Photo: Equity Symposium Event Coordinators pose for photo booth picture by Britt Pierro
Workshop by Carolyn Prouty, Article by Allegra Simpkins
Carolyn Prouty told her audience that “there is no biological marker, or indicator, to differentiate race,” during her lecture last Friday at Evergreen’s annual Equity Symposium. Her workshop, entitled The Paradox of Race, dove into the world of misunderstanding and misinformation regarding the connection between biology and race. Her conclusion is that simply, there is none.
TEDx alumna and current professor of the Irrepressible Bodies program, Prouty began her discussion by asking the audience to write down their initial thoughts about the connection between biology and race. Many in the audience did not have an answer, others raised their hands and spoke of genetic predisposition to disease, inherited abilities, and physical characteristics. Prouty acknowledged their answers, and then schooled everyone in the room.
“Race is not biological and not genetic,” she said. Then the silence set in. Pure confusion ran across the faces of those in the room, slowly relaxing as she continued. “Melanin, eye color, height, etc., are all biological traits, but race is a human invention. A categorizing of ourselves and others based on traits that are not constant.” She put a photo up on the projector screen of a diverse group of young adults wearing t-shirts with dates and labels on the front. Each one was different. A black woman wore one that said “1800s – Slave,” “1900s – Mulatto,” and “2000s – African American,” indicating that your “race” is directly dependent upon the time and place in which you are alive and not rooted in science, but rather a systematic organization of the other.
Then Prouty dropped a data bomb. Humans are 99.9 percent similar biologically no matter where you find them in the world. That measly 0.1 percent difference is based on ancestry, not race. Prouty explained if we take at face value the fact that human life began in Africa, and then multiplied and spread throughout the rest of the world, our characteristics were shaped by our environment. Those who remained close to the equator developed more melanin, darker eyes (typically), and other traits so they could survive in such direct sunlight. Those who ventured further from the equator did not need to develop as much melanin, giving them fairer skin and lighter eyes. Historically though, these types of traits have been used by humans to divide and demean whole nations in the name of comparative superiority and power.
Western medicine has perpetuated this fallacy by reporting health conditions in the context of racial disparities. We often see rates of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, broken up into categories of black, hispanic, caucasian, and more. When we interpret these graphics, we analyze them based on the given information and associate high rates of certain diseases with certain “races.”
Remember that part about our environment shaping our characteristics? Still accurate. The Public Health Agency of Canada released a list of the top determinants of human health in 2017. They found that health is directly related to our income, social support, education, employment (benefits, etc.), and childhood experiences—in that order—followed by diet and personal health habits which both rely heavily on access to resources. “Our choices are shaped by a wide set of economics and social policy. The choices we make all come from within the choices that we have, and from our agency to make choices,” Prouty said.
Power, privilege, and money are all resources that allow us to make certain choices regarding our health while knowledge and social capital enable us to control circumstances and react positively to change. If we lack any of these vital resources, it puts our bodies under stress. It is true that certain amounts of stress can increase productivity and attention among other things in the short-term, but ongoing stress has the opposite effect. Stress is categorized in two ways: Acute stress which lasts seconds to hours, and chronic stress which lasts days, weeks, or more. Under chronic stress, the body experiences a decrease in brain function, increased anxiety, depression, and chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, cancer, and other immune disorders.
Racial profiling, neighborhood violence, food insecurity, and lack of access to social resources are all prominent stressors within underprivileged communities; and stress is cumulative. The longer humans are under chronic stress, the more difficult it becomes to overcome their stressors, leaving millions of people stuck in unhealthy bodies with no resources to change. On top of the lack of access to resources which is based in systemic racism, racism within the healthcare system causes its own set of issues.
Implicit bias in the delivery of care has cost lives. During enslavement, masters and sellers would perpetuate the theory that black people had a higher pain tolerance than whites, justifying to themselves their heinous actions. This belief has morphed and shifted through generations of healthcare professionals leading doctors to misperceive the pain tolerance specifically of black women and the data is astounding. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the mortality rate of infants born in hospitals in the United States is a staggering 1,052 black babies to 512 non-hispanic whites. That’s just one example. These implicit biases rooted in racism have detrimental effects, including less time with patients, less involvement in medical decisions, and ultimately less effective care overall.
When we operate as if race is biological, it creates misplaced blame in every category of life. We adopt a “that’s just how it is” attitude, which lets those who benefit from structural inequities remain where they are and pretend that nothing can be done to change things. However, the data is there. When we know better, we must do better. According to Prouty, the work now is “to dismantle these structural inequities and thereby increase health.” The paradox of race is that it doesn’t exist, yet we live in a world that is structured around it. Each and every one of us has the ability to address racism and discrimination when we see it. Vote for labor policies that give resources like a living wage for all, understand the benefits of social assistance, and work towards access to quality education for every human.
