Friday, November 30, 2007

The Myth of Race

Race is a construct fostered by history and convenience. There is scientifically speaking nothing to the concept of Race. In fact it was the WHO (World health Organization) that recommended dropping race from its queries. What race is- is a set of inherited genes that may or may not depend on each other. The genes for leukemia present at a high rate in the black population has nothing to with the melanism. There are people in parts of china who live in areas with high rates with malaria who pass on and have leukemia at higher rates.

So if I call the collection of inherited autism genes a race it is every bit as valid. The only context you could argue is historical. So Even if you eliminate environmental triggers that may or may not exist the child or adult is still autistic.

I have included an Amazon Link to one of the seminal works in this area below

RaceMyth

2 comments:

stevethehydra said...

I think you mean "melanism", rather than "melanoma". Melanism is the condition of having black or very dark pigmentation (the pigment itself is called melanin); melanoma is a type of skin cancer caused by UV light (ironically mostly occurring in white people, because melanin protects against it; this is thought to be the reason why dark-skinned "races" evolved in areas with more sunlight).

Aspie biology geek here ;)

I agree with you on "race" as a sociopolitical construct, btw. Something else i need to blog about; i see parallels between race/racism and disability/disablism...

An American said...

Yes you are right. *Sorry*