Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody. It's semester three.
Speaker 2: We have been gone so long, but let me tell you,
Speaker 2: we have missed you so much, and we have thought
Speaker 2: of you every step of the way.
Speaker 1: Right and you guys have been in our DM saying
Speaker 1: the same thing. So we're just happy to be back.
Speaker 1: A lot has happened in the first half of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Six months in twenty twenty is the equivalent of ten
Speaker 1: years in actual time, So congratulations to all of you
Speaker 1: for making it this far.
Speaker 2: Now that we're back, we're ready to dive right into
Speaker 2: what has been going on. The main thing that's happening
Speaker 2: in my life and on the timeline is Black lives matter, Yes,
Speaker 2: and that's all black lives mattering. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people have been protesting in person.
Speaker 2: Some people are protesting having digital efforts where they're spreading
Speaker 2: information or they're donating or raising money or providing supplies
Speaker 2: for other folks who are protesting. One of the things
Speaker 2: that I've seen is people are asking, how do I
Speaker 2: get involved? Don't know where to start, And I think
Speaker 2: the key is to understand that white supremacy and systemic
Speaker 2: racism are widespread. So it exists wherever you are. You
Speaker 2: don't have to look far to get involved, and you
Speaker 2: really can start writing your own backyard.
Speaker 1: And our backyard is science. So we're pulling it up
Speaker 1: by the route and examining the long intertwining history of
Speaker 1: science and racism. I'm TT and I'm Zakijah and from
Speaker 1: Spotify Studios. This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 2: You hit the nail on the hill. You know you
Speaker 2: said this episode we are going to be looking at
Speaker 2: the intertwining history of science and racism, and I think
Speaker 2: we really got to tell people how we got here.
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty, some of the deaths of black
Speaker 1: people that have made national news. It started with a
Speaker 1: mod Art who's a black man that was gunned down
Speaker 1: by two white men while he was out for a run.
Speaker 1: Breonna Taylor who was shot by police who entered her
Speaker 1: home at night and it turned out to be the
Speaker 1: wrong home. Christian Cooper who was confronted by a white
Speaker 1: woman in Central Park who threatened to call the police
Speaker 1: on him. George Floyd, who was murdered by the police
Speaker 1: for allegedly using a counterfeit twenty dollars bill trans women,
Speaker 1: Dominique Remy Fels and Rya Milton, and most recently Rashard Brooks,
Speaker 1: who was killed by the police after he fell asleep
Speaker 1: in his car at a Wendy's.
Speaker 2: And there are countless other victims who don't get media
Speaker 2: attention and we may never know their names. So tc.
Speaker 2: How does this all connect to our backyard science? Why
Speaker 2: are we focusing on racism and science specifically?
Speaker 1: I think for the simple fact that a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know it still exists, or know the extent
Speaker 1: that it even existed in the first place. Because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people think that signed is so
Speaker 1: objective and like it's rooted in fact. So how could
Speaker 1: racism permeate the scientific community if we're all like holding
Speaker 1: this this beacon of light up, saying here is our
Speaker 1: facts and there's nothing else that's influencing it. But that's
Speaker 1: not true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing we know is that scientists are people.
Speaker 2: Science isn't done in a vacuum, and it's always swayed
Speaker 2: by the politics of the time. You know, even when
Speaker 2: we think about this is not just a case for racism,
Speaker 2: this or this is not just the case for what
Speaker 2: we consider the interaction between race and science. Even as
Speaker 2: we think about what is the next foray of science?
Speaker 2: If you think back to stem cell therapy and then
Speaker 2: the US government put a clamp on that, right, and
Speaker 2: so you see how politics influenced science. This is not
Speaker 2: new and so we're gonna hold up our well, I
Speaker 2: don't know if we're going back in time. So it's
Speaker 2: an old school Anthony van Luhenhook micro scope and they're
Speaker 2: going to peer right into there and see what happened
Speaker 2: back in the day and how those things have effects
Speaker 2: on us right now.
Speaker 1: What's the key is saying is we're gonna live real,
Speaker 1: real close.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: What we know is is a system is often dictated
Speaker 1: by its roots. So here we're digging up the soil
Speaker 1: to see how the theories and actions of the past
Speaker 1: led to us having tainted fruits today.
Speaker 2: So let's get into the recitation.
Speaker 1: So what do we know and what do we want
Speaker 1: to know?
