5 minute read
Choose All that Apply
Choose All that Apply
written by Lina Lew; illustrated by Shae Galli
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From standardized tests to job applications to doctor’s appointments, we’re confronted with this seemingly straightforward question over and over again, to the point where identifying one’s race seems like second nature. The persistent use of race as a distinctive category—along the same lines as gender and age—has naturally shaped the way we evaluate the world and the people in it. Race as a form of categorization has even gained substantial footing in the medical field, as physicians often turn to race as a biological indicator of an individual’s health. However, taking a closer look at the origins, applications, and implications of race reveal that the boundaries between races might not be as clear as they appear to be. In fact, they might not exist at all. At least, not biologically.
The concept of race that we understand today can be traced back to the 17th century Scientific Revolution and European colonialism, during which the concept of race rose in prominence as a method of scientific categorization. For the first time, European scientists were confronted with human beings from “newly discovered” continents who looked different from the standard “blonde hair and blue eyes” phenotype with which they were accustomed. Scientists resorted to taxonomy as a scientific method of observing, naming, and ordering the new human phenotypes they were discovering. Carl Linnaeus, a renowned 18th century Swedish scientist revered as the “father of taxonomy,” described four varieties of humans in his findings published in Systema Naturae: H. sapiens europaeus, H. sapiens americanus, H. sapiens asiaticus, and H. sapiens afer. However, these scientific findings were far from objective. Linnaeus described H. sapiens europaeus as “vigorous, muscular. Flowing blond hair. Blue eyes. Very smart, inventive. Ruled by law.” On the other hand, H. sapiens afer was described as “sluggish. Lazy. black kinky hair, flat nose, thick lips. Craft, slow, careless. Ruled by caprice.” Linnaeus’s major influence on taxonomy and classification introduced subjectivity to an objective science, as his publications served as a catalyst to use categorization as a means to justify underlying prejudiced beliefs.
The striking misconception about the biological basis of race, however, has been proven untrue through modern genetic science. After years of sequencing every gene in the human body, the Human Genome Project (HGP) concluded that humans are 99.9% alike and race indeed did not have any basis in science. The HGP showed that the human genome could not be distinguished between Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian, and African American participants—meaning, there is only one human race. Other bodies of research have found that genetic variability within a certain racial group accounted for 95% of all variation, while genetic variability between racial groups only accounted for about 5%. In other words, there were far more genetic differences among members of the same race than there were between members of different races. So the race that we talk about—and the racial differences that we see today in almost every realm of society— doesn’t come from our genetic biology.
It makes sense then, that although race is used in 80% of health-related biomedical science publications, race is never explicitly defined in these studies. Oftentimes, scientists rely on unverified self-reports to inform their racial classifications. The inclusion and pervasiveness of race in modern medicine also leads to the prospect of pharmacogenetics, or the study of how individuals personally respond to medication based upon their genetic makeup. Current pharmacogenetics focuses on the wide and unique individual variation in the effect of drugs, hoping to shift away from a “one size fits all” approach. However, the obstacle remains; the relationship between common illnesses like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes and specific genetic drug targets remains murky. In fact, these common diseases are linked to several genetic variants that either cannot be detected through genome-wide association studies or have unclear mechanisms of interaction with other genes. Ultimately, understanding the genetic cause of disease does not necessarily illuminate any insight on the role that these genetic variants play in disease risk and treatment. Mutational differences that are known to further the pathogenicity of diseases play a common role in all races.
However, despite the lack of relational genetic data, pharmacogenetics continues to use race as a standing proxy for the eventual use of individual genetic difference in tailored treatment and personalized medicine. Until pharmacogenetics can accurately explain and utilize individuals’ unique genomic data to prescribe treatment, scientists continue to pursue racial genetic differences. Yet, the conclusive jump from racial differences to an individual’s response to disease can only go so far; allelic frequency of a disease may provide a rough estimation of likelihood, but this likelihood diminishes when applied to individuals.
From its clear historical roots in upholding structural inequalities, race is most accurately portrayed as a politically created system. However, race has also become a system that is unavoidable and integral to our nature of evaluating and categorizing, impacting our own interactions and perceptions of the world. Today, racial stereotypes are dangerously used as a way to justify biased conclusions at the individual level, resulting in health disparities and discriminatory treatments against racial minorities. Medicine itself is just one of many ways that biological race manifests itself in unjust ways. Other displays of racial biology, however, are no different in their systematic approach to disenfranchising the Black population.
Moving forward can be a different story altogether. Though scientists throughout history have painted biology and race in black and white colors—objective, straightforward, non-negotiable—our biology is anything but. As biology continues to evolve into the far-reaching and omnipresent part of our human nature and embeds itself into societal implications, our social definition and understanding of biology must continue to adapt as well. Shifting our focus away from the biological roots of race to the social roots can help shape our understanding of how our social system creates the disparities we see in our health demographics. Although race is not biology, race becomes biology through the embodiment of our social world. Perhaps renewed attention on the cultural construct of race is exactly what we need to dismantle the biological roots of medical racism that have persisted for far too long.
Read the entire article on: sqonline.ucsd.edu
Vol. 15 | Winter 2021
