Author: Bruce L. Gary
Publisher: Bruce L Gary
ISBN: 0979844606
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
Every living thing is assembled by its genes. This is a crucial starting point for exploring a fundamental human dilemma. As stated so starkly by Richard Dawkins, a human is "a lumbering machine, created for the task of safeguarding and propagating the all-important genes within." I would add that since the machine's behavior is driven by brain circuits pre-wired by those genes, sometimes we are prone to doing things which work against our individual best interest in order to advance the cause of the genes. In other words, some of our genes are our enemies ("outlaw genes") because they jeopardize individual well¬being as they work to assure themselves genetic immortality. Every thinking person must face the following dilemma: "How can I achieve liberation from genetic pitfalls when my values and thinking are so profoundly influenced by the very same genes that have created those pitfalls?" The more one tries to answer this question the harder it is to imagine that an answer is possible. Nevertheless, this is a challenge that can become irresistibly fascinating. This book is an attempt to bravely explore one of Humanity's most profound existential dilemmas. The fate of a civilization is also affected by the "outlaw genes," especially those responsible for a feeling of discontent with civilization and a vague preference for a simpler society, which I would describe as resembling those found in the human ancestral environment. This book explores how a flawed human nature undermines every civilization, starting a decline and eventual fall. Those of us born during the 20th Century are lucky for having seen the best of times for our civilization, and as a questionable bonus we may now witness from close-up the forces that have condemned every past civilization to ruin.
Genetic Enslavement
Author: Bruce L. Gary
Publisher: Bruce L Gary
ISBN: 0979844606
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
Every living thing is assembled by its genes. This is a crucial starting point for exploring a fundamental human dilemma. As stated so starkly by Richard Dawkins, a human is "a lumbering machine, created for the task of safeguarding and propagating the all-important genes within." I would add that since the machine's behavior is driven by brain circuits pre-wired by those genes, sometimes we are prone to doing things which work against our individual best interest in order to advance the cause of the genes. In other words, some of our genes are our enemies ("outlaw genes") because they jeopardize individual well¬being as they work to assure themselves genetic immortality. Every thinking person must face the following dilemma: "How can I achieve liberation from genetic pitfalls when my values and thinking are so profoundly influenced by the very same genes that have created those pitfalls?" The more one tries to answer this question the harder it is to imagine that an answer is possible. Nevertheless, this is a challenge that can become irresistibly fascinating. This book is an attempt to bravely explore one of Humanity's most profound existential dilemmas. The fate of a civilization is also affected by the "outlaw genes," especially those responsible for a feeling of discontent with civilization and a vague preference for a simpler society, which I would describe as resembling those found in the human ancestral environment. This book explores how a flawed human nature undermines every civilization, starting a decline and eventual fall. Those of us born during the 20th Century are lucky for having seen the best of times for our civilization, and as a questionable bonus we may now witness from close-up the forces that have condemned every past civilization to ruin.
Publisher: Bruce L Gary
ISBN: 0979844606
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 347
Book Description
Every living thing is assembled by its genes. This is a crucial starting point for exploring a fundamental human dilemma. As stated so starkly by Richard Dawkins, a human is "a lumbering machine, created for the task of safeguarding and propagating the all-important genes within." I would add that since the machine's behavior is driven by brain circuits pre-wired by those genes, sometimes we are prone to doing things which work against our individual best interest in order to advance the cause of the genes. In other words, some of our genes are our enemies ("outlaw genes") because they jeopardize individual well¬being as they work to assure themselves genetic immortality. Every thinking person must face the following dilemma: "How can I achieve liberation from genetic pitfalls when my values and thinking are so profoundly influenced by the very same genes that have created those pitfalls?" The more one tries to answer this question the harder it is to imagine that an answer is possible. Nevertheless, this is a challenge that can become irresistibly fascinating. This book is an attempt to bravely explore one of Humanity's most profound existential dilemmas. The fate of a civilization is also affected by the "outlaw genes," especially those responsible for a feeling of discontent with civilization and a vague preference for a simpler society, which I would describe as resembling those found in the human ancestral environment. This book explores how a flawed human nature undermines every civilization, starting a decline and eventual fall. Those of us born during the 20th Century are lucky for having seen the best of times for our civilization, and as a questionable bonus we may now witness from close-up the forces that have condemned every past civilization to ruin.
