Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.
While many commentators who supported the approval of BiDil for black patients state that “race” is not a scientifically precise term for identifying relevant genomic or physiological characteristics that differentiate population groups, nevertheless, they argue that “self-identified race” is a useful proxy for those characteristics. However, what is the evidence that the proxy “self-identified race” is a reliable surrogate? The best evidence derives from the fact that genetic variation conferring disease susceptibility is not equally distributed among ancestral populations. For example, sickle cell anaemia is more prevalent in populations whose ancestry can be traced to sub-Saharan Africa. However, “self-identified race” is a subjective term, influenced by cultural factors, and not even grounded in the ancestral genomics of, for example, the International HapMap Project. For the purpose of the clinical trials, “self-identified race” is interpreted as a dichotomous variable (black or non-black). If race were used as a proxy for ancestral African genomics it should be a continuous function (10%, 30%, 70%, etc). It makes no scientific sense to map a continuous function onto a dichotomous variable…
“But I’m black and I’m proud of being black. And I was born black and I will die black. And I’m proud of it. And I’m not going to make any excuses; [be]cause they don’t understand.” —United States Senator Kamala D. Harris
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Her identity and motives are being unfairly challenged on all sides.
I would never have put Snoop and Tupac Shakur on the list of things that could potentially harm Senator Kamala Harris’s presidential bid. But this week, two of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time unwillingly played a part in the latest attack on Harris’s blackness, which came after the California Democrat’s appearance on the popular morning-radio show The Breakfast Club.
Harris engaged in a 40-minute-plus, wide-ranging conversation with the hosts Charlamagne Tha God, Angela Yee, and DJ Envy, detailing an agenda focused on issues disproportionately affecting African Americans: the staggering rate at which black women are dying in childbirth, mass incarceration, and poverty.
Unfortunately for Harris, her stances on these matters were drowned out by a dumb headline. Call it #AllEyezOnMeGate. Charlamagne asked Harris whether she’d ever smoked marijuana. She admitted that she’d smoked in college—and did indeed inhale. At some point, Envy asked Harris about her favorite music. But before she could respond, Charlamagne jokingly asked Harris about what she liked to listen to when she imbibed. Harris laughed off Charlamagne’s question and instead told Envy that some of her favorite artists were Snoop and ’Pac. She also mentioned her affinity for Cardi B.
(CNN)—Sen. Kamala Harris directly confronted critics Monday who have questioned her black heritage, her record incarcerating minorities as a prosecutor and her decision to marry a white man.
In an interview with The Breakfast Club hosts DJ Envy and Charlamagne Tha God that aired Monday, the show’s hosts asked the California Democrat to address a series of derogatory memes that have circulated on social media. One of the hosts cited a meme that said Harris is “not African-American” because her parents were immigrants born in India and Jamaica and she spent her high school years in Canada.
“So I was born in Oakland, and raised in the United States except for the years that I was in high school in Montreal, Canada,” Harris responded with a laugh. “And look, this is the same thing they did to Barack (Obama). This is not new to us and so I think that we know what they are trying to do.”
“They are trying to do what has been happening over the last two years, which is powerful voices trying to sow hate and division, and so we need to recognize when we’re being played,” Harris said.
One of the hosts followed up by asking Harris how she responds to people who question “the legitimacy of your blackness.”
“I think they don’t understand who black people are,” Harris replied. “I’m not going to spend my time trying to educate people about who black people are. Because right now, frankly, I’m focused on, for example, an initiative that I have that is called the ‘LIFT Act’ that is about lifting folks out of poverty,” she said, detailing her plan for a $6,000 tax credit for middle class Americans.
“I’m black, and I’m proud of being black,” she said at a later point in the interview. “I was born black. I will die black, and I’m not going to make excuses for anybody because they don’t understand.”…