Speaker 2: I think we want to all start at the same
Speaker 2: place about understanding race. Like if you stop and think
Speaker 2: what are the races?
Speaker 1: Also ask yourself how many are there? And do those
Speaker 1: categories that you think our race encompass everyone? Yeah, the
Speaker 1: answers probably know.
Speaker 2: There are three main points we really want to think
Speaker 2: about to help us really frame how we're what we
Speaker 2: know about race, and how we'll use that information moving
Speaker 2: forward to understand the intertwined nature of race and science
Speaker 2: over time. So some of you may already know these
Speaker 2: things and some of you may not. Either way, we're
Speaker 2: not making any assumptions. First, there's no such thing as
Speaker 2: biological race. Genetics shows us there are no discrete categories
Speaker 2: of race.
Speaker 1: Right, so there's no single gene that only appears in
Speaker 1: one quote unquote race that doesn't appear in another quote
Speaker 1: unquote race. Race is not a biological category. What most
Speaker 1: of us think as race is actually culture and language,
Speaker 1: and it's been long proven that biologically there are no
Speaker 1: distinct quote unquote races as we understand the term now.
Speaker 2: The second point is we're all members of the same species.
Speaker 2: We're all Homo sapiens, and our roots can be traced
Speaker 2: back to Africa. Those visible differences that you see are
Speaker 2: due to founder effects, where a small group moves from
Speaker 2: the larger population and they lose some of that genetic diversity.
Speaker 1: And the third thing is that wherever there are multiple
Speaker 1: groups of people and one group is oppressing another group,
Speaker 1: there is a system in place so it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have to be race related. It could be religion, class, politics.
Speaker 1: And what we find is is that history often repeats
Speaker 1: itself and racism is one of those systems. And even
Speaker 1: though we know there is no biological basis, it still
Speaker 1: affects us because it affects our interactions day to day.
Speaker 2: So now that we've all set the playing field here,
Speaker 2: we're all working with the same set of information, let's
Speaker 2: jump into what we want to know this episode.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I want to know is
Speaker 1: when did the concept of race and race science first originate?
Speaker 2: Whose idea was this? And then I'm wondering, if we
Speaker 2: know all of these things, like race is a social
Speaker 2: construct and it's been debunked, why are people still looking
Speaker 2: for these same types of groupings using these artificial categories.
Speaker 2: Is it just the guilding of time? Have we all
Speaker 2: been brainwashed?
Speaker 1: And I want to know what are some of the
Speaker 1: foundational scientific theories in science where race like played a part.
Speaker 1: Who are some of the major players in science whose
Speaker 1: work was predicated on race science?
Speaker 2: Ooh, you're naming names. One of the classic examples of
Speaker 2: racism and science is eugenics, and eugenics is a system
Speaker 2: of ideas and practices aiming to genetically quote unquote purify
Speaker 2: a population. I want to know who were the early
Speaker 2: proponents of eugenics and what were their motivations.
Speaker 1: I love that question. I also want to know where
Speaker 1: do we see racism in science today? Is I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of people are going to say, oh,
Speaker 1: that must have been during another time when people, you know,
Speaker 1: weren't as informed and we didn't have the Internet. But
Speaker 1: I know for a fact it still exists today, and
Speaker 1: I want to know where it is.
Speaker 2: Just like we look back and shame on eugenics in
Speaker 2: fifty years, what will we look back on today and say, oh,
Speaker 2: my gosh, I can't believe that was happening.
Speaker 1: Yes, because I think that looking back on myself, I
Speaker 1: wonder why I tweezed my eyebrows so much.
Speaker 2: Those pictures of you and undergrad I understood it. I
Speaker 2: too tweeze my eyebrows as thin as any.
Speaker 1: I had six eyebrow hairs on each side, and I
Speaker 1: thought I was killing it.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad they made it back then.
Speaker 1: Quarantine they all back.
Speaker 2: All the hairs are back, okay. And I think the
Speaker 2: final question is are we doomed to repeat ourselves over
Speaker 2: and over. Understanding this, what can the scientific community do
Speaker 2: to change course?
Speaker 1: Let's get into the dissection. This episode, we're talking to
Speaker 1: Angela Saani, a science journalist who tackles the issue of
Speaker 1: racism and science, exploring how the two have co mingled
Speaker 1: over the years.