The Cooking Gene
Author: Michael W. Twitty
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062876570
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year | 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner inWriting | Nominee for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction | #75 on The Root100 2018 A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the Southern past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together. Illustrations by Stephen Crotts
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062876570
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year | 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner inWriting | Nominee for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction | #75 on The Root100 2018 A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the Southern past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together. Illustrations by Stephen Crotts
Are We Slaves to our Genes?
Author: Denis R. Alexander
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108426336
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
Genetic differences can influence differences in our human behaviours, but only occasionally undermine the reality of our free will.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108426336
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
Genetic differences can influence differences in our human behaviours, but only occasionally undermine the reality of our free will.
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome
Author: Joy DeGruy
Publisher: Amistad
ISBN: 9780062692665
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
From acclaimed author and researcher Dr. Joy DeGruy comes this fascinating book that explores the psychological and emotional impact on African Americans after enduring the horrific Middle Passage, over 300 years of slavery, followed by continued discrimination. From the beginning of American chattel slavery in the 1500’s, until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Africans were hunted like animals, captured, sold, tortured, and raped. They experienced the worst kind of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse. Given such history, Dr. Joy DeGruy asked the question, “Isn’t it likely those enslaved were severely traumatized? Furthermore, did the trauma and the effects of such horrific abuse end with the abolition of slavery?” Emancipation was followed by another hundred years of institutionalized subjugation through the enactment of Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, peonage and convict leasing, and domestic terrorism and lynching. Today the violations continue, and when combined with the crimes of the past, they result in further unmeasured injury. What do repeated traumas visited upon generation after generation of a people produce? What are the impacts of the ordeals associated with chattel slavery, and with the institutions that followed, on African Americans today? Dr. DeGruy answers these questions and more as she encourages African Americans to view their attitudes, assumptions, and emotions through the lens of history. By doing so, she argues they will gain a greater understanding of the impact centuries of slavery and oppression has had on African Americans. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is an important read for all Americans, as the institution of slavery has had an impact on every race and culture. “A masterwork. [DeGruy’s] deep understanding, critical analysis, and determination to illuminate core truths are essential to addressing the long-lived devastation of slavery. Her book is the balm we need to heal ourselves and our relationships. It is a gift of wholeness.”—Susan Taylor, former Editorial Director of Essence magazine
Publisher: Amistad
ISBN: 9780062692665
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
From acclaimed author and researcher Dr. Joy DeGruy comes this fascinating book that explores the psychological and emotional impact on African Americans after enduring the horrific Middle Passage, over 300 years of slavery, followed by continued discrimination. From the beginning of American chattel slavery in the 1500’s, until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Africans were hunted like animals, captured, sold, tortured, and raped. They experienced the worst kind of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse. Given such history, Dr. Joy DeGruy asked the question, “Isn’t it likely those enslaved were severely traumatized? Furthermore, did the trauma and the effects of such horrific abuse end with the abolition of slavery?” Emancipation was followed by another hundred years of institutionalized subjugation through the enactment of Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, peonage and convict leasing, and domestic terrorism and lynching. Today the violations continue, and when combined with the crimes of the past, they result in further unmeasured injury. What do repeated traumas visited upon generation after generation of a people produce? What are the impacts of the ordeals associated with chattel slavery, and with the institutions that followed, on African Americans today? Dr. DeGruy answers these questions and more as she encourages African Americans to view their attitudes, assumptions, and emotions through the lens of history. By doing so, she argues they will gain a greater understanding of the impact centuries of slavery and oppression has had on African Americans. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is an important read for all Americans, as the institution of slavery has had an impact on every race and culture. “A masterwork. [DeGruy’s] deep understanding, critical analysis, and determination to illuminate core truths are essential to addressing the long-lived devastation of slavery. Her book is the balm we need to heal ourselves and our relationships. It is a gift of wholeness.”—Susan Taylor, former Editorial Director of Essence magazine
