The Race Myth - Hardcover

Graves, Joseph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525948252 ISBN 13: 9780525948254

Publisher: Dutton Adult, 2004

Synopsis

The author of The Emperor's New Clothes presents scientific arguments against race classifications, explaining that racism is an unintended consequence of evolution and presenting creative suggestions on how to promote equality in America. 15,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

One of the worldÂ’s leading evolutionary biologists, Joseph L. Graves, Jr. was a professor of Biology and African American Studies in the Arizona State University system. He has appeared in six documentaries about race and his opinions have appeared in major publications such as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He is also the author of The EmperorÂ’s New Clothes.

Reviews

A former professor of biology and African American studies summarizes the history and science of race from its early identity as a "scientific fact" to its current status as a social construction in this unevenly argued book. Graves is adept at simplifying complex ideas-such as natural selection, sexual selection and genetic distance-so they can easily be understood by readers with only a passing familiarity with the basics of biology. And his first chapter, in which he uses evidence from the human genome project to prove that there is only one race of human beings and explains why physical differences are not an accurate reflection of genetic difference, is particularly fascinating. When it comes to discussing race as a contemporary cultural and political phenomenon, however, Graves rarely rises beyond half-hearted analysis, and he concludes almost exclusively with statements about white social domination. For example, when discussing the O.J. Simpson trial, he declares that "if they white people had Simpson at hand, they would have taught him ... that as a black man, he would never get away with violating a white female’s innocence." Elsewhere, his diatribe against the mistreatment of minorities in academia is vitriolic enough to sound conspiratorial. ("Promotion and tenure for nonwhites," he says, "often boils down ... to how palatable ... they are deemed by those who maintain white social domination within that university.") Unfortunately, such broad generalizations pervade much of the book and suggest that it is less interested in provoking intelligent debate than it is on replacing one set of stereotypes with another. Fans of Stephen J. Gould may recognize many of this book’s better arguments from his seminal volume The Mismeasure of Man, which presented them in much more thoughtful detail..
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Graves, an evolutionary biologist and professor, debunks numerous myths associated with the biological basis of race. His central premise is that there is greater variation within socially constructed races than between them, yet biological differences are often presumed to be an acceptable focus in areas of medicine, disease, and other public-oriented concerns. Graves attacks head-on the false assumptions associated with biological distinctions. Although he allows for certain genetic and biological points of differences, he asserts that their interplay with the environment and culture are too often overlooked and that, for example, differences in health and mortality rates between blacks and whites are more reflective of racism than biology. Noting the popular presumptions about blacks being biologically superior athletes, for example, Graves' analysis of track-and-field Olympic events undermines the weak basis of this and other popular fallacies on race. Graves' integration of science and objective analysis with popular biological assumptions about race makes this an enlightening and provocative work. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525948252
• ISBN 13: 9780525948254
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304