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Cover of "Excited Delirium," left, and author Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús, right.

The Racist, Xenophobic History of "Excited Delirium"

A new book takes on a diagnosis invented to cover up police killings: that men of color are “combusting as a result of their aggressiveness.”
by Julia Métraux, Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús via Mother Jones on July 23, 2024
Table of illustrations of various diverse human faces from "Ethnographic Tableau."

Baffled by Human Diversity

Confused 17th-century Europeans argued that human groups were separately created, a precursor to racist thought today.
by Jacob Zellmer via Aeon on July 8, 2024

Slavery and the Journal — Reckoning with History and Complicity

Reexamining biases and injustices that the New England Journal of Medicine has historically helped to perpetuate.
by Evelynn M. Hammonds, David S. Jones, Scott H. Podolsky, Meghan Bannon Kerr via The New England Journal Of Medicine on December 7, 2023
An advertisement from P.T. Barnum’s American Museum promoting a show called "Wild African Savages."

How U.S. Institutions Took an African Teen’s Life, Then Lost His Remains

Sturmann Yanghis, a 17-year-old South African, was put on stage in America as a “wild savage.” Harvard claimed his remains when he died. Then they disappeared.
by Sally H. Jacobs via Retropolis on December 3, 2023
Class photo of white men medical students on the steps of a building.

Race and Early American Medical Schools: Review of "Masters of Health"

Medical schools in the antebellum U.S. were critical in the formation of a medical community that shared ideas about racial science.
by Natalie Shibley via Nursing Clio on February 14, 2023
Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts shaking hands at Super Bowl 57.
partner

It Took Until 2023 for Two Black QBs to Start in a Super Bowl. Here’s Why.

Ideas dating back to slavery have minimized opportunities for Black quarterbacks in the NFL.
by Kate Aguilar via Made By History on February 12, 2023
Oxford University.

Elite Universities Gave Us Effective Altruism, the Dumbest Idea of the Century

The result has been reactionary, often racist intellectual defenses of inequality.
by Linsey McGoey via Jacobin on January 19, 2023
Painting by Henri Testelin of Colbert Presenting the Members of the Royal Academy of Sciences to Louis XIV in 1667 (17th century).

The Dawn of Scientific Racism

In the 1740s, Bordeaux developed some of the first modern theories of racial difference, even as the city profited from the slave trade.
by Christy Pichichero via Public Books on October 25, 2022
Image of "Nature" journal published in 1904

How "Nature" Contributed To Science’s Discriminatory Legacy

We want to acknowledge — and learn from — our history.
via Nature on September 28, 2022
Painting by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, "Africa: A European Merchant Bartering with a Black Chief"

Inventing the Science of Race

In 1741, Bordeaux’s Royal Academy of Sciences held an essay contest searching for the origin of “blackness.” The results help us see how Enlightenment thinkers justified slavery.
by Andrew S. Curran, Henry Louis Gates Jr. via New York Review of Books on November 24, 2021
Black-and-white photograph of Louis Agassiz sitting in chair, looking through a magnifying glass at a sea urchin.

Louis Agassiz, Under a Microscope

The two prevailing historical visions of Louis Agassiz — one gentle and reverential, the other rigid and bigoted — may simply be two sides of the same coin.
by Saima S. Iqbal via The Harvard Crimson on March 18, 2021

The Science of Abolition

On Hosea Easton’s and David Walker’s attempts to debunk scientific racism.
by Lynne Feeley via Lapham’s Quarterly on March 4, 2020

DNA Tests Make Native Americans Strangers in Their Own Land

Reviving race science plays into centuries of oppression.
by Aviva Chomsky via The Nation on November 29, 2018

Bad Blood

The history of eugenics in the Progressive Age.
by Patricia J. Williams via The Times Literary Supplement on July 17, 2018

The Enlightenment’s Dark Side

How the Enlightenment created modern race thinking, and why we should confront it.
by Jamelle Bouie via Slate on June 5, 2018