Speaker 3: I'm Angela Sani. I'm a science journalist based in the
Speaker 3: United Kingdom, and I write books really that look under
Speaker 3: the skin of science, so exploring the reasons why people
Speaker 3: study what they do, what research tells us, the impact
Speaker 3: of funding and bias and politics on science, looking at
Speaker 3: both gender and more recently race.
Speaker 2: So to start the dissection, it's important for us to
Speaker 2: figure out how and where race science and the concept
Speaker 2: of race started.
Speaker 3: Race, of course, as a word has been around for
Speaker 3: a very long time. The meaning that it has and
Speaker 3: the way that we use it now is obviously not
Speaker 3: the way that people have always used it in history.
Speaker 2: In Superior Angela notes early uses of the term race,
Speaker 2: dating back to the fifteen hundreds, were used to refer
Speaker 2: to groups that were related, so a family or tribe.
Speaker 2: It wasn't necessarily tied to physical characteristics, which are literally
Speaker 2: skin deep.
Speaker 3: So the way that we use it now to define
Speaker 3: races like black, white, brown, or you know these kind
Speaker 3: of big continental groups is relatively recent and it dates
Speaker 3: from around the time of the European Enlightenment, when naturalists
Speaker 3: and thinkers were starting to categorize. This is in Europe.
Speaker 3: European thinkers were starting to categorize the natural world. They
Speaker 3: were looking at flora and fauna and drawing up these taxonomies,
Speaker 3: and they did the same with people.
Speaker 1: The Age of Enlightenment in Europe was from the seventeenth
Speaker 1: to nineteenth centuries and it was a time in Europe
Speaker 1: when a lot of intellectual and philosophical advancements were being made.
Speaker 1: Modern sociology, politics, and science emerged during this time, and
Speaker 1: specifically in the scientific field, the biological taxonomy was developed.
Speaker 1: Taxonomy is the science of naming, defining, and classifying groups
Speaker 1: of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics.
Speaker 2: If you have some background in biology, you may remember
Speaker 2: the taxonomic classifications of genus and species. This is a
Speaker 2: two name system, so think Homo sapiens for humans. That
Speaker 2: was ushered in by Carl Linnaeus. It's a well known
Speaker 2: and recognized system. We still use it today. While I
Speaker 2: was taught that Linnaeus was the father of taxonomy. I
Speaker 2: did not learn that he was the pioneer of race
Speaker 2: as a categorization for humans. Did you know that, No, girl,
Speaker 2: He started with four races based on geographical location and
Speaker 2: skin color.
Speaker 1: And other scientists built on what Linaea was teaching. And
Speaker 1: you have to remember that we're talking about way way
Speaker 1: back in the day, so you couldn't just hop on
Speaker 1: a flight and check out Asia or check out South
Speaker 1: America to see what the people were like. Information was
Speaker 1: being exchanged about people purely on hearsay, and for a
Speaker 1: lot of scientists of that time, it was a lot
Speaker 1: of guessing about what people were like in other countries.
Speaker 2: So we have these categories that were developed many, many
Speaker 2: years ago. Since then, we understand that race has no
Speaker 2: scientific basis. So remember at the top of the episode
Speaker 2: we talked about that, and the question now is why
Speaker 2: does race still rule everything around us?
Speaker 1: Bream.
Speaker 3: The weird thing is that we still live with these
Speaker 3: categories now, we still use them. We have laid these
Speaker 3: enormous sets of meaning on top of these very what
Speaker 3: will always arbitrary categories and given them a power that
Speaker 3: they never had to begin with. So the way those
Speaker 3: categories were defined in the first place were very much
Speaker 3: informed by the politics of the time, by slavery, by colonialism,
Speaker 3: by this belief in European superiority, and the categories themselves
Speaker 3: formed a hierarchy in the minds of these European thinkers
Speaker 3: in which white male Europeans were at the top and
Speaker 3: everybody else was kind of slotted below, and that became
Speaker 3: the basis on which modern day Western science was done.
Speaker 2: Considering all of this, we have to ask, why do
Speaker 2: people still believe race is a thing even though it
Speaker 2: was debunked decades ago?
Speaker 1: Is it because there was something that was said over
Speaker 1: and over again for a long time and people just
Speaker 1: accepted it.
Speaker 2: Angela explained to us why it's so difficult for people
Speaker 2: to change their.
