this effect have been made. Nevertheless, new books of anthropology, as they have been published, have been found to contain much the same old classifications based on morphological characteristics, skin color, etc., even though the authors may have started with the announced intention of making use of the newer methods. It is clear that many a worker, attempting to apply genetical methods of taxonomy to man, has been disappointed, and, in fact, one scientist, formerly quite active in the field of physical anthropology, has now given it up, and announced in a letter to me: “I tried to see what blood groups would tell me about ancient man, and found the results very disappointing.”

A careful analysis of the situation will show that such disappointment is based largely on two circumstances. First, there is the fact that the blood grouping genes affect invisible serological characteristics of the individual, and are thus never visible to the naked eye. It is to be feared that we are all too much inclined to be impressed by the visible as opposed to the invisible. Second, there is the fact that the layman’s concept of race (which is that the human species can be divided up by valid, scientific methods, into various groups that are pretty different from each other and which will look pretty different from each other) has been unconsciously retained by many scientific workers, and the hypothetical dissenting readers are unconsciously expecting that the new system we propose to introduce will also provide us with startling differences in the appearance and behavior of the different “races” we define, and will feel let down to discover that the new classification does not, when all is said about it, reveal any very dramatic results.

If the blood grouping genes had affected, not characteristics of the blood, but prominent morphological or physical characteristics such as the shape of the head, color of the skin, etc., there cannot be the slightest question that they would already have been made the chief basis of a racial classification and would have been considered entirely adequate for that purpose.

Equivalence of Genes

From our knowledge of genetics we may see that there is nothing fundamentally different between the blood grouping genes as genes, and the genes which do affect morphological features. It is simply a historical accident that fairly adequate information was obtained about the mode of transmission of blood grouping genes before any information at all equivalent in amount or value was obtained about the genes affecting physical appearance.

In view of these facts, and since there seems to be no reason to suppose that the location of a gene in a chromosome, or the nature of the particular chromosome in which the gene resides, determines in advance the main or even the subsidiary characteristics which are to be influenced by the gene, it might be instructive to let our imaginations roam a bit. The outwardly observable effects of the blood group genes are, so far as we know, zero. Therefore let us make some arbitrary assumptions as to the sort of effect which the blood grouping genes could have produced, supposing them to have affected some of the external and visible char-…

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Race mixture: a social or a biological problem?

The Eugenics Review
Volume 41, Number 2 (July 1949)
pages 81-85

A. Dickinson

The ideas of the layman on race are curiously distorted. Race is commonly identified with a given language or culture, with a group living in a common habitat or possessing a single characteristic feature such as pigmentation. Men stubbornly cling to concepts of racial purity and elaborate these into theories of racial superiority or inferiority. Needless to say, this human weakness is often attended by dire results in a world in which people of differing physical traits are being herded ever more closely together as the barriers of distance are gradually broken down…

…Prevalence of Hybridization

Yet objective investigation on scientific lines clearly shows that only the broadest classification is possible in respect of physical traits, a classification which reduces the teeming millions of the world, and the multitude of self-styled races into which they divide themselves, into perhaps no more than five main groups. Likewise empirical proof has been given that intra-racial variability often exceeds inter-racial variability in respect of measurable physical traits…

…We speak in general terms. It is impossible to do more by way of an introduction to a study of race mixture, but it is clear from the foregoing generalizations that concepts of racial purity are largely invalid and that the psychic homogeneity of the human species is much greater than is commonly supposed. It is also evident that differences in language and culture are by no means coincident with differences in physical traits. A rational approach to the question is needed-one which dispenses with what can only be the dead-weight of national ideologies and which acknowledges that an excessive degree af miscegenation must have taken place over thousands of years to account for the present day distribution of physical traits and the variability about a norm which obtains in even the most race-conscious of societies. Given the psychological abhorrence of race mixture which persists as a corollary of untenable theories of racial purity, we must endeavour to assess in quantitative and qualitative terms the indisputable fact of race mixture as it exists in the world to-day…

