Is Genetic Genealogy Be An Uneven Playing Field?

This article argues that race is not only a social construction, but that genetics also play an increasingly pertinent role. The author supports this claim by analyzing the genetic tracings of many medical institutes whose purpose is to discover one’s ancestry. The author claims these genetic links are increasingly important because many grants, applications, scholarships, and the like are determined by one’s racial status. The author also claims that genetic racial differences are important because the white male has been used as the standard in medical practices and the author feels that needs to change.

Krimsky, Sheldon.Simoncelli, Tania. 2011. “Using DNA for Justice” Pp 234.-239 in Rethinking the Color Line, 5th Edition, edited by Charles Gallagher. New York, NY: McGraw

   The Human Genome Project is the largest scientific endeavor undertaken since the Manhattan Project, and, as with the Manhattan Project, the completion of the Human Genome Project has brought to surface many moral and ethical issues concerning the use of the knowledge gained from the project. Although genetic tests for certain diseases have been available for 15 years (Ridley, 1999), the completion of the Human Genome Project will certainly lead to an exponential increase in the number of genetic tests available. Therefore, before genetic testing becomes a routine part of a visit to a doctor's office, the two main questions at the heart of the controversy surrounding genetic testing must be

Privacy is also another big issue surrounding the plans for a database. Chairman of the New South Wales privacy council says that the prospect of a genetic database is a “cavalier disregard for people’s privacy”

It is patients’ right to opt for genetic testing on their own DNA, although they are accepting a great risk by doing so.

Genetic profiling is a contemporary issue relating to the individual and technology which restricts access to unbiased decisions and privacy. Genetic profiling interferes with the individuals bodily, genetic and behavioural privacy, as it can be used for the benefit of identifying bodies to using the results of a DNA test to choose whether to employ one individual over another, due to future concerns. It can easily be argued that genetic profiling is in the need of law reform as a result of legal implications and the lack of individual’s rights.

The benefits of genetic science for society is for employers who want to know if their employers are in excellent working condition and if the worker will cause them more money when obtaining health insurance. If an employer hires someone that that is healthy then the cost of health insurance does not rise and the employee will not have to downgrade their health insurance plan so that they can accommodate the employee that is not healthy. The limitations of genetic science for society are the possibility of genetic testing causing safety issues at work, the development of a genetic low class, the breach of privilege and confidentiality, and the utilization of genetic bias to excuse different methods of discrimination (Krumm, 2002).

There are two main ways genetic testing places a constraint on a child’s right to an open future. The first of these is that the revelation of a child’s disease status can change his life narrative and the way parents and others treat him, and substantially alter his or her life’s trajectory (Davis _____). Parents may feel guilty or shelter their not-yet-sick

During this account, Eubanks finds that his son’s approach to how he identifies himself and his reaction to the DNA results illustrates a generational gap. Eubank’s son, Patrick, describes that when he is confronted with how he identifies, he solely bases it off the “assumptions” that someone makes about him (Eubanks, 2013). Patrick’s approach to how he deals with identifying himself speaks to the prejudices that individuals or a group of people have about the way that people who they presume to belong to a certain group should look and behave. This notion of thinking from Patrick then creates the realization for Eubanks that “DNA results confirmed for me that identity cannot be constructed based on a percentage of African ancestry, and that our society’s generally accepted racial categories cannot begin to address the complexity and nuance of our heritage.” Eubanks explains to his audience that due to the fact that almost every individual’s DNA is a mutation no one should feel inferior or superior to another group. He also expresses how one should also not make basic assumptions based on an individual’s appearance along with not feeling guilt or shame about the basis of one’s genetic

The United States recognizes five types of categories in order to distinguish the race of the population. I feel discriminated when I have to fill out an application, surveys or any type of documentation that has this type of question: Please identify your race, Caucasian or White American, African American, Native American, Asian, and Pacific Islander (US Census, 2015) CITATION. The problem with this type of questions is that the majority of surveys who require a specific answer don’t have Hispanic or Latino categorization. I often feel confused about which type of race I am. When I watched White Americans or African Americans respond to this questions, they rapidly marked the correct answer to the categorization with no confusion. I turned around to see if anyone of my race was having the same problem that I had. Unfortunately, this type of question always created confusion in my mind, Was I white American? African American?. My response to the surveys usually were more inclined to Caucasian or White American. I realized that I never took the time to ask to family about my descendant’s race or ethnicity. In reality, I discovered that it is true what professor Gates presented in the video “The Back Grandma in the closet”. Family members often hide information because they don’t want us to discover the truth about our descendants.

At the turn of the 20th century, much of American society was dominated by perceived ideologies embedded in the scientific