Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century

Genetics focuses on the structure of DNA while epigenetics focuses on the expression of DNA as a result of environmental factors. Why does medicine currently focus more on genetics than epigenetics? How would greater emphasis on epigenetics make medicine more racially just?

DNA is often presented as a narrative written in stone or a “blueprint” that dictates life. Yet DNA is constantly interacting with broader environments as well as with a range of proteins within the body that affect how it expresses itself: DNA is more fluid than the popular narrative surrounding it suggests. Rather than a blueprint, then, are there other metaphors that could provide a more accurate and fuller understanding of how DNA works?

DNA can easily be retrieved from anyone, and this retrieval is not physically invasive. Nonetheless, Roberts argues that there is an invasion of privacy in databanks that store DNA for the purposes of cross-referencing suspects in a crime. What are the ramifications, both individual and racial, for the storage of DNA in the context of both law enforcement and the criminal justice system?

Roberts discusses various frameworks through which scientists approach the study of genetic ancestry and DNA. The framework that she emphasizes is the erroneous biologization of race. However, she also suggests that the literally microscopic attention to genomics “blinds” scientists to the political category of race. What would happen if the broader framework of the political category of race was an approach through which genetics was studied? How would the field change?

Roberts discusses the genetic components of drug metabolizing enzymes (DMEs). How has research shown that geographical ancestry, though relevant to DMEs, refuses racial categories? Could medicine recognize group categories that are relevant to drug-specific DMEs?

As an African American, Roberts presents her European ancestry as “irrelevant to my identity” (255) because she has chosen a “heritage” that aligns with the struggles of Black people. Roberts, then, ignores the biological ancestry that does not corroborate her political identity and also preferred cultural heritage. What are the limits to one’s choice of heritage? How does consciously choosing heritage foster or require awareness of racial science?

“Scientific racism” refers to explicit and obvious racism within science. Roberts distinguishes scientific racism from the much more subtle “racial science” that exists today and which is the subject of her book. Yet the distinctions Roberts draws between scientific racism and racial science are underscored so that important continuities between the two—such as the biologization of race—can be considered. Why does this biologization of race continue, even when scientists are so adamantly opposed to scientific racism?

Continentally, the widest range of geographically based genetic ancestry is in Africa. How does this genetic diversity challenge the biologization of race and, specifically, American medicine’s approach to African American patients?