Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 22:14:55 -0400
From: Barron <gebarron-AT-InfoAve.Net>
Subject: Re: PLC: Baiting


On 8/17/00 5:16 PM MRFanning wrote:

> I'd like to suggest that the issue isn't so much about whether or not
> distinctions can be made between groups of people, but instead with sets of
> distinctions being put forward as definitive of all members of Group-A as
> opposed to Groups-Not-A. For example, as a diagnostic tool, it may be very
> useful to be able to say that a person has X quantity of melanin to
> determine that person's risk of melanoma. However, to say that a person has
> X quantity of melanin is a good indicator of that person's risk of sickle
> cell anemia seems to me more questionable. Especially when you take into
> account multi-ethnic heritages/inheritances.

Actually the melanin quantity would correlate quite well as to risk of
sickle cell disease. How well? Who knows? No one will ever test this because
it doesn't need testing. I mean no offense here but your feeling that this
wouldn't be the case is part of what has frustrated me so. It simply shows a
lack of understanding of the reproducible inheritance patterns that govern
these physiologic differences. I appreciate your thoughts in this matter but
the crux of the matter was the suggestion that any distinction made between
groups of people implied some sort of, as yet undefined, negative value. In
my line of work practical distinctions have to be made regardless of how you
define or name the groups. My point in all this is that I cannot concieve of
how this can be morally wrong. This, in the view of some, confirms that I am
a racist. If I have to be racist to provide good compassionate care, so be
it.

> In an earlier post you mentioned race being taken up by politics, sociology,
> etc. and used in those domains to the ends of those domains. But didn't
> medicine/biochemistry take up race too?

Yes. And I have in fact tried to explain how it is used to help people and
how it has been used (ignored) to hurt people, all within the sphere of
medicine.

> And if it did, then there's cause to ask why, and to what ends. I'd have to
> resort to speculation, but it doesn't seem unreasonable that it was taken up
> as a natural(ized) concept with self-evident truth/utility value, that its
> taking up by "science" was predicated on the other uses to which the concept
> was already serving.

Race was taken from taxonomy in regard to medicine and science.  Initially
the taxonomy was based on comparative anatomy and inheritance patterns.
Nevertheless I'm sure you are right in assuming that many physicians and
scientist still presumed a naturalized concept of race.

> And, beyond it being merely "outdated" I'd like to suggest the possibility
> that the conservation of "race" in scientific/medical terminology remains
> tangled up in its allusive "authority" with regard to the
> self-evidence/naturalization (even its problematizing) by other domains
> (phil-lit-crit among them).

There has been little recent conservation of the 'term' race. Medicine does
not exist in a vacuum and the term is used less and less partly due to
social perspectives (and political correctness) but also due to its
decreasing utility as a classification as a result of what you referred to
as multi-ethnic heritages. This mixing of groups makes classification and
distinction more difficult but as yet does not obviate the need, the
imperative, to do so. It may in time, but hasn't yet. We now simply say
black, or African-American, or white, or ethnic group or even mixed
Asian-Hispanic or nationality or Ashkenazi (sp?) Jew. We often use such
terms because they carry significant medical context but often this is how a
patient identifies himself. If all this is bad, I am open to suggestions but
you will find me much more willing to embrace them than medical community at
large.

> Hopefully this clarifies some of the problems I have with this particular
> method of distinguishing among various peoples. There are others, and
> probably others that are more well informed.

In my naivete, I have been surprised that people find the objective
characterization of people by physicians so alarming. I have found the
suggestion that it is somehow racist as objectionable as racism itself.
However, I won't for a second suggest that only objectivity and good
intentions have informed the use of characterization and catagorization by
medicine. Medicine and science are practiced by fallable humans. Like
George, I have also grown tired of this and hope to let it end here.

-- 
Barron



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