The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America

Graves has done an excellent job demonstrating the myth of race. Ironically, this myth is being perpetuated by our government. The myth of the flat earth persisted despite scientific evidence, and race persists for many of the same reasons. Until then, all we can do is look forward to the time when racism will end.

Joseph L. Graves, a professor of Evolutionary Biology, explains in THE RACE MYTH precisely why Americans insist that race does exist even though genetically, as human beings, we are pretty much the same. The exception are differences caused by geography or environment. Examples we have all heard are the genetic diseases that certain "races" are more susceptible to such as sickle cell anemia in black people. He showed that although the people of Syria and Ghana don't look alike, they share they sickle cell gene and malaria. Kenyans and Ghanaians do resemble each other but the similarities end there. The Kenyans don't have the sickle cell gene, which is a defense mechanism against malaria, because in the high altitudes of Kenya, there are few mosquitoes and none carrying malaria. This is an example of how environment and geography play an important part in genetics. He explains that the race myth exists in America as an outgrowth of European dominance. When they first landed in the New World, they sought aid and advice from the indigenous people but that quickly faded as they decided to take the land from the previous owners. In addition, they began to import stolen Africans to cultivate the large tracts of land in their search for wealth. In order to make the system work, they had to establish the idea of "race" and along with that, the notion of superiority and inferiority. The Europeans were of superior intelligence, Indians down a notch and Africans on the bottom. According to Graves, this structuring of "race" is actually a social construct to maintain control. These ideas have persisted and are obvious in the distribution of employment, education and wealth in America. He goes on further to explore the myth that African Americans are more athletically inclined than European Americans including the history of the NBA and how and when African Americans began to "dominate" that sport. In conclusion, Graves calls for each of us to do our part in dismantling this social construct and to work for justice and equality. While he admits that everyone will not read or heed this book, history has shown that even small groups can bring about change and he urges us to do our part. Even though I've been hearing that race was a social construct, I have never seen it broken down and explained so thoroughly. Graves does an excellent job of giving us the scientific facts with the social examples to back his arguments. He demonstrates time and again how similar we are as human beings. He explains the so called gap in African American and European American scores on tests such as the SAT, the LSAT and the GRE, which are used to determine which students go to what college or university. He explores the poverty, the under funded educational systems that exist in this country and how that affects the outcomes. He does a marvelous job of showing how this is by design and not by accident. He most definitely takes the authors of The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murr

Plenty of debates on affirmative action and issues of racism fuel the fires in America, but evolutionary biologist Joseph Graves here argues that science can't account for the radical categories used to classify people, and racism is a consequence and byproduct of evolution. While race does not exist, according to Graves, and humans don't have separate genetic lines of descent, The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists In America explores why modern definitions of race are wrong, and how they can be overcome. Racism as social invention, not biology reality, is explained.

I am really glad that I bought this book even though I initially hesitated after reading a very detailed but lukewarm review for it in this reviewers' section. Personally I loved the book. I am admittedly no expert on the subject, but the author struck just the right tone for me. He presented detailed scientific information demonstrating why "race" was not a genetically valid means of categorizing humans. But he did so in a persuasive and highly readable manner, which educated the lay person, without (in my opinion) compromising the scientific-ness of his narrative. I was especially impressed with the introductory chapter explaining the meaning of genetic variability and genetic distance, and showing how they contradicted the belief in race as a biological construct. Also, I have in recent years read several books concerning black dominance in certain sports. But it was this author's perspectives on the subject that I found most convincing. I believe that Prof. Graves accomplished the goal he set out to meet, and that was to show far beyond a reasonable doubt that the punitive concept of "race" as it has been used to bludgeon people of African ancestry, while favoring Europeans has no place in modern science nor society.

What a remarkable and readable book. Joseph Graves has penetrated scientific jargon to provide us readers with one of the most insightful explanations of race that I have ever read. He convincingly argues that the term "race" as it is commonly used to identify "caucasoids, mongoloids and negroids" is a figment of the 19th century imagination. At the genetic level, population groups do not fall into such neat packages. In the course of making his point about race, he explodes several related myths at the same time. American society's obsession with black athletes is just that, an irrational obsession. Graves makes the point that since there are more Europeans in the National Basketball Association than Africans, then the most logical conclusion that we can draw is not that "blacks" are superior athletes, but rather that the European rather than African side of African-Americans mixed ancestry might account for their superiority in this sport. The author raises and then persuasively answers some of those thorny questions about race that many of us surely ponder but feel too inhibited by considerations of political correctness to pose aloud: if skin color is genetic in the sense that it is based on a person's biology, then why isn't that person's race genetically valid? How could it be that a random white patient might find his black next door neighbor a compatible blood donor, while his white sister-in-law is not? If the races aren't real, then why can forensics specialist identify the race of a perpetrator in a crime from DNA evidence? Since blacks and not whites suffer from sickle-cell anemia, doesn't that validate the concept of race? Or, how can we be so sure that intelligence is not a function of racial inheritance since blacks consistently score 15 points below whites on IQ exams? If you're itching for the answers, then read this marvelous book!