Speaker 3: Minds, even though in the last seventy years or so,
Speaker 3: scientists have shown quite categorically and it's very easy to
Speaker 3: do this because, like I said, these categories were arbitrary
Speaker 3: to begin with, so it's not you know, it doesn't
Speaker 3: take a genius to then unpick the biology and figure
Speaker 3: out that it's nonsense. That even though scientists have done that,
Speaker 3: they still have so much power even now because of
Speaker 3: their political value. They still have political value. There are
Speaker 3: still people who would like to be able to make
Speaker 3: the case that the inequality that we see in society
Speaker 3: is natural, that it's not because of historical factors, that
Speaker 3: it's there, because it was always there and it always
Speaker 3: will be there.
Speaker 1: There are similar systems that uphold these hierarchies, like there's
Speaker 1: class in the UK, there's caste in India, and religion
Speaker 1: well everywhere all over the world.
Speaker 2: So now we have an understanding of the earliest iterations
Speaker 2: of race to classify groups of people and how those
Speaker 2: classifications upheld the politics or agendas of European men during
Speaker 2: the Enlightenment age. And we know that this is when
Speaker 2: Western science, you know, as we know it was born.
Speaker 2: So you got little baby science in the crib and
Speaker 2: its favorite plush stuffed toy is racism.
Speaker 1: Yes, so race is that little baby lullaby to go
Speaker 1: to sleep at night.
Speaker 2: So considering this scene at the birth of Western science,
Speaker 2: we asked about some of the foundational scientific theories and
Speaker 2: where a race might have come into play.
Speaker 3: If you take into account the fact that modern day
Speaker 3: Western science, Enlightenment science was predicated on this belief that
Speaker 3: there were races number one, which we know now biologically
Speaker 3: is not the case, and number two that there was
Speaker 3: a hierarchy between these races that meant that some people
Speaker 3: were in some ways even less human than others, certainly
Speaker 3: less intelligent. In the nineteenth century, the idea came along
Speaker 3: with Darwin that some were even maybe less evolved than others.
Speaker 3: So if you take that as a starting point on
Speaker 3: which the science of human difference is built, so biology,
Speaker 3: all of biology is predicated on that assumption for at
Speaker 3: least the first hundred to two hundred years. Then everything
Speaker 3: that came up afterwards was guided by that.
Speaker 1: And if you're thinking, well, surely they saw the error
Speaker 1: in their ways, not really.
Speaker 3: In the nineteenth century when science became professionalized, these ideas
Speaker 3: didn't go away. All they did was they became more
Speaker 3: codified and layers of meaning became built around them.
Speaker 2: It was the case then and it's still the case today.
Speaker 2: Using scientific language to describe something or to validate your
Speaker 2: idea or belief always makes people take you just a
Speaker 2: touch more seriously.
Speaker 1: Right, Not many people will argue with someone who is
Speaker 1: purporting information that is quote unquote scientific fact.
Speaker 2: Race science at the time lent credibility to these awful,
Speaker 2: incorrect ideas about superiority. And one of the well known
Speaker 2: and documented executions of these legitimized sinister ideas is eugenics.
Speaker 3: Eugenics really, for me, is the kind of manifestation or
Speaker 3: almost the technology that comes out of race science, if
Speaker 3: you want to think of it that way, because it's
Speaker 3: essentially saying we know that these or we think we
Speaker 3: know that these differences exist. Now, if some people are inferior,
Speaker 3: genetically inferior to other people, then what can we do
Speaker 3: about that? How do we improve the human stock or
Speaker 3: the quality of the race? And Francis Golton, who was
Speaker 3: a cousin of Childs Darwin.
Speaker 1: Like his actual cousin, not his play cousin, like me
Speaker 1: as a kia, was.
Speaker 3: The man who came up with this idea, among many things.
Speaker 3: He also coined the term nature versus nurture, which I
Speaker 3: think is one of the worst races in scientific history,
Speaker 3: because nature and nurture are not two separate things, they're
Speaker 3: completely intertwined. Anyway. That aside, he also coined the term
Speaker 3: eugenics and came up with this principle that people superior people,
Speaker 3: So the smartest and most beautiful should be allowed to
Speaker 3: breed more, and those who are inferior should be discouraged
Speaker 3: from breeding. And if we do that, then we can
Speaker 3: with the stock of in his case of British race.
Speaker 2: And you have to ask who says the standard, who's
Speaker 2: considered superior, who's the smartest by what measure? What's beautiful? Right?
Speaker 1: Is it big eyes? Is it freckles? Is it long legs?
Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking, I'm describing my friend as
Speaker 1: a kia.
Speaker 2: Those are moles, not freckles. I'll take it.
Speaker 1: But it's all really subjective.
Speaker 2: And let's be really clear. These ideas were popular. This
Speaker 2: wasn't just at the fringe the outsiders thinking oh yes,
Speaker 2: eugenics is the way to go.
Speaker 3: It was completely mainstream on the right, on the left.
Speaker 3: If anything, Socialists were more excited about it than anyone.
Speaker 3: Virginia Wolf burned Shore. You know our big kind of
Speaker 3: intellectual progressive heroes, many of them were eugenesis and very
Speaker 3: firmly believed in this idea and we're behind it.
Speaker 1: And eugenics was not like a few years of bad behavior.
Speaker 1: It was more like seventy to eighty years. We'll put
Speaker 1: some resources on our website that can give you the
Speaker 1: deep history. We could spend an entire episode on this.
Speaker 2: Eugenics was first used to create the quote unquote perfect family.
Speaker 2: This means having families without disabilities or deformities. And the
Speaker 2: idea was that they would just eliminate these individuals that
Speaker 2: they deemed unfit again subjective. And those efforts weren't only
Speaker 2: in Britain. They were quickly adopted by scientists in the
Speaker 2: United States. Not just ideas but action.
Speaker 1: When we talk about eugenics, I think the first things
Speaker 1: that pop in the folk's mind are Hitler, the Nazi Party,
Speaker 1: and the Holocaust. But Hitler actually took his cue from
Speaker 1: American eugenics.
Speaker 3: Sterilizations in the US were adopted as policy in many states,
Speaker 3: and they then became an inspiration for Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 2: And this didn't stop in the nineteen thirties. After the war,
Speaker 2: these scientists just rebranded, you know, like favorite influencers.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna take a break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we'll look at racism and science Today. Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: it's TZI and I wanted to let you know that
Speaker 1: I had the pleasure of co hosting Season six of
Speaker 1: the podcast Dissect with Cole Kushna, and it is out
Speaker 1: right now. Each season of Dissect examines a single album,
Speaker 1: forensically dissecting one song per episode. Season six takes on
Speaker 1: Beyonce's monumental visual album Lemonade. Through in depth musical and
Speaker 1: lyrical analysis, we follow Beyonce on her transcendent journey from
Speaker 1: subjugation to freedom. In past seasons, Cole has dissected Kanye
Speaker 1: Kendrick Lamar, Laurence Hill, and a lot of your other
Speaker 1: favorite artists. So make sure to check out Dissect on
Speaker 1: Spotify today because great art deserves more than a swipe.
Speaker 2: We're back and we've already looked at racism in the past,
Speaker 2: but what about racism and science today? We asked our
Speaker 2: guest expert Angela Sani, what will we look back on
Speaker 2: in fifty years and say, ugh.
Speaker 1: And we're not talking about those Janco genes you were
Speaker 1: wearing during that emo period of your life in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two.
Speaker 3: I see it woven right through medicine. I mean so
Speaker 3: many medical studies that take race as a biological variable
Speaker 3: completely inappropriately. I mean it happens routinely that you know,
Speaker 3: in my view, I wrote this for a piece for
Speaker 3: the medical journal Lancet the other week. Medicine is almost
Speaker 3: keeping race science alive.
Speaker 1: And Angela tells us it's not just direct action that's
Speaker 1: a threat either. It's also people turning a blind eye.
Speaker 3: You know, it comes down to what are you willing
Speaker 3: to excuse? When you're not the victim of somebody else's hatred,
Speaker 3: then it's quite easy, actually to excuse that kind of behavior.
Speaker 3: When you are the victim, it's impossible. And I think
Speaker 3: that's the problem. Science looks the way it does because
Speaker 3: all the people that excuse that kind of behavior stay
Speaker 3: and all the people who can't leave, And that's why
Speaker 3: science looks the way it does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is so true. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: people in the scientific community that look like well us.
Speaker 1: Yes, the scientific community is not a reflection of the
Speaker 1: general population.
Speaker 2: People are so invested in things being innate, and I
Speaker 2: think that lets us get comfortable with the systems that
Speaker 2: exist and continue to marginalize different groups. Are we doomed
Speaker 2: to repeat ourselves over and over? I really hope not.