Slave Species of the Gods
Author: Michael Tellinger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591438071
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 529
Book Description
Our origins as a slave species and the Anunnaki legacy in our DNA • Reveals compelling new archaeological and genetic evidence for the engineered origins of the human species, first proposed by Zecharia Sitchin in The 12th Planet • Shows how the Anunnaki created us using pieces of their own DNA, controlling our physical and mental capabilities by inactivating their more advanced DNA • Identifies a recently discovered complex of sophisticated ruins in South Africa as the city of the Anunnaki leader Enki Scholars have long believed that the first civilization on Earth emerged in Sumer some 6,000 years ago. However, as Michael Tellinger reveals, the Sumerians and Egyptians inherited their knowledge from an earlier civilization that lived at the southern tip of Africa and began with the arrival of the Anunnaki more than 200,000 years ago. Sent to Earth in search of life-saving gold, these ancient Anunnaki astronauts from the planet Nibiru created the first humans as a slave race to mine gold--thus beginning our global traditions of gold obsession, slavery, and god as dominating master. Revealing new archaeological and genetic evidence in support of Zecharia Sitchin’s revolutionary work with pre-biblical clay tablets, Tellinger shows how the Anunnaki created us using pieces of their own DNA, controlling our physical and mental capabilities by inactivating their more advanced DNA--which explains why less than 3 percent of our DNA is active. He identifies a recently discovered complex of sophisticated ruins in South Africa, complete with thousands of mines, as the city of Anunnaki leader Enki and explains their lost technologies that used the power of sound as a source of energy. Matching key mythologies of the world’s religions to the Sumerian clay tablet stories on which they are based, he details the actual events behind these tales of direct physical interactions with “god,” concluding with the epic flood--a perennial theme of ancient myth--that wiped out the Anunnaki mining operations. Tellinger shows that, as humanity awakens to the truth about our origins, we can overcome our programmed animalistic and slave-like nature, tap in to our dormant Anunnaki DNA, and realize the longevity and intelligence of our creators as well as learn the difference between the gods of myth and the true loving God of our universe.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591438071
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 529
Book Description
Our origins as a slave species and the Anunnaki legacy in our DNA • Reveals compelling new archaeological and genetic evidence for the engineered origins of the human species, first proposed by Zecharia Sitchin in The 12th Planet • Shows how the Anunnaki created us using pieces of their own DNA, controlling our physical and mental capabilities by inactivating their more advanced DNA • Identifies a recently discovered complex of sophisticated ruins in South Africa as the city of the Anunnaki leader Enki Scholars have long believed that the first civilization on Earth emerged in Sumer some 6,000 years ago. However, as Michael Tellinger reveals, the Sumerians and Egyptians inherited their knowledge from an earlier civilization that lived at the southern tip of Africa and began with the arrival of the Anunnaki more than 200,000 years ago. Sent to Earth in search of life-saving gold, these ancient Anunnaki astronauts from the planet Nibiru created the first humans as a slave race to mine gold--thus beginning our global traditions of gold obsession, slavery, and god as dominating master. Revealing new archaeological and genetic evidence in support of Zecharia Sitchin’s revolutionary work with pre-biblical clay tablets, Tellinger shows how the Anunnaki created us using pieces of their own DNA, controlling our physical and mental capabilities by inactivating their more advanced DNA--which explains why less than 3 percent of our DNA is active. He identifies a recently discovered complex of sophisticated ruins in South Africa, complete with thousands of mines, as the city of Anunnaki leader Enki and explains their lost technologies that used the power of sound as a source of energy. Matching key mythologies of the world’s religions to the Sumerian clay tablet stories on which they are based, he details the actual events behind these tales of direct physical interactions with “god,” concluding with the epic flood--a perennial theme of ancient myth--that wiped out the Anunnaki mining operations. Tellinger shows that, as humanity awakens to the truth about our origins, we can overcome our programmed animalistic and slave-like nature, tap in to our dormant Anunnaki DNA, and realize the longevity and intelligence of our creators as well as learn the difference between the gods of myth and the true loving God of our universe.
