I have a personal takeaway from this segment of the book...
Through reading about how Indians, Irish immigrants, freed slaves, and Chinese immigrants were treated by white Americans it just seems like people are doing without thinking. As I see it, everyone wants to be the top dog, and superior to the people around them. There are two ways to go about that: either self improvement or making the other people worse. The second of the two is in my opinion easier to accomplish, which is probably why it has so often been the first choice throughout history. Obviously, it's also the wrong choice. By downgrading the people around you, you are forgetting that the important thing is to succeed as a species, and develop together.
Perhaps that sounded a bit deep, but it's what I see as the cause of the problems brought up in this book time and time again. From what I see in my own environment and time period, it seems like a similar thing occurs. There are people who are not focused on self improvement yet still focused on becoming superior. Those are the people who impose a disturbance on the flow of society.
I don't mean to dominate this post with this topic, but I'll conclude on it by referencing a part of the text that I feel is getting at the same idea. "There is no real justice, or fairness. Everybody thinks he is right and his enemy is wrong. In life, winners win and losers lose. There is nothing to count on except being professional." (pg. 165). The word professional stuck out to me, and I read it to mean; always choosing the first option (self improvement) whenever you get the urge to be superior.
I could go on and on, but there are other things to talk about... in fact I'm going to make a barrier between this and what I intended to be the focus of the post.
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Page 127!!! That's where our friend Marc Aronson is covering the topic of whether racial differences are real. But on page 127 in particular, he makes a shift from looking at historical evidence (Johann Blumenbach's theory of race) to modern evidence.
The modern evidence he brings up is a drug called BiDil, which according to Aronson, was the first approved drug meant to be taken by a specific race (African Americans). It is meant to cure hypertension. Either the drug only works well on African Americans or hypertension is a disease African Americans tend to get more. So in any case, it is a recognition of a genetic difference between races.
I decided to do a bit of research on the drug. It seems to me that the controversy of the drug and others like it is very real, even from just the title of the articles about it. The company that makes the drug is called NitroMed, and they claim to be "a group attempting to eliminate disparities in cardiovascular disease for African-Americans." (Race-Based Medicine)
I see where the controversy is coming from, but I don't see why it's such a big deal to some people. I get that acknowledgement of race has become a thing that is looked down on, but NitroMed clearly has good intentions.
The article concludes by saying that the future of racial medicine is an uncertain one, but that it is expected to be a short lived thing (Race-Based Medicine). I sincerely hope this is true, because it's not something that I would enjoy seeing again and again on the news in the coming years. There are far more important issues to talk about.
I guess the whole thing with it is that racism has come to be thought of as seeing differences between races. I'm no expert on the topic, but I think it's clear to everyone that races have some physical differences. I think racism should be exclusively when those differences are not based on anything scientific, especially when they make the race in question out to be worse than another
I felt like the logic in this post flowed very well, but I'd like to hear an outside opinion on that!
Thanks for stopping by!
“Race-Based Medicine: A Recipe for Controversy.” ScientificAmerican.com, Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-based-medicine-a-recipe-for-controversy/. Accessed 31 March 2018.
I'm glad that you did a bit more research on the drug. Do you think that part of the controversy relates to how African-Americans have been treated by the medical field (http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/347780-black-americans-dont-have-trust-in-our-healthcare-system)?
ReplyDeleteGreetings!
DeleteI skimmed through the link you sent me. This is not a factor I'd come across in my research. Now that you bring it up, I am betting it does contribute to the controversy. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Simon! I really like this blog post, particularly because you took the time to research something that was referenced to in your book that you were curious about. I had never heard of that myself, but I might have to look at the article you cited! I’d really like to know more about Blumenbach’s theory of race, as this is something that was not mentioned in our book’s history section. Also, do you think that the need to be superior, as you put it, is something we all inherently have or something we learn? Nice job on this post!
ReplyDeleteGreetings Myah!
DeleteBlumenbach's theory of race is only briefly mentioned in our book too. Essentially, he wanted to classify the different races as different species. It was a largely scientific thing (he took precise measurements from skulls for example). But at a certain point he ranked the races by which he thought we best looking. Either way he had a great deal of influence.
I don't feel qualified to answer your question, but I am always tempted to believe that every decision we make is based on a desire with evolutionary roots.
Thanks for the comment!
Hi simon,
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of what you said on here, and I found your post very interesting! I was wondering what you’re opinion on “colorblindness” is because it’s mentioned a lot and seems to fit with what you were saying about the drugs and differences between races. In my book Michelle Alexander talks a lot about how people claim to not acknowledge or care about race (thus they’re “colorblind”) but how sometimes that’s a disservice to African Americans because there clearly are differences, physically and in the way that they’re treated by the world. Do you think that we should be less inclined to embrace this “colorblindness” or not acknowledge race, or do you think that we should just acknowledge the differences but work in being more tolerant?
Greetings Bekah!
DeleteYou've really got me thinking here... I would say that being completely colorblind doesn't work unless everybody is doing it. So with the way things are, it's best to use judgement of when to be colorblind. Importantly, we need to make sure we have that control in ourselves, because I think a lot of the issue is some people don't, and it leads them to make racist decisions and judgements. Do you disagree/agree with that? Or have anything to add?
Hey Simon! As this is my first time reading your blog, I wanted to comment on the way you write. I find it to be very readable, similar to just having a conversation with you. I think this is very powerful in blogs and, combined with the format of your posts, makes all the information that you included much more manageable.
ReplyDeleteI also agree strongly with you about the two ways of making yourself better than others. There is only so much power to go around, so by getting more, someone else will always be relinquishing some. However, gaining this power by targeting other groups and attacking them is morally unacceptable.
I'm interested to hear more about your book to find connections to my own.
Greetings Sam!
DeleteI’m very pleased to hear these compliments from you. It’s good to know that my words are getting through to people and being read the way I intended them to be. I notice you wish to hear more about me book that you can compare to yours. Well then I should recommend that you read my post that follows this one, it has a bit more pulled from the book, and a bit less of my own ideas.
Thanks for the comment!
-Simon S. Page