Race & Medicine

Alan Goodman, former AAA President and professor of biological anthropology at Hampshire College, was featured in Newsweek's Lab Notes blog last week. The blog post emphasizes the ways that race influences medical practice and treatment, and the implications this can have for a patient's health.

Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness

Savage Minds linked to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer featuring UPenn anthropologist John L. Jackson Jr. He describes his first non-academic book, Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness, and how racial fears underlie many of our everyday (inter)actions.

It is refreshing to see Jackson and several other anthropologists stepping into the public sphere. For more of Jackson, visit his AnthroMan blog and the Chronicle's Brainstorm blog.

RACE Project on NPR

Dr. Yolanda Moses, vice provost for diversity and conflict resolution and professor of anthropology at the University of California at Riverside, was featured on NPR's News & Notes today to detail AAA's "Race - Are we so Different?" Project.

Links:
Helping Kids Understand Racial Differences (part 1)
What is Race? (part 2)
RACE Project

RACE Blog Ranked as Top Civil Liberty Blog

The RACE Project's blog was listed as one of the top 100 civil liberty advocacy blogs by Criminal Justice Degrees Guide. The RACE blog details the experiences of race and racism in America. Please feel free to visit the RACE blog and leave a comment on one of the posts.

MSNBC Borrows AAA's RACE Timeline

MSNBC has taken an interest in AAA’s award-winning RACE Project. The project’s timeline of race in U.S. history is currently featured on MSNBC’s website as part of a series on race and ethnicity called “Gut Check America: The Colors of Change.”

The series explores the growing number of multiracial individuals, couples and families living in America and the issues they face. The series includes stories, a video gallery, a discussion platform, and an interactive state-by-state map, in addition to the RACE Project’s historical timeline.

The RACE Project’s timeline charts the history of race relations over the past four hundred years, from the establishment of the first slave codes in colonial Virginia to recent debates on affirmative action and racial profiling. The timeline was prepared for the RACE Project’s interactive website and is viewable at www.understandingrace.com

To view the MSNBC series, “Gut Check America: The Colors of Change,” go to www.gutcheck.msnbc.com.

Minorities and Anthropology: Reflecting on 35 Years

In 1969, the AAA passed a resolution calling for the recruitment of under-represented groups into anthropology and encouraging efforts to hire and facilitate their careers within the discipline. This year, the AAA Executive Board has established the Commission on Race and Racism in Anthropology and the AAA in order to re-evaluate how the discipline’s minority issues have changed over the past 35 years.

The AAA encourages members of the anthropology community or others interested in this subject to reflect on issues of race and racism in professional structures and practices of anthropology. We invite all members of the anthropology community to read the 1973 report and to reflect on what has and has not changed during the past thirty-five years.

Links:
1973 Minority Report

Minorities in Anthropology: 1973 versus 2008, Progress or Illusion *As printed in the April 2008 issue of Anthropology News

Commission on Race and Racism in Anthropology and the AAA