Racial Justice
Biologists and social scientists agree that race is a social category, not a biological or genetic one. Yet the idea that genetic lines can be drawn between racial groups continues to make its way into human genetic research and biotechnologies. Examples can be found in some genetic studies on racialized health disparities, direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry tests, and race-specific drugs. These products and practices are both inaccurate and socially pernicious when they reduce race to a set of biological markers and fail to address racism and the social, political, environmental, and economic inequalities that continue to make race a salient social category.
Image of Sonoma State Home, site of the highest number of eugenic sterilizations in California, courtesy of Alexandra Minna Stern...