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A preliminary study in the UK showed that the increased risk of death among Black people vanished if social deprivation and other underlying health conditions were taken into account.
There is more genetic diversity in Africa than the rest of the world.
Not only were we diverse in our skin colour long before the dispersal from Africa, we were diverse in our skin colour before we were our own species.
What we see with our eyes is the merest fraction of a human.
When all you’ve ever known is privilege, equality feels like oppression.
most people pass through history as shadows and dust, having lived normal lives that leave little or no trace,
Nevertheless, every Nazi has Jewish ancestors. Every White supremacist has Middle Eastern ancestors. Every racist has African, Indian, Chinese, Native American, aboriginal Australian ancestors, as well as everyone else, and not just in the sense that humankind is an African species in deep prehistory, but at a minimum from classical times, and probably much more recently. Racial purity is a pure fantasy. For humans, there are no purebloods, only mongrels enriched by the blood of multitudes.
the process of genetic shuffling that occurs in the formation of sperm and egg guarantees that each one of those two cells is unique and carries a unique half genome (therefore a unique half is lost in subsequent generations, should that sperm or egg be successful). Which means that not the same half gets transferred each generation. Over the generations, descendants begin to shed the DNA of their actual ancestors. The amount that vanishes is cumulatively huge: you carry DNA from only half of your ancestors eleven generations back. Genealogy and genetic genealogy are not perfectly matched, and
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We can be clear on this with absolute certainty: you are descended from multitudes, from all around the world, from people you think you know, and from more you know nothing about. You will have no meaningful genetic link to many of them. These are the facts of biology.
Sport is a complex social and biological phenomenon, which, like all human activity, includes significant input from nature and nurture, meaning genes and everything else. It is effectively casual racism to suggest that biological ethnicity is more important than other factors, not least because it is virtually impossible to pick apart all the elements of a lived life to assess the ingredients of a successful recipe.
the death rate from drowning in African American children aged five to fourteen is three times higher than for White children. Racism is literally lethal.
we should be capable of recognising and celebrating great scientific achievements while simultaneously condemning bigotry, even when they occur in the same individual.
All human behaviour is a heady mix of genes and culture, of biology and history.
Race is a social construct. This does not mean it is invalid or unimportant.
People fixated on finding biological bases for racial differences appear more interested in the racism than the science.
The sweet irony is that the whole science of human genetics was founded by racists in a time of racism, and singularly has become the field that has demonstrated the scientific falsity of race.
It behoves us all to confront racism wherever we find it, especially when it is covert or normalised in stereotypes and myth, and science is a weapon in that contest.
Race is real because we perceive it. Racism is real because we enact it. Neither race nor racism has foundations in science. It is our duty to contest the warping of scientific research, especially if it is being used to justify prejudice. If you are a racist, then you are asking for a fight. But science is my ally, not yours, and your fight is not just with me, but with reality.
