Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century [Preface]

Roberts, Dorothy E.

Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century [Preface]

Roberts, D., Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century, The New Press, 2012

U of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 12-50

6 Pages Posted: 6 Dec 2012

See all articles by Dorothy E. Roberts

Dorothy E. Roberts

University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Date Written: 2011

Abstract

Fatal Invention documents the emergence of a new biopolitics in the United States that relies on re-inventing race in biological terms using cutting-edge genomic science and biotechnologies. Some scientists are defining race as a biological category written in our genes, while the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries convert the new racial science into race-based products, such as race-specific medicines, ancestry tests, and DNA forensics, that incorporate false assumptions of racial difference at the genetic level. The genetic understanding of race calls for technological responses to racial disparities while masking the continuing impact of racism in a supposedly post-racial society. Instead, I call for affirming our common humanity by working to end social inequities supported by the political system of race.

Keywords: health, race, ethnicity, genetics, bioethics, policy, medicine, science, drugs, research, discrimination, pharmacogenomics

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Roberts, Dorothy E., Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century [Preface] (2011). Roberts, D., Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century, The New Press, 2012, U of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 12-50, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2186003