Genetics Tells Us That Race Is A False Concept

In his campaign, Donald Trump promised to be a "uniter". After being sworn into office, he has done just the opposite of that. He has divided this country along racial (and ethnicity and political) lines. He has given racists and white supremacists the idea that this countries leader agrees with them. That has brought them back into public view, and encouraged them to act on their sick beliefs.

In just the last few days, we have seen these haters target Blacks and Jews for death. It is time for decent Americans of all colors (but especially whites) to step forward and drive this evil from our society.

Race is a false concept. It doesn't exist. It was invented by whites to justify colonialism, slavery, and theft of land and resources. It was exported to the Americas, where it found a fertile breeding ground (especially in the United States). It has done enough damage in this country (and in others), and it is time to put this false concept into the trash bin of history.

The following is from The American Journal of Human Genetics in an article published on October 19th:

The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) is alarmed to see a societal resurgence of groups rejecting the value of genetic diversity and using discredited or distorted genetic concepts to bolster bogus claims of white supremacy. ASHG denounces this misuse of genetics to feed racist ideologies. In public dialog, our research community should be clear about genetic knowledge related to ancestry and genomic diversity. To that end, ASHG affirms the following:

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  Genetics demonstrates that humans cannot be divided into biologically distinct subcategories. Although there are clear observable correlations between variation in the human genome and how individuals identify by race, the study of human genetics challenges the traditional concept of different races of humans as biologically separate and distinct. This is validated by many decades of research, including recent examples.

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  Most human genetic variation is distributed as a gradient, so distinct boundaries between population groups cannot be accurately assigned. There is considerable genetic overlap among members of different populations. Such patterns of genome variation are explained by patterns of migration and mixing of different populations throughout human history.

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   In this way, genetics exposes the concept of “racial purity” as scientifically meaningless.
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  It follows that there can be no genetics-based support for claiming one group as superior to another. Although a person’s genetics influences their phenotypic characteristics, and self-identified race might be influenced by physical appearance, race itself is a social construct. Any attempt to use genetics to rank populations demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of genetics.
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  The past decade has seen the emergence of strategies for assessing an individual’s genetic ancestry. Such analyses

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   are providing increasingly accurate ways of helping to define individuals’ ancestral origins and enabling new ways to explore and discuss ancestries that move us beyond blunt definitions of self-identified race.

Through its support for research at the leading edge of human genetics, ASHG will continue to advance scientific knowledge and debunk genetics-based arguments promoting racial supremacy. ASHG also encourages all society members to be active as citizens in political, policy, and social advocacy organizations that reflect their values. This is a perfect complement to their scientific contributions to this debate through ASHG.

ASHG will continue to foster dialog in the field on the impact, value, and implications of diversity and ancestry within the research agenda, including through ASHG’s primary forums for scientific debate and discussion: The American Journal of Human Genetics and the ASHG Annual Meeting. Recognizing that the invocation of genetics to promote racist ideologies is one of many factors causing racism to persist, ASHG will focus in the public arena on contributing new fundamental knowledge to the societal dialog about ancestry, supporting greater diversity in research, continuing to engage the field and public to build genetic literacy, and addressing misconceptions of genetics and ancestry.

Republicans Want To Destroy Your Genetic Privacy

(This illustration is from the website geneplanet.com.)

Privacy is an important concept to most Americans, and it has been placed in danger by the enormous advances in science and technology. In 2008, Congress recognized this, and they acted to protect the genetic privacy of Americans.

The passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (commonly called GINA). And the votes for that act were huge and nonpartisan (414 to 1 in the House and 95 to 0 in the Senate). This act protected an individual's genetic privacy by:

The Act prohibits group health plans and health insurers from denying coverage to a healthy individual or charging that person higher premiums based solely on a genetic predisposition to developing a disease in the future. The legislation also bars employers from using individuals' genetic information when making hiring, firing, job placement, or promotion decisions.

It was a good law, and an essential one in this technological age. It protected Americans from the greed of insurance companies and employers. But that was nine years ago, and a lot more Republicans have sold out to corporate interests since then.

The Republicans have now introduced a rather nasty bill in the House (HR 1313) that would gut GINA. It would allow businesses to require employees to be genetically tested, and the results of those tests would be made available to the businesses. And any employee that refused to be tested could be fined thousands of dollars.

The bill doesn't specifically overturn GINA, but it effectively guts its provisions. It says the employers could require the genetic testing as part of a "wellness program" (which many businesses automatically enroll their employees in). Once they have the genetic information of an employee, the business could not be kept from using that information in firing, job placement, or promotion. They could easily get around the GINA provisions outlawing that by inventing another reason for their actions.

And this terrible bill seems to have solid support from congressional Republicans, which means it has a very good chance of passing in the House of Representatives. The bill passed a House committee on a strict party-line vote -- with all 22 Republicans voting for it and all 17 Democrats voting against it. It is now expected to be tucked in a second health care bill by Republicans to give it cover -- a bill making changes to Obamacare that could not be done in the budget reconciliation measure.

The only saving grace is that this bill could be filibustered in the Senate, and citizens need to make it clear to Senate Democrats that this MUST be done.