Fatal Invention How Science Politics & Big Business Re create Race in the Twenty first Century

This groundbreaking book by the acclaimed Dorothy Roberts examines how the myth of biological concept of race—revived by purportedly cutting-edge science, race-specific drugs, genetic testing, and DNA databases—continues to undermine a just society and promote inequality in a supposedly “post-racial” era. Named one of the ten best black nonfiction books 2011 by AFRO.com, Fatal Invention offers a timely and “provocative analysis” (Nature) of race, science, and politics by one of the nations leading legal scholars and social critics.

“This is the best book of the year.… If you read one work of nonfiction a year, make this the one.” —New York Journal of Books

“Fatal Invention is an eye-opening, urgent, and ultimately inspiring exposé of the new racial science. Essential reading.” —Danny Glover

“A vitally important book … a massive achievement.” —Race and the Law

“Like a chess grandmaster, Roberts devastatingly counters any argument that can be made for a racial view of genetics.” —The Brooklyn Rail

“Im still grappling with how important this book is.… A definite must read.” —Feministing

“Thought-provoking, well-researched, [and] insightful.” —Choice

“This fascinating book is a must-read for those looking for an enlightened discussion of race in the 21st century.” —Library Journal

“This book meets an urgent need.… [A] herculean effort in fleshing out the biopolitics of race.” —Biopolitical Times

“A major, groundbreaking assessment of race and bioethics.” —Midwest Book Review

“Alarming but not alarmist, controversial but evidential, impassioned but rational.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Fatal Invention is a triumph!”

—Harriet A. Washington, author of Medical Apartheid and Deadly Monopolies

“This is the best book of the year… If you read one work of nonfiction a year, make this the one.”

—The New York Journal of Books

“[Roberts] dismantles the reasons for using race to determine healthy policy and exposes how embedded social assumptions can shape medicines research agenda and distort science.”

—Ms. Magazine

“Masterful.”

—Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of Racism Without Racists

“Devastatingly counters any argument that can be made for a racial view of genetics.”

—The Brooklyn Rail

“Alarming but not alarmist, controversial but evidential, impassioned but rational.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Thought-provoking, well-researched, [and] insightful.”

—Choice

“A must-read for those looking for an enlightened discussion of race in the 21st century.”

—Library Journal

An incisive, groundbreaking book that examines how a biological concept of race is a myth that promotes inequality in a supposedly "post-racial" era.

Though the Human Genome Project proved that human beings are not naturally divided by race, the emerging fields of personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, genetic genealogy, and DNA databanks are attempting to resuscitate race as a biological category written in our genes.

This groundbreaking book by legal scholar and social critic Dorothy Roberts examines how the myth of race as a biological concept--revived by purportedly cutting-edge science, race-specific drugs, genetic testing, and DNA databases--continues to undermine a just society and promote inequality in a supposedly "post-racial" era. Named one of the ten best black nonfiction books 2011 by AFRO.com, Fatal Invention offers a timely and "provocative analysis" (Nature) of race, science, and politics that "is consistently lucid . . . alarming but not alarmist, controversial but evidential, impassioned but rational" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

"Everyone concerned about social justice in America should read this powerful book." --Anthony D. Romero, executive director, American Civil Liberties Union

"A terribly important book on how the 'fatal invention' has terrifying effects in the post-genomic, 'post-racial' era." --Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, professor of sociology, Duke University, and author of Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States

"Fatal Invention is a triumph Race has always been an ill-defined amalgam of medical and cultural bias, thinly overlaid with the trappings of contemporary scientific thought. And no one has peeled back the layers of assumption and deception as lucidly as Dorothy Roberts." --Harriet A. Washington, author of and Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself

Featured on The Tavis Smiley Show and named one of the ten best black nonfiction books of 2011 by AFRO.com, Fatal Invention is “a provocative analysis” (Nature) of race, science, and politics by leading legal scholar and social critic Dorothy Roberts. It examines how the archaic belief system underlying the concept of race—revived by purportedly cutting-edge science—undermines a just society and promotes continuing inequality.

“Alarming but not alarmist, controversial but evidential, impassioned but rational” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), Fatal Invention exposes the falseness of the biological concept of race—used in the past to divide humans and justify prejudice and used today to enable everything from the race-targeted therapies developed in the pharmaceutical industry and stop-and-frisks that disproportionately target African Americans to a proliferation of for-profit ancestry-testing services.

Called “vitally important” and “a massive achievement” by Race and the Law, “Fatal Invention devastatingly counters any argument that can be made for a racial view of genetics” (The Brooklyn Rail).

Dorothy Roberts is the fourteenth Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is a George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights. She is the author of the award-winning Killing the Black Body and Shattered Bonds and is the co-editor of six books on gender and constitutional law. She serves as chair of the board of directors of the Black Womens Healthy Imperative and lives in Evanston, Illinois.

Preface

Part I: Believing in Race in the Genomic Age

1. The Invention of Race

2. Separating Racial Science from Racism

Part II: The New Racial Science

3. Redefining Race in Genetic Terms7

4. Medical Stereotyping

5. The Allure of Race in Biomedical Research

6. Embodying Race

Part III: The New Racial Technology

7. Pharmacoethnicity

8. Color-Coded Pills

9. Race and the New Biocitizen

10. Tracing Racial Roots

Part IV: The New Biopolitics of Race

11. Genetic Surveillance

12. Biological Race in a “Postracial” America

Conclusion: The Crossroads

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index