Disposable People
Author: Kevin Bales
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520951387
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Slavery is illegal throughout the world, yet more than twenty-seven million people are still trapped in one of history's oldest social institutions. Kevin Bales's disturbing story of slavery today reaches from brick kilns in Pakistan and brothels in Thailand to the offices of multinational corporations. His investigation of conditions in Mauritania, Brazil, Thailand, Pakistan, and India reveals the tragic emergence of a "new slavery," one intricately linked to the global economy. The new slaves are not a long-term investment as was true with older forms of slavery, explains Bales. Instead, they are cheap, require little care, and are disposable. Three interrelated factors have helped create the new slavery. The enormous population explosion over the past three decades has flooded the world's labor markets with millions of impoverished, desperate people. The revolution of economic globalization and modernized agriculture has dispossessed poor farmers, making them and their families ready targets for enslavement. And rapid economic change in developing countries has bred corruption and violence, destroying social rules that might once have protected the most vulnerable individuals. Bales's vivid case studies present actual slaves, slaveholders, and public officials in well-drawn historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. He observes the complex economic relationships of modern slavery and is aware that liberation is a bitter victory for a child prostitute or a bondaged miner if the result is starvation. Bales offers suggestions for combating the new slavery and provides examples of very positive results from organizations such as Anti-Slavery International, the Pastoral Land Commission in Brazil, and the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan. He also calls for researchers to follow the flow of raw materials and products from slave to marketplace in order to effectively target campaigns of "naming and shaming" corporations linked to slavery. Disposable People is the first book to point the way to abolishing slavery in today's global economy. All of the author's royalties from this book go to fund anti-slavery projects around the world.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520951387
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Slavery is illegal throughout the world, yet more than twenty-seven million people are still trapped in one of history's oldest social institutions. Kevin Bales's disturbing story of slavery today reaches from brick kilns in Pakistan and brothels in Thailand to the offices of multinational corporations. His investigation of conditions in Mauritania, Brazil, Thailand, Pakistan, and India reveals the tragic emergence of a "new slavery," one intricately linked to the global economy. The new slaves are not a long-term investment as was true with older forms of slavery, explains Bales. Instead, they are cheap, require little care, and are disposable. Three interrelated factors have helped create the new slavery. The enormous population explosion over the past three decades has flooded the world's labor markets with millions of impoverished, desperate people. The revolution of economic globalization and modernized agriculture has dispossessed poor farmers, making them and their families ready targets for enslavement. And rapid economic change in developing countries has bred corruption and violence, destroying social rules that might once have protected the most vulnerable individuals. Bales's vivid case studies present actual slaves, slaveholders, and public officials in well-drawn historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. He observes the complex economic relationships of modern slavery and is aware that liberation is a bitter victory for a child prostitute or a bondaged miner if the result is starvation. Bales offers suggestions for combating the new slavery and provides examples of very positive results from organizations such as Anti-Slavery International, the Pastoral Land Commission in Brazil, and the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan. He also calls for researchers to follow the flow of raw materials and products from slave to marketplace in order to effectively target campaigns of "naming and shaming" corporations linked to slavery. Disposable People is the first book to point the way to abolishing slavery in today's global economy. All of the author's royalties from this book go to fund anti-slavery projects around the world.
Slave Country
Author: Adam Rothman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674016743
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Rothman explores how slavery flourished in a new nation dedicated to the principle of equality among free men, and reveals the enormous consequences of U.S. expansion into the region that became the Deep South.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674016743
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Rothman explores how slavery flourished in a new nation dedicated to the principle of equality among free men, and reveals the enormous consequences of U.S. expansion into the region that became the Deep South.
