4115 - Feeling Race in Our Genes

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Description

Conceiving of race as inherited biology has not only helped to justify and maintain the racial order, but also has helped to infuse race with emotional content. Since the mapping of the human genome, biological scientists are increasingly defining race as a genetic category while biotechnology companies are marketing race-based genetic products. This session will explore how the emerging racial science and technology are producing racialized feelings that affect attitudes about racial difference, domination, and solidarity. The session panelists will explore how religious beliefs about race have shaped contemporary feelings about racial genetics, how the belief in the infallibility of DNA databases in identifying suspects is shaped by emotionally charged narratives of race and crime, how African Americans use ancestry testing to fill the emotional gap left by the slave trade and to create high-tech forms of solidarity,
and how white supremacist groups rely on genetic racial theories and tests to shore up white pride.

Description

Conceiving of race as inherited biology has not only helped to justify and maintain the racial order, but also has helped to infuse race with emotional content. Since the mapping of the human genome, biological scientists are increasingly defining race as a genetic category while biotechnology companies are marketing race-based genetic products. This session will explore how the emerging racial science and technology are producing racialized feelings that affect attitudes about racial difference, domination, and solidarity. The session panelists will explore how religious beliefs about race have shaped contemporary feelings about racial genetics, how the belief in the infallibility of DNA databases in identifying suspects is shaped by emotionally charged narratives of race and crime, how African Americans use ancestry testing to fill the emotional gap left by the slave trade and to create high-tech forms of solidarity,
and how white supremacist groups rely on genetic racial theories and tests to shore up white pride.

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Dorothy E. Roberts, University of Pennsylvania

Presider

• Dorothy E. Roberts, University of Pennsylvania

Individual Presentations

• Ghosts in the Race Machine - Terence Keel, University of California-Santa Barbara

• Race, Crime, and the Emotive Reading of DNA Databases - Osagie Obasogie, UC Hastings College of the Law

• Genetic Ancestry Testing and Racial Reconciliation - Alondra Nelson, Columbia University and Social Science Research Council

• The Genetics of White Pride - Joan M. Donovan, Data & Society Research Institute

Discussant

• Dorothy E. Roberts, University of Pennsylvania