Speaker 3: It does feel that way, and I certainly feel that
Speaker 3: way sometimes. I mean, the number of my book came
Speaker 3: out about a year ago, and the number of times
Speaker 3: have had to explain from first principles why race is
Speaker 3: a social construct, even to journal editors and science editors
Speaker 3: and scientists, again and again and again. And what frustrates
Speaker 3: me is that this was debunked decades ago. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm not the first person to come along and say this.
Speaker 3: I'm maybe the ten thousandth person to come along and
Speaker 3: say this. Lawanton did it, Gould did it. Even before that,
Speaker 3: there were so many scientists that did it, and there
Speaker 3: have been so many more since. There have been declarations
Speaker 3: made by genetic groups all over the world. This is
Speaker 3: a mainstream scientific consensus now on race is a social construct,
Speaker 3: and yet we have to keep justifying that. And because
Speaker 3: we have to always start from these first principles, whenever
Speaker 3: we have this conversation, we never move forward.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of moving forward, what can the scientific community
Speaker 1: do to break this repetitive cycle.
Speaker 3: One, I do think representation matters, just because then you
Speaker 3: don't get silos of viewpoints, and we know historically that
Speaker 3: silos of viewpoints lead to mistakes in science. That's how
Speaker 3: race science emerged in the first place. That's how sexism
Speaker 3: and science emerged in the first place. The other thing
Speaker 3: is to break down hierarchies. I think this kind of
Speaker 3: strict and immense power that people at the top have,
Speaker 3: and most of these people at the top ten to
Speaker 3: be white men. If you concentrate power in one person
Speaker 3: in any situation, they have more opportunity to abuse it,
Speaker 3: and they do abuse it. We know that because we
Speaker 3: are now in the last couple of years with me
Speaker 3: too particularly, we are getting stories of harassment and discrimination
Speaker 3: coming out. We need to have mechanisms that allow people
Speaker 3: to complain without fear of losing anything. People need to
Speaker 3: be held responsible for their bad actions. I would like
Speaker 3: to One of my big things at the moment is
Speaker 3: pushing for the teaching of history and social science within
Speaker 3: scientific education. If we had a better idea of where
Speaker 3: our ideas come from, then we are a better placed
Speaker 3: to correct them when we know that mistakes are being made.
Speaker 3: And I would also like to see the social sciences
Speaker 3: and science and biology in particular working together a lot
Speaker 3: more so that we can understand the social determinants of
Speaker 3: inequality as alongside biological factors.
Speaker 1: This is tough, yeah, I think what's difficult for people
Speaker 1: to grasp and understand is that this is something that
Speaker 1: isn't actual science, and grasping the fact that, you know,
Speaker 1: part of our scientific journey as science was being developed,
Speaker 1: isn't rooted in something that's objective. It was rooted in
Speaker 1: something that actually wasn't fact, and to push the agendas
Speaker 1: of a subset of people who wanted to explain their
Speaker 1: superiority or what they felt like was superiority. And I
Speaker 1: think for most people when they think about the scientific community,
Speaker 1: it's just not a part of their train of thought.
Speaker 1: They make those assumptions that everything that's coming out of
Speaker 1: the scientific community has to be fact because that's what
Speaker 1: we're charged with, being objective in a world of subjectivity.
Speaker 2: And you know, the crazy thing is that it's not
Speaker 2: just biology. You know, I knew some of these things
Speaker 2: from my thesis work. You know, I was really heavy
Speaker 2: into DNA repair I mutagensis, so I already knew like
Speaker 2: James Watson and what he was saying, But I didn't
Speaker 2: know it was statistics and comparative anatomy. I didn't know
Speaker 2: it was behavioral genetics all of these other fields too,
Speaker 2: And so you can start to see how widespread and
Speaker 2: prevalent it is. I think it also is tough, right,
Speaker 2: because sometimes when you talk about this kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: people say you're anti science or you don't love science
Speaker 2: like they do, and really you just want science to be.
Speaker 1: Better, right, And the thing is is that science does
Speaker 1: not exist in a vacuum. It informs policy and it
Speaker 1: informs our politics. So if something is being pushed through
Speaker 1: the scientific community, it will eventually show up in various
Speaker 1: ways in our laws. And that's a huge impact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've seen it happen before, So I think we
Speaker 2: really have a duty now to say this is where
Speaker 2: I draw the line. This is where we get inequitable
Speaker 2: health policies right. And I think if there's anything I
Speaker 2: want folks to take away from this is I want
Speaker 2: you to think, if I know that race has no
Speaker 2: biological ground to stand on, then racism is for what?