The Mark of Slavery
Author: Jenifer L. Barclay
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252052617
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Exploring the disability history of slavery Time and again, antebellum Americans justified slavery and white supremacy by linking blackness to disability, defectiveness, and dependency. Jenifer L. Barclay examines the ubiquitous narratives that depicted black people with disabilities as pitiable, monstrous, or comical, narratives used not only to defend slavery but argue against it. As she shows, this relationship between ableism and racism impacted racial identities during the antebellum period and played an overlooked role in shaping American history afterward. Barclay also illuminates the everyday lives of the ten percent of enslaved people who lived with disabilities. Devalued by slaveholders as unsound and therefore worthless, these individuals nonetheless carved out an unusual autonomy. Their roles as caregivers, healers, and keepers of memory made them esteemed within their own communities and celebrated figures in song and folklore. Prescient in its analysis and rich in detail, The Mark of Slavery is a powerful addition to the intertwined histories of disability, slavery, and race.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252052617
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Exploring the disability history of slavery Time and again, antebellum Americans justified slavery and white supremacy by linking blackness to disability, defectiveness, and dependency. Jenifer L. Barclay examines the ubiquitous narratives that depicted black people with disabilities as pitiable, monstrous, or comical, narratives used not only to defend slavery but argue against it. As she shows, this relationship between ableism and racism impacted racial identities during the antebellum period and played an overlooked role in shaping American history afterward. Barclay also illuminates the everyday lives of the ten percent of enslaved people who lived with disabilities. Devalued by slaveholders as unsound and therefore worthless, these individuals nonetheless carved out an unusual autonomy. Their roles as caregivers, healers, and keepers of memory made them esteemed within their own communities and celebrated figures in song and folklore. Prescient in its analysis and rich in detail, The Mark of Slavery is a powerful addition to the intertwined histories of disability, slavery, and race.
Genetics and the Unsettled Past
Author: Keith Wailoo
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813553369
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 371
Book Description
Our genetic markers have come to be regarded as portals to the past. Analysis of these markers is increasingly used to tell the story of human migration; to investigate and judge issues of social membership and kinship; to rewrite history and collective memory; to right past wrongs and to arbitrate legal claims and human rights controversies; and to open new thinking about health and well-being. At the same time, in many societies genetic evidence is being called upon to perform a kind of racially charged cultural work: to repair the racial past and to transform scholarly and popular opinion about the “nature” of identity in the present. Genetics and the Unsettled Past considers the alignment of genetic science with commercial genealogy, with legal and forensic developments, and with pharmaceutical innovation to examine how these trends lend renewed authority to biological understandings of race and history. This unique collection brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines—biology, history, cultural studies, law, medicine, anthropology, ethnic studies, sociology—to explore the emerging and often contested connections among race, DNA, and history. Written for a general audience, the book’s essays touch upon a variety of topics, including the rise and implications of DNA in genealogy, law, and other fields; the cultural and political uses and misuses of genetic information; the way in which DNA testing is reshaping understandings of group identity for French Canadians, Native Americans, South Africans, and many others within and across cultural and national boundaries; and the sweeping implications of genetics for society today.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813553369
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 371
Book Description
Our genetic markers have come to be regarded as portals to the past. Analysis of these markers is increasingly used to tell the story of human migration; to investigate and judge issues of social membership and kinship; to rewrite history and collective memory; to right past wrongs and to arbitrate legal claims and human rights controversies; and to open new thinking about health and well-being. At the same time, in many societies genetic evidence is being called upon to perform a kind of racially charged cultural work: to repair the racial past and to transform scholarly and popular opinion about the “nature” of identity in the present. Genetics and the Unsettled Past considers the alignment of genetic science with commercial genealogy, with legal and forensic developments, and with pharmaceutical innovation to examine how these trends lend renewed authority to biological understandings of race and history. This unique collection brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines—biology, history, cultural studies, law, medicine, anthropology, ethnic studies, sociology—to explore the emerging and often contested connections among race, DNA, and history. Written for a general audience, the book’s essays touch upon a variety of topics, including the rise and implications of DNA in genealogy, law, and other fields; the cultural and political uses and misuses of genetic information; the way in which DNA testing is reshaping understandings of group identity for French Canadians, Native Americans, South Africans, and many others within and across cultural and national boundaries; and the sweeping implications of genetics for society today.
