I previously wrote about an instance when science has shaped racism for the worse. I also mentioned that academics and academic institutions have been relatively passive about the current BLM movements. Perhaps people are still grasping onto the belief that science is free of racism, but here are some current examples of blatant racist remarks and studies that academic institutions attempted to brush aside:
James Watson (born 1928, now 92 years old) is one of the “discoverers” of DNA structure. Along with Francis Crick, he received a Nobel Prize for their work in 1962. Naturally, Watson has had a wide audience thanks to his recognition as one of the “fathers of DNA.” Throughout his career, he was known to like stirring controversy with inappropriate racist, sexist, and homophobic comments. Yet, he continued to serve on boards and receive awards, honors, and invitations. He is said to have become more vocal with progressively extreme opinions [1]. His viewpoints are now associated with ideas that African Americans have certain characteristics because it was selected for throughout slavery. Evidence supporting this is lacking [2], and if anything, people have pointed out that the loose eugenics practice would not have been enough to change the population’s genetics within the 250 years. It took decades before Watson lost most of his platform, appointments, and honors with the last honor being revoked last year.
Dr Satoshi Kanazawa is a former Evolutionary Biologist and professor who, in 2011, published a blog in Psychology Today titled, “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?” Naturally, people were outraged, but he seems to also have had a record of expressing unprofessional opinions with Islamophobic blog posts and racist publications [3, 4]. It took 4 months of petitions and protests before an apology by Kanazawa was even published regarding his 2011 blog post. His right to remain as a professor was defended by his university for academic freedom.
I don’t mean to share this information to initiate another hunt – my goal here is to reveal that racism does (still) exist in academia and our institutions protect (and profit from) it. While it’s great that organizations are committing to more diverse panelists and generally raising awareness, perhaps this is too passive for what they have supported for far too long.
[1] S Begley. 2019. ‘I really don’t know what happened to Jim’: Friends ask where James Watson’s odious attitudes about race came from. [Accessed June 26] https://www.statnews.com/2019/01/03/where-james-watsons-racial-attitudes-came-from/
[2] PMID = 29972056
[3] PMID = 17032488
[4] Kanazawa, S. (2006). No, it Ain’t Gonna Be like That. Evolutionary Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/147470490600400110
Originally posted on Instagram July 17, 2020
Tags:
No Responses