…Social Aspects of Hybridization

This of course throws into high relief the psychological and social aspects of the question. A strong psychological prejudice against race mixture will inevitably result in the concept of hybrid inferiority. This in turn will often prevent hybrids from revealing their true potentialities. Widely regarded as social outcasts they will find it well-nigh impossible to rise to the position in society which might well be their due. As a consequence their minds will become warped and their personalities stunted. It is not surprising that hybrids, particularly those living alongside their progenitors, commonly reveal a minimum of ability, marked indolence and an astonishing proclivity towards moral laxity. Yet the condition of such people can hardly be attributed to biological factors. Rather is it due to their lack of opportunity in a society which is at once prejudiced and highly irrational in outlook. In the words of Young, ” the social behaviour of hybrids is best considered as a reflection of their cultural milieu than as resulting from biological sources.” Castle, too, makes the same point by contrasting the crossbreeding of black and white and red and white in the United States. The blacks and the mulattoes are visited with strong social disapprobation, their opportunities for advancement are limited, their numbers decrease and, if the mulatto compares favourably with his black progenitors, it is only because in the past the whites, his blood relations, have shown at least a modicum of compassion for their unfortunate offspring, whereas the lot of the pure-blooded Negro has always been an unfortunate one in the land of his enslavement. That the mulattoes will not stand comparison with the whites goes without saying. But their plight should be contrasted with that of the Indian hybrids in whose case there is no strong social prejudice. It should be borne in mind how well they thrive, how they are assimilated back into the white population, how they frequently attain positions of considerable authority and responsibility to which they are fully equal. Here the difference in the results between the aforementioned crossings are not referable to any biological harmony or disharmony, but wholly to the social attitude adopted by the whites, favourable in one case, unfavourable in the other…

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With DNA Testing, Suddenly They Are Family

The New York Times
2011-01-24

Rachel L. Swarns

ST. LOUIS — Growing up, Khrys Vaughan always believed that she had inherited her looks and mannerisms from her father, and that her appreciation for tradition and old-fashioned gentility stemmed from her parents’ Southern roots. But those facets of her self-image crumbled when she was told, at age 42, that she had been adopted.

She began searching for her origins, only to find out that her adoption records had been sealed, a common practice in the 1960s. Then Mrs. Vaughan stumbled across an ad from a DNA testing company offering to help people who had been adopted find clues to their ancestry and connections to blood relatives.

About five weeks after shipping off two tiny vials of her cells from a swab of her cheek, Mrs. Vaughan received an e-mail informing her that her bloodlines extended to France, Romania and West Africa. She was also given the names and e-mail addresses of a dozen distant cousins. This month, she drove 208 miles from her hometown here to Evansville, Ind., to meet her third cousin, the first relative to respond to her e-mails. Mrs. Vaughan is black and her cousin is white, and they have yet to find their common ancestor. But Mrs. Vaughan says that does not matter…

…Within minutes of receiving the names of her distant relatives, Mrs. Vaughan, a freelance project manager, was admiring their photographs on Facebook. Another adoptee who found family through DNA testing, Kathy Borgmann, a 49-year-old corn farmer in New Palestine, Ind., exchanged e-mails with cousins who delighted her by saying, “Welcome to the family.”…

…Not everyone is hoping to find new relatives. Some adoptees who have found genetic matches have been rebuffed by their distant kin. Most people take genealogical DNA tests to fill gaps in their family trees, not to find new members of their clans. Mr. Bogner said several cousins identified through DNA testing stopped communicating once they learned he was adopted. “It was horribly disappointing,” he said…

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HLA class I variation controlled for genetic admixture in the Gila River Indian Community of Arizona: A model for the Paleo-Indians

Human Immunology
Volume 33, Issue 1 (January 1992)
Pages 39–46
DOI: 10.1016/0198-8859(92)90050-W

Robert C. Williams
Histocompatibility Laboratory, Blood Systems, Inc., Scottsdale, Arizona
Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University

Joan E. McAuley
Histocompatibility Laboratory, Blood Systems, Inc., Scottsdale, Arizona

The genetic distribution of the HLA class I loci is presented for 619 “full blooded” Pima and Tohono O’odham Native Americans (Pimans) in the Gila River Indian Community. Variation in the Pimans is highly restricted. There are only three polymorphic alleles at the HLA-A locus, ^∗A2, ^∗A24, and ^∗A31, and only 10 alleles with a frequency greater than 0.01 at HLA-B where ^∗Bw48 (0.187), ^∗B35 (0.173), and the new epitope ^∗BN21 (0.143) have the highest frequencies. Two and three locus disequilibria values and haplotype frequencies are presented. Ten three-locus haplotypes account for more than 50% of the class I variation, with ^∗A24 ^∗BN21 ^∗Cw3 (0.085) having the highest frequency. Gm allotypes demonstrate that little admixture from non-Indian populations has entered the Community since the 17th century when Europeans first came to this area. As a consequence many alleles commonly found in Europeans and European Americans are efficient markers for Caucasian admixture, while the “private” Indian alleles, ^∗BN21 and ^∗Bw48, can be used to measure Native American admixture in Caucasian populations. It is suggested that this distribution in “full blooded” Pimans approximates that of the Paleo-Indian migrants who first entered the Americas between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago.