Speaker 1: For what?
Speaker 2: You know? Like it only racism only exists because race exists,
Speaker 2: and the scientific community has supported race. And I think
Speaker 2: there is time to really make it canon that we
Speaker 2: know this is not real.
Speaker 1: Right, And like Angela Saini was saying, it limits the
Speaker 1: growth that we can have as a society if we
Speaker 1: can't get past that first hurdle that race is a
Speaker 1: social construct. It was something that was created by a
Speaker 1: group of people to create this system, this structure that
Speaker 1: made them superior and other people fall below them. If
Speaker 1: we can't get past that first hurdle, how can we
Speaker 1: get to the other stuff.
Speaker 2: It reminded me and I was looking for the quote
Speaker 2: just now of this Tony Morrison quote that says the function,
Speaker 2: the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps
Speaker 2: you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over
Speaker 2: and over again your reason for being. Somebody says you
Speaker 2: have no language, so you spend twenty years proven that
Speaker 2: you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly, so
Speaker 2: you have scientists working on the fact that it is.
Speaker 2: Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up.
Speaker 2: Somebody says you have no kingdom, so you dredge that up.
Speaker 2: None of this is necessary, and there will always be
Speaker 2: one more thing, and that keeps us from getting to
Speaker 2: the good part. You know, And we're not here saying
Speaker 2: that we're colorblind.
Speaker 1: We absolutely see everyone's differences in color and culture and background,
Speaker 1: and we respect it. But we do know for a
Speaker 1: fact that race does have an impact on all of
Speaker 1: us even if it doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we've just lived with this idea for
Speaker 3: so long. It does shape how we live, you know, race.
Speaker 3: Just because something is a social construct, that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: it doesn't have a profound effect on your mind and
Speaker 3: on your body from the second that you're born. It
Speaker 3: completely defines how society works. In the same way that
Speaker 3: other social constructs like democracy or capitalism or communism or whatever.
Speaker 3: A system that you're living under. Race is a system
Speaker 3: that we're living under, and when you understand it that way,
Speaker 3: then you can start to understand why it is so
Speaker 3: difficult to shake.
Speaker 1: That's it for Lab twenty five, but we have so
Speaker 1: much more for you to dig into on our website,
Speaker 1: Dope labspodcast dot com, so head over there.
Speaker 2: On our website you can find a cheat sheet for
Speaker 2: today's lab, along with a ton of other links and resources.
Speaker 2: In the show notes, it was hard not to get
Speaker 2: carried away with this one, And.
Speaker 1: If you want to stay in the know about what's
Speaker 1: going on with Me and Zachiah and Dope Labs, don't
Speaker 1: forget to sign up for our newsletter on the site
Speaker 1: too Special.
Speaker 2: Thanks to our guest expert, Angela Sani Her book is
Speaker 2: called Superior, The Return of Race Science, and you can
Speaker 2: find a link to it in our show notes.
Speaker 1: If this episode blew your mind, then you've got to
Speaker 1: get into the book. This was just a taste, a
Speaker 1: tiny morsel of the full entree that she presents in
Speaker 1: her books, so make sure you pick that up.
Speaker 2: Yes, Also, we love hearing from you. What did you
Speaker 2: think about today's lab? Do you have ideas for future labs?
Speaker 2: Call us at two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 2: zero two eight and let us know.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs.
Speaker 2: Podcast tt is on Twitter at dr Underscore Tsho.
Speaker 1: And you can find Zakiya at z Said.
Speaker 2: So follow us on Spotify or wherever else you listen
Speaker 2: to podcasts. Dope Labs is produced by Jenny radalt Mass
Speaker 2: of WaveRunner Studios. Mixing and sound design are by Hannes Brown.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura,
Speaker 1: with additional music by Elijah Lex Harvey. Dope Labs is
Speaker 1: a production of Spotify and Mega Own Media Group, and
Speaker 1: it's executive produced by us T T show Dia and
Speaker 1: Zakiah Wattley. Go go go, Who's next? Who's next?
Speaker 2: Did you see the one with the heeltop?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Girl, that man came out there in that karate suit.
Speaker 2: He had the stank face on. You know, he was
Speaker 2: getting ready to tear it up.
Speaker 1: God, it was so good. It's so good. Hip hop Harry,
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, hip hop Harry had moves