Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century

by Dorothy Roberts

Race is not a biological category that is politically charged. It is a political category that has been disguised as a biological one.

The very first step of creating race, dividing human beings into these categories, is a political practice.

if race is a political system, then we must use political means to end its harmful impact on our society.

As evidence contesting the biological basis of race emerges, scientists have reconfigured race without abandoning it.

The genetic differences that exist among populations are characterized by gradual changes across geographic regions, not sharp, categorical distinctions.

Race collapses infinite diversity into a few discrete categories that in reality cannot be demarcated genetically.

Ancestry is a far more accurate tool than race for describing human genotypes because it can reflect the true nature of individual and group heterogeneity.

Because it is assumed that races differ biologically, the differences between them appear to be biological.

But if our goal is eliminating the gap between white and black hypertension or asthma in the United States, our focus should be on the environmental causes of the gap because these are factors that can and should be changed.

So let me be clear: race is not a biological category that naturally produces health disparities because of genetic differences. Race is a political category that has staggering biological consequences because of the impact of social inequality on people’s health.

Race is a political category that has staggering biological consequences because of the impact of social inequality on people’s health.

A chief reason why genetic explanations are emphasized over social ones is that genetic causes can be treated with a pharmaceutical product.