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Blood Is Thicker than Water: Policing Donor Insemination and the Reproduction of Whiteness

Hypatia
Volume 22, Issue 2 (May 2007): Special Issue: The Reproduction of Whiteness: Race and the Regulation of the Gendered Body
pages 143–161
DOI: 10.1111/j.1527-2001.2007.tb00986.x

Seline Szkupinski Quiroga, Faculty Associate
College of Nutrition and Health Promotion
Arizona State University

On the most general level, this essay addresses the ways race is deployed in biomedical solutions to infertility. Szkupinski Quiroga begins with general assertions about fertility technology. She then explores how fertility technology reinforces biological links between parents and children and argues that most options reflect and privilege white kinship patterns and fears about race mixing. She illustrates these observations with interviews she has collected.

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Racial Differences and Witch Hunting

Science Magazine
Volume 135, Number 3507 (1962-03-16)
pages 982-984
DOI: 10.1126/science.135.3507.982-a

Henry E. Garrett

In a recent issue of Science (1), Santiago Genovés of the University of Mexico discourses at some length concerning a paper of mine published in the Mankind Quarterly last year (2). Genovés objects to my criticism of Klineberg’s chapter “Race and psychology,” included in the UNESCO publication The Race Quesion in Modern Science (ed. 2, 1956). He confuses the issues through bad logic and too much vehemence What I actually did in my paper was to show, I think conclusively, that the evidence for no race differences presented by Klineberg is far too meager, too ambiguous, and too inconclusive to justify his sweeping assertion that “the scientist knows of no relation between race and psychology ” My paper would have been “unscientific racism” (Genovés’s term) only if its main purpose had been to support the doctrines of a “master race” or “chosen people.” As its aim was simply to point out the flimsy nature of Klineberg’s data, it is a legitimate enterprise,  unless one considers any criticism of equalitarianism to be morally untenable.

Genovés is critical of my view that widespread Negro-white hybridization has in the past led to illiteracy, social and economic backwardness, and degeneracy. He assumes that I condemn all race mixing, which is untrue. Most racial hybrids are viable, and many are successful people, as witness the Hawaiian-Chinese and Japanese-American crosses in Hawaii. But one need go no farther afield than the West Indies. Central America, and parts of South America to be convinced of the bad effects of Negro-white crosses when these are numerous. My concern was…

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The Seminole Indians of Florida: Morphology and Serology

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Volume 32, Number 1 (January, 1970)
pages 65-81

William S. Pollitzer
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Donald L. Rucknagel
University of Michigan

Richard E. Tashian
University of Michigan

Donald C. Shreffler
University of Michigan

Webster C. Leyshon
National Institute of Dental Research, NIH

Kadambari Namboodiri
Carolina Population Center
University of North Carolina

Robert C. Elston
University of North Carolina

The Seminole Indians of Florida were studied on their three reservations for blood types, red cell enzymes, serum proteins, physical measurements, and relationships. Both serologic and morphologic factors suggest their close similarity to other Indians and small amount of admixture. The Florida Seminoles are similar to Cherokee “full-bloods” in their absence of Rho and their incidence of O and M. In the presence of Di^a they are similar to other Indians, especially those of South America. While the presence of G-6-P-D A and the frequency of Hgb. S are indicative of Negro ancestry, the absence of Rho suggests that the Negro contribution must have been small. Physical traits give parallel results. Both serology and morphology further show that the Seminoles of the Dania and Big Cypress reservations are more similar to each other than to those of the Brighton reservation, in keeping with their history.

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While many commentators who supported the approval of BiDil for black patients state that “race” is not a scientifically precise term for identifying relevant genomic or physiological characteristics that differentiate population groups, nevertheless, they argue that “self-identified race” is a useful proxy for those characteristics. However, what is the evidence that the proxy “self-identified race” is a reliable surrogate? The best evidence derives from the fact that genetic variation conferring disease susceptibility is not equally distributed among ancestral populations. For example, sickle cell anaemia is more prevalent in populations whose ancestry can be traced to sub-Saharan Africa. However, “self-identified race” is a subjective term, influenced by cultural factors, and not even grounded in the ancestral genomics of, for example, the International HapMap Project. For the purpose of the clinical trials, “self-identified race” is interpreted as a dichotomous variable (black or non-black). If race were used as a proxy for ancestral African genomics it should be a continuous function (10%, 30%, 70%, etc). It makes no scientific sense to map a continuous function onto a dichotomous variable…

Sheldon Krimsky, “The short life of a race drug,” The Lancet, Volume 379, Issue 9811 (2012-01-14 through 2012-01-20): 114. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60052-X/fulltext.

