# Racism within the Sciences ### *Resources for Acknowledging our Past, Understanding Current Practices, and Building Better Futures* #### **Introduction** There is a persistent expectation that the practice of Science can be neatly separated from broader society. As an example, consider the [outraged twitter comments](https://twitter.com/nature/status/1270648031411568640?s=20) on posts supporting STEM academics participating in Black Lives Matter [strikes](https://www.particlesforjustice.org/) and other [#shutdownSTEM initiatives](https://grist.org/justice/earth-scientists-shutdownstem-and-reckon-with-racism-in-their-departments/). Disapproval of scientists who publically express political or personal views is [not new](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/430653?journalCode=isis). Yet this expectation of scientific neutrality is at odds with the detailed accounts of the [contingencies of objective knowledge](https://osf.io/8wer2/wiki/home/) by historical and contemporary studies of scientific practices. This suggests that, in terms of the sciences *as actually practiced*, neutrality is a myth that continues to obscure how default assumptions contribute to scientific knowledge. One source of default assumptions is the racism that remains entrenched within the sciences. As part of the [resources](https://osf.io/umt23/) I'm helping to develop with scientists interested in philosophical, historical, and social studies of scientific practices, I've compiled lists below of readings relevant to different kinds of discussions about [structural racism](https://www.racialequitytools.org/fundamentals/core-concepts/structural-racism) in scientific research and medical practices. For the sake of brevity, I’m assuming that if you're reading this you have: 1. An awareness of resources available to learn about the history and ongoing impacts of [racism](https://www.racialequitytools.org/fundamentals/core-concepts/racism) more generally. If you're not sure, please start with the General Resources section first. 2. An awareness of, if not an appreciation for, [contemporary philosophy of scientific practices scholarship](https://osf.io/pr74x/). Everything here relies on work done by indigenous people and those within who have been marginalised due to skin-color and/or racial categorisation - please seek out their work directly (and seek out more)! Also note that these lists are a work-in-progress, far from exhaustive, likely to be inadequately maintained, and inevitably limited by the situatedness of my perspective (particularly as a white academic, but also in other ways). The following lists highlight some of the many topics that are relevant to discussions of racism in the sciences - from introductory resources for understanding the concept of race, studies on the impacts of racism in the sciences, and resources for decolonising our research practices and helping to dismantling systemic racism in our departments and institutions. Content suggestions welcome! #### **Discussing structural racism in the sciences?** 101: - Petrella, Christopher F. 2017. [‘Race, History, and the #ScienceMarch’](https://www.aaihs.org/race-history-and-the-sciencemarch/). Blog. Black Perspectives - African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) (blog). 2017. - Suman Seth 2018 [recorded interview ](https://newbooksnetwork.com/suman-seth-difference-and-disease-medicine-race-and-the-eighteenth-century-british-empire-cambridge-up-2018/) discussing Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire 102: - List of recent articles in [Isis - A Journal of the History of Science Society](https://hssonline.org/recent-isis-articles-on-the-history-of-race-and-racism-in-science/) on the history of race and racism in science - Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda. 2019. [‘Intersectionality as a Blueprint for Postcolonial Scientific Community Building’](https://medium.com/@chanda/intersectionality-as-a-blueprint-for-postcolonial-scientific-community-building-7e795d09225). Medium. 19 February 2019. - Crenner, Christopher. 2014. [‘Race and Laboratory Norms: The Critical Insights of Julian Herman Lewis (1891–1989)’](https://doi.org/10.1086/678168). Isis 105 (3): 477–507. - Fullwiley, Duana. 