Fatal Invention

by Roberts, Dorothy

• ISBN13: 9781595584953
• ISBN10: 1595584951
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-07-05
• Publisher: New Pr

Summary

A decade after the Human Genome Project proved that human beings are not naturally divided by race, the emerging fields of personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, genetic genealogy, and DNA databanks are attempting to resuscitate race as a biological category written in our genes. In this provocative analysis, leading legal scholar and social critic Dorothy Roberts argues that America is once again at the brink of a virulent outbreak of classifying population by race. By searching for differences at the molecular level, a new race-based science is obscuring racism in our society and legitimizing state brutality against communities of color at a time when America claims to be post-racial. Moving from an account of the evolution of race--proving that it has always been a mutable and socially defined political division supported by mainstream science--Roberts delves deep into the current debates, interrogating the newest science and biotechnology, interviewing its researchers, and exposing the political consequences obscured by the focus on genetic difference. Fatal Inventionis a provocative call for us to affirm our common humanity.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Believing in Race in the Genomic Age	p. 1
The Invention of Race	p. 3
Separating Racial Science from Racism	p. 26
The New Racial Science	p. 55
Redefining Race in Genetic Terms	p. 57
Medical Stereotyping	p. 81
The Allure of Race in Biomedical Research	p. 104
Embodying Race	p. 123
The New Racial Technology	p. 147
Pharmacoethnicity	p. 149
Color-Coded Pills	p. 168
Race and the New Biocitizen	p. 202
Tracing Racial Roots	p. 226
The New Biopolitics of Race	p. 259
Genetic Surveillance	p. 261
Biological Race in a ôPostracialö America	p. 287
Conclusion: The Crossroads	p. 309
Acknowledgments	p. 313
Notes	p. 317
Index	p. 372
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