Beautiful Melodies Telling Me Terrible Things

• Author: Matthew W. Hughey,W. Carson Byrd
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716215591477
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Date: 01 September 2015
• Subject Matter: Conclusion

238 ANNALS, AAPSS, 661, September 2015

DOI: 10.1177/0002716215591477

Beautiful

Melodies

Telling Me

Terrible Things:

The Future of

Race and

Genetics for

Scholars and

Policy-Makers

By

MATTHEW W. HUGHEY

and

W. CARSON BYRD

591477ANN The Annals of the American AcademyBeautiful Melodies Telling Me Terrible Things

research-article2015

To conclude this volume, we first engage in a brief his-

tory of scientific racism and the extent to which it reso-

nates with the public. We then attempt to explain why

American society and culture continue to fall prey to

the seduction of biological determinism and racial

essentialism: (1) the DNA mystique, (2) scientific revo-

lutions and paradigm shifts, (3) the ethno-politics of

genetics, (4) dismissals of social science as “soft,” (5)

the defense of biology against reactionary dismissals,

and (6) the aura of “objectivity” surrounding genetics.

Last, we point to a way forward that may help scholars

and the public avoid a return to old and debunked

theories: (1) engagement with interdisciplinary fields

and science and technology studies, (2) involvement of

knowledgeable scholars and policy experts in govern-

ment and higher education, (3) revision of the current

additive funding model used by federal agencies, and

(4) evolution in the training of future and current schol-

ars and policy-makers toward mitigating inequality.

Keywords: race; biological determinism; racial essen-

tialism; genetics; genomics; inequality

The Same Song and Dance1

To conclude this volume, we begin with an allu-

sion to music, song, and dance. Certain tunes

and dances appear to never go out of style; they

seem timeless and incapable of tarnish. Yet the

question remains: how has race qua biology as

causal variable of social outcomes become such

Matthew W. Hughey is an associate professor of sociol-

ogy and affiliate faculty in both the Institute for Africana

Studies and the American Studies Program at the

University of Connecticut. His research agenda centers

on the examination of white racial identity, racialized

organizations, mass media racial representations, public

and political engagements with race, and advocacy and

engagement with racism and discrimination. His work

has appeared in Social Problems, Social Psychology

Quarterly, American Behavioral Scientist, and Du Bois

Review, among many others. He is the author or

BEAUTIFUL MELODIES TELLING ME TERRIBLE THINGS 239

an attractive dance partner? What can we do to get off this particular dance

floor—one in which terrible things appear in seemingly beautiful forms? The

articles in this volume have attempted to answer at least a part of this question.

What remains is where we go from here. But before looking forward, we need to

reflect on where we have been.

In 1910, the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) opened its doors. The ERO was

established as a subsidiary of The Station for Experimental Evolution (SEE)

(later known as the Department of Genetics), itself housed under the Carnegie

Institution of Washington (CIW), a private research organization founded by

Andrew Carnegie in 1902. The CIW, Mary Harriman (widow of railroad baron

E. H. Harriman), and the Rockefeller family were the primary financiers of the

ERO. Many of the scientists employed at ERO were educated at the nation’s top

institutions and were considered liberal and progressive intelligentsia. They were

tasked with applying the latest in Mendelian eugenic science in combination with

Enlightenment theories of laissez-faire economics and political understandings

of classical liberalism manifest in Social Darwinism.2 Their aim was to build a

better nation, through eliminating the “unfit”: the “feebleminded” and the “lesser

races.”3 In that same year, Charles Davenport—coleader of the ERO (with Harry

H. Laughlin)—published Eugenics: The Science of Human Improvement by

Better Breeding, in which he penned the following:

At this present moment this committee is collecting answers to the question: “Do two

imbecile parents ever beget normal children?” Still other sub-committees should deal

with criminality and pauperism, with the effects of consanguineous marriages and of

such mongrelization as is proceeding on a vast scale in this country. (Davenport 1910,

28–29)

Also in 1910, the first meeting of the German Sociological Society took place

in Frankfurt. At that gathering, the famous German physician Alfred Ploetz

delivered a talk titled, “The Concepts of Race and Society.” Ploetz had previously

founded the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene (the German Association

of Eugenics) based on the concept of racial purity from his 1895 book Grundlinien

einer Rassenhygiene (Racial Hygiene Basics). In this preliminary lecture, Ploetz

stated,

I have lived in the United States four years, and as a doctor I have treated Negroes and

whites and have spoken a great deal with educated and uneducated Americans about

coauthor of several books, including The White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption

(Temple University Press 2014) and The Wrongs of the Right: Language, Race, and the

Republican Party in the Age of Obama (New York University Press 2014), among others.

W. Carson Byrd is an assistant professor of pan-African studies, associate director of the

Center on Racial Inequality, and affiliate faculty in the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice

Research at the University of Louisville. His research examines race and educational inequal-

ity, particularly in relation to black students’ experiences in higher education; theoretical and

methodological approaches used in the study of racial prejudice and racism; and racial health

disparities. His work has appeared in the Du Bois Review, Equity & Excellence in Education,

and Ethnic and Racial Studies, among other publications.