2014. [‘The “Contemporary Synthesis”: When Politically Inclusive Genomic Science Relies on Biological Notions of Race’](https://doi.org/10.1086/679427). Isis 105 (4): 803–14. - Kenny, Michael G. 2004. [‘Racial Science in Social Context: John R. Baker on Eugenics, Race, and the Public Role of the Scientist’](https://doi.org/10.1086/428959). Isis 95 (3): 394–419. - Seth, Suman. 2018. Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire. Cambridge University Press. - Rusert, Britt. 2017. [Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture](https://www.aaihs.org/fugitive-science-a-new-book-on-scientific-racism-in-america/). America and the Long 19th Century 10. New York: NYU Press. - Watson-Verran, Helen, and David Turnbull. 1995. ‘Science and Other Indigenous Knowledge Systems’. In Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, edited by Sheila Jasanoff, Gerald Markle E, and James Peterson C. London and New Delhi: Sage Publications. #### **Discussing the uses of race as a scientific concept?** 101: - Mitchell, Sandra, Haixin Dang, and Edouard Machery. 2014. [Is Race Real? Instant HPS Videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dwGuF9umTo). University of Pittsburgh. - Oreskes, Naomi. 2019. ‘Example 3, Eugenics’. In [Why Trust Science?](https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/naomi-oreskes-on-why-trust-science), 88–104. Princeton University Press. 102: - Eberhardt, Jennifer L. 2005. [‘Imaging Race.’](https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.2.181) American Psychologist 60 (2): 181–90. - Gould, Stephen Jay. 1981. ‘American Polygeny and Crainometry before Darwin’. In The Mismeasure of Man, 30–72. Penguin Books. - Haraway, Donna. 1997. ‘Race. Universal Donors in a Vampire Culture’. In Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium. FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse: Feminism and Technoscience, 213–65. Routledge. - Saini, Angela. 2019. [Superior: The Return of Race Science](https://www.amazon.com/Superior-Return-Race-Science/dp/0008341001). Fourth Estate. - Sussman, Robert Wald. 2018. [The Myth of Race](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674660038&content=reviews). Harvard University Press. - Roberts, Steven O., Carmelle Bareket-Shavit, Forrest A. Dollins, Peter D. Goldie, and Elizabeth Mortenson. 2020. ‘Racial Inequality in Psychological Research: Trends of the Past and Recommendations for the Future’. Perspectives on Psychological Science, June, 1745691620927709. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620927709. #### **Decolonizing your research practices?** - Archibald, Jo-Ann, Jenny Lee-Morgan, and Jason De Santolo, eds. 2019. [Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology](https://www.zedbooks.net/shop/book/decolonizing-research/). Zed Books. - Chanda Prescod-Weinstein's [Decolonizing Science Reading List](https://medium.com/@chanda/decolonising-science-reading-list-339fb773d51f) - Beatrice, Martini. 2017. [‘Decolonizing Technology: A Reading List’](https://beatricemartini.it/blog/decolonizing-technology-reading-list/). Beatrice Martini – Blog (blog). 10 May 2017. - Pascoe, B 2014. [Dark Emu Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?](https://darkemu.wordpress.com/) Magabala Books. - Hamacher, Duane W., and Kirsten Banks. 2018. [‘The Planets in Indigenous Australian Traditions’](http://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02462). Preprint arXiv:1806.02462 [physics] (June). - Shay-Akil. 2016. [‘We Need Decolonial Scientists’](https://decolonizeallthethings.com/2016/11/10/we-need-decolonial-scientists/.). Decolonize ALL The Things (blog). 10 November 2016. - Sahfir, Nir, ed. Ongoing Collaborative Document. [‘Reading List on Modern and Colonial Science in the Middle East’](https://docs.google.com/document/d/14TvuVWrFVNHyKUVt-01afbpeAcK5f1KB2tgKvR-Fysk/edit). Unpublished. #### **Dismantling systemic racism in academia**? - Asking for feedback and suggestions. For examples, see the online ['suggestion box'](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeyO_CcXpxLxlk6Rl7PfsJxI9aPdYv9pDKZi4YutTD_ewCt-g/viewform) to improve plans of action to address systemic racism in academia by the [Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS)](http://improvingpsych.org/2020/06/16/racism-and-police-brutality/) and Layal Liverpool's [twitter thread](https://twitter.com/layallivs/status/1270689387051986944?s=20) asking