Health in Black and White: Debates on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in Brazil

University of California, San Diego
2011
320 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3458492
ISBN: 9781124703657

Anna Pagano

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology

In 2006, the Brazilian Health Council approved a National Health Policy for the Black Population. The Policy is striking because it promotes the image of a biologically and culturally discrete black population in a nation where racial classification has historically been relatively fluid and ambiguous. It transforms established patterns of racialization by collapsing “brown” (pardo) and “black” (preto) Brazilian Census categories into a single “black population” (população negra) to be considered a special-needs group by the public health apparatus. This construction resembles the United States’ dominant mode of racialization based on hypodescent and represents a significant departure from hegemonic portrayals of Brazil as a racially mixed nation. Furthermore, the Policy challenges national ideologies of racial and cultural unity by affirming the existence of an essential black body with specific health concerns, as well as an essential Afro-Brazilian culture that materializes in recommendations for culturally competent health care. As such, the Policy constitutes an important site for new negotiations of racial and cultural identity in Brazil.

In this dissertation, I explore the political and social implications of treating racial and ethnic groups differently within Brazilian health care. I examine how the re-definition and medicalization of racial and cultural identities unfolds in public clinics, temples of Afro-Brazilian religion, and social movements based in São Luís and São Paulo, Brazil. Through an analysis of ethnographic data that I collected over twenty-four months, I assess the impact of recent developments in race-conscious health policy on Brazilians’ lived experiences of race, ethnicity, and health disparities.

I argue that the new Policy, and its associated health programs, signals the emergence of a new biopolitical paradigm in which the Brazilian state formalizes citizens’ racial and ethnic differences in order to address inequalities among them. I also show that many aspects of these programs, which incorporate global discourses and concepts related to health equity, fail to resonate with Brazilian citizens’ notions about race and health. Consequently, patients and healthcare providers often resist the new measures. The result is a disjuncture between policy and practice that ultimately hinders Brazil’s efforts to reduce health inequalities among its citizens.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Signature Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Vita
• Abstract of the Dissertation
• PART I: RACE, MEDICINE, AND BIOPOLITICS IN BRAZIL
  • Chapter 1: Introduction
    • Race and Ethnicity
    • Biologization and the Re-Biologization of Race
    • Medicalization
    • Medicalization of Race
    • Biopower and Biopolitics
    • Applying a Biopolitical Framework to the Medicalization of Race
    • Race and National Identity in Brazil
    • Black Movement Activism
    • Public Health in Brazil
    • Ethnographic Field Sites
  • Chapter 2: Everyday Narratives on Race, Racism, and Health
    • Patients’ Narratives on Race and Health
    • Health Care Professionals’ Narratives on Race and Health
    • Patients and Providers: A Counter-Biopolitics
• PART II: THE BLACK HEALTH AGENDA
  • Chapter 3: The Birth of the Black Health Agenda in Brazil
    • Black Health Activism in Brazil
    • The Black Health Agenda in São Paulo
    • The Black Health Agenda in São Luís
  • Chapter 4: The Black Health Epistemic Community in Brazil
    • The Politics of Categorization
    • The Imperative of Self-Declaration
    • Etiological Claims
    • Medicalizing Racism
    • Discourses of Difference
    • Implications for Citizenship
    • Conclusion
• Part III: AFRO-BRAZILIAN RELIGIONS AND HEALTH
  • Chapter 5: Health and Healing in Afro-Brazilian Religions
    • Afro-Brazilian Religions: A Brief Background
    • Mãe Letícia
    • Pai Cesar
    • Healing in Afro-Brazilian Religions
  • Chapter 6: Afro-Brazilian Religions and the State
    • Partnerships between Terreiros and SUS: Rehabilitating History
    • Razor Blades and Comic Strips
    • Other Sources of Conflict
    • Cultural Competence and the Terreiro
    • De-Sacralizing the Terreiro
    • Conclusion
  • Chapter 7: Afro-Brazilian Religions and Ethnic Identity Politics in the Brazilian
    • Public Health Arena
    • Terreiro Health Activists’ Identity Politics
    • Conclusion
  • Chapter 8: Health in Black and White
• Bibliography

LIST OF FIGURES

• Figure 1. Household Income, 2000
• Figure 2. Distribution of Race/Color (Pretos and Pardos), 2000
• Figure 3. Public Health Facilities and Distribution of Population by Color in São Paulo, 2000
• Figure 4. Population Density of São Paulo, 2000

LIST OF TABLES

• Table 1. Characteristics of Sample Population
• Table 2. Self-Identified Race or Color
• Table 3. Beliefs Regarding Health Outcomes between Blacks and Whites

Purchase the dissertation here.