The Social Life of DNA
Author: Alondra Nelson
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807033014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
The unexpected story of how genetic testing is affecting race in America We know DNA is a master key that unlocks medical and forensic secrets, but its genealogical life is both revelatory and endlessly fascinating. Tracing genealogy is now the second-most popular hobby amongst Americans, as well as the second-most visited online category. This billion-dollar industry has spawned popular television shows, websites, and Internet communities, and a booming heritage tourism circuit. The tsunami of interest in genetic ancestry tracing from the African American community has been especially overwhelming. In The Social Life of DNA, Alondra Nelson takes us on an unprecedented journey into how the double helix has wound its way into the heart of the most urgent contemporary social issues around race. For over a decade, Nelson has deeply studied this phenomenon. Artfully weaving together keenly observed interactions with root-seekers alongside illuminating historical details and revealing personal narrative, she shows that genetic genealogy is a new tool for addressing old and enduring issues. In The Social Life of DNA, she explains how these cutting-edge DNA-based techniques are being used in myriad ways, including grappling with the unfinished business of slavery: to foster reconciliation, to establish ties with African ancestral homelands, to rethink and sometimes alter citizenship, and to make legal claims for slavery reparations specifically based on ancestry. Nelson incisively shows that DNA is a portal to the past that yields insight for the present and future, shining a light on social traumas and historical injustices that still resonate today. Science can be a crucial ally to activism to spur social change and transform twenty-first-century racial politics. But Nelson warns her readers to be discerning: for the social repair we seek can't be found in even the most sophisticated science. Engrossing and highly original, The Social Life of DNA is a must-read for anyone interested in race, science, history and how our reckoning with the past may help us to chart a more just course for tomorrow.
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807033014
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
The unexpected story of how genetic testing is affecting race in America We know DNA is a master key that unlocks medical and forensic secrets, but its genealogical life is both revelatory and endlessly fascinating. Tracing genealogy is now the second-most popular hobby amongst Americans, as well as the second-most visited online category. This billion-dollar industry has spawned popular television shows, websites, and Internet communities, and a booming heritage tourism circuit. The tsunami of interest in genetic ancestry tracing from the African American community has been especially overwhelming. In The Social Life of DNA, Alondra Nelson takes us on an unprecedented journey into how the double helix has wound its way into the heart of the most urgent contemporary social issues around race. For over a decade, Nelson has deeply studied this phenomenon. Artfully weaving together keenly observed interactions with root-seekers alongside illuminating historical details and revealing personal narrative, she shows that genetic genealogy is a new tool for addressing old and enduring issues. In The Social Life of DNA, she explains how these cutting-edge DNA-based techniques are being used in myriad ways, including grappling with the unfinished business of slavery: to foster reconciliation, to establish ties with African ancestral homelands, to rethink and sometimes alter citizenship, and to make legal claims for slavery reparations specifically based on ancestry. Nelson incisively shows that DNA is a portal to the past that yields insight for the present and future, shining a light on social traumas and historical injustices that still resonate today. Science can be a crucial ally to activism to spur social change and transform twenty-first-century racial politics. But Nelson warns her readers to be discerning: for the social repair we seek can't be found in even the most sophisticated science. Engrossing and highly original, The Social Life of DNA is a must-read for anyone interested in race, science, history and how our reckoning with the past may help us to chart a more just course for tomorrow.