Black scientists "what action scientists & scientific/academic institutions need to take in order to combat racism & anti-blackness in science" - Developing concrete recommendations for how our departments can create institutional change and dismantle systemic inequities & anti-Blackness - examples by students of the [Oxford Internet Institute](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScm8uANLU82FnRacOOoHf5NfsWMqdiN1ARk-OHjWjpyw5R7Xw/viewform), the [MIT Black Student Union (BSU) and Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA)](http://bgsa.mit.edu/sbl2020), and the [MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE)](https://dmseagainstracism.weebly.com/) - Challenging course content - an example, from Andrew Beitzel, of how to [decolonise a course with a pro-mission curriculum at a major university](https://indigenousx.com.au/decolonising-uni-a-follow-up/). - Getting better at celebrating marginalised peers, examples include [shout-outs](https://twitter.com/JennMJacksonPhD/status/1267914631005310981?s=20), [call-ins](https://twitter.com/PixSciCo/status/1268141178437996545?s=20), and raising awareness of contributions in the history of [physics](http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/physics/physics-peeps.html), [chemistry](https://www.thoughtco.com/black-chemists-and-chemical-engineers-606873), the [geosciences](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/black-history-month-making-history-in-the-geosciences/), and so on. #### **Looking for more general resources?** *Key Concepts & Resources* - [‘Still new to discussions about race?’](https://www.shutdownstem.com/beginners) - [The Racial Equity Tools Glossary](https://www.racialequitytools.org/glossary#implicit-bias) - [Cautions on using BIPOC](https://www.vox.com/2020/6/30/21300294/bipoc-what-does-it-mean-critical-race-linguistics-jonathan-rosa-deandra-miles-hercules) as a collective term for Black people, Indigenous peoples, and People of Color - [especially outside of North America](https://twitter.com/NayukaGorrie/status/1278238953926082560?s=20). - [Cite Black Women](https://www.citeblackwomencollective.org/) - Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda. 2019. [‘A U.S./Canadian Race & Racism Reading List’](https://medium.com/@chanda/a-u-s-canadian-race-racism-reading-list-7a6ccd4d198d.). Medium. 10 January 2019. - Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 2016. [The Urgency of Intersectionality](https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality) TEDWomen2016. - Roberts, Dorothy. 2015. [The Problem with Race-Based Medicine](https://www.ted.com/talks/dorothy_roberts_the_problem_with_race_based_medicine).TEDMED2015 - Thurston, Baratunde. 2019. [How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time](https://www.ted.com/talks/baratunde_thurston_how_to_deconstruct_racism_one_headline_at_a_time) Ted2019 - Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda. 2020. [‘The Rules of the Diversity and Inclusion Racket’](https://theriveter.co/voice/the-rules-of-the-diversity-and-inclusion-racket/). The Riveter (blog). 1 June 2020. - [Intersectionality Matters!](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intersectionality-matters/id1441348908) Podcast - New York Times intro to [implicit racial bias](https://www.nytimes.com/video/who-me-biased) *Broader Context* - Bullen, Pauline E. 2012. ‘The Continued Relevance of Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom’. Journal of College Teaching & Learning (TLC) 9 (1): 21–26. - Eddio-Lodge, Reni. 2019. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race. Bloomsbury Publishing. - Eberhardt, Jennifer L. 2019. Biased. New York: Viking. - hooks, bell 1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Routledge. - Karabel, Jerome. 2006. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Reprint edition. Boston, Mass.: Mariner Books. - Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. 2015. The White Possessive: Property,Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. U of Minnesota Press. - Morris-Reich, Amos. 2016. Race and Photography. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. - Thiago Arzua's [twitter thread](https://twitter.com/thiagoarzua/status/1270422647319474178?s=20) on how neuroscience has been used to justify racism, Jun 10, 2020