Sam Harris, Charles Murray, and the Allure of Race Science

This is not "forbidden knowledge." It is America’s most ancient justification for bigotry and racial inequality.
by Ezra Klein via Vox on March 27, 2018

The Unwelcome Revival of ‘Race Science’

Its defenders claim to be standing up for uncomfortable truths, but race science is still as bogus as ever.
by Gavin Evans via The Guardian on March 2, 2018

“The Passing of the Great Race” at 100

In the age of Trump, Madison Grant's influential work of scientific racism takes on a new salience.
by Noel Hartman via Public Books on July 1, 2016
Painting of horsemen in the Caucus mountains.

The Reckless Creation of Whiteness

How an erroneous 18th-century story about the “Caucasian race” led to a centuries of prejudice and misapprehension.
by Erin L. Thompson via The Nation on January 29, 2025
Skeletons in a museum posed with varying postures, as if they are performing different tasks.

Why Americans Are Obsessed With Poor Posture

The 20th-century movement to fix slouching questions the moral and political dimensions of addressing bad backs over wider public health concerns.
by Zoe Adams via The Nation on November 20, 2024
Men on horses and with swords exploring the a canyon.

Scratching the Surface

How geology shaped American culture.
by Jacob Mikanowski via The Chronicle of Higher Education on November 20, 2024
Sign reading "Welcome to the People's University for Palestine" at Harvard protest encampment

The Real Scandal of Campus Protest

It’s not that there has been too much student protest. It’s that there has not been much, much more of it.
by Erik Baker via Boston Review on April 25, 2024
Nurses with babies

Legacies of Eugenics: An Introduction

Despite assumptions about its demise, it is still enmeshed in the foundations of how some professions think about the world.
by Osagie K Obasogie via Los Angeles Review of Books on April 17, 2024
Boxes with Black American history inside

The Black Box of Race

In a circumscribed universe, Black Americans have ceaselessly reinvented themselves.
by Henry Louis Gates Jr. via The Atlantic on March 16, 2024
Robert Millikan and Albert Einstein standing side by side.

The Posthumous Trials of Robert A. Millikan

Robert A. Millikan was once a beloved figure in American science. In 2021, his name was removed from buildings and awards. What happened?
by David Kordahl via 3 Quarks Daily on January 1, 2024
Peter Waddell's "A Vision Unfolds" imaginatively depicts Benjamin Banneker advising President Washington and fellow surveyor Andrew Ellicott on the layout of the proposed federal capital.

Banneker’s Answer to Jefferson: “I Am an American”

The black naturalist, astronomer, surveyor, and almanac-writer Benjamin Banneker took issue with Thomas Jefferson’s attitude toward “those of my complexion.”
by Edward J. Larson via American Heritage on November 21, 2023
Dorothy Roberts.

A Damning Exposé of Medical Racism and “Child Welfare”

A new book exposes effects of anti-Black myth-making and calls for an end to the family policing system.
by Dorothy E. Roberts, George Yancy via Truthout on September 17, 2023
An illustration imagining Maura, an indigenous Filipino woman.

Searching for Maura

A Filipino woman died after coming to the U.S. to be put on display at the 1904 World's Fair. A Smithsonian anthropologist likely took part of her brain.
by Nicole Dungca, Claire Healy, Ren Galeno via Washington Post on August 16, 2023
Maps and photos of the Smithsonian and its anthropologicl collections.

Revealing the Smithsonian’s ‘Racial Brain Collection’

The Smithsonian’s human brains collection was led by Ales Hrdlicka, a museum curator in the 1900s who believed that White people were superior.
by Nicole Dungca, Claire Healy via Washington Post on August 14, 2023
Cartoon spoofing weight loss and weight gain patent medicines.

How the Use of BMI Fetishizes White Embodiment and Racializes Fat Phobia

Size-based health and beauty ideals emanated from eugenic pseudoscientific postulates, and BMI continues to advance white supremacist embodiment norms. 
by Sabrina Strings via AMA Journal Of Ethics on July 1, 2023
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