The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues

The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues


The Anti-Racist Democratic Genome?

October 07, 2013

Jenny Reardon, director of the Science & Justice Research Center, UC, Santa , Cruz, gives this insightful lecture. The opening decade of this millennium witnessed genome scientists, policy makers, critical race theorists and world leaders proclaiming the anti-racist democratic potential of human genomics. These views stand in stark contrast to the 1990s concern that genomics might create new forms of racism. This lecture explores this shift, both why it happened and what it reveals about emerging challenges for understanding issues of race and racism in the genomic age. This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Departments of American Studies, Anthropology, and Spanish & Portuguese. This program is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, The Meanings of Race.