Race Is Real, But It’s Not Genetic
By Alan Goodman,
Discover
| 06. 25. 2020
For over 300 years, socially defined notions of “race” have shaped human lives around the globe — but the category has no biological foundation.
Carl Linnaeus, who defined four varieties of humans in the 18th century
Portrait by Alexander Roslin; cropped photo by Nationalmuseum, Sweden
A friend of mine with Central American, Southern European and West African ancestry is lactose intolerant. Drinking milk products upsets her stomach, and so she avoids them. About a decade ago, because of her low dairy intake, she feared that she might not be getting enough calcium, so she asked her doctor for a bone density test. He responded that she didn’t need one because “blacks do not get osteoporosis.”
My friend is not alone. The view that black people don’t need a bone density test is a longstanding and common myth. A 2006 study in North Carolina found that out of 531 African American and Euro-American women screened for bone mineral density, only 15 percent were African American women — despite the fact that African American women made up almost half of that clinical population. A health fair in Albany, New York, in 2000, turned into a ruckus when black women were refused free osteoporosis screening. The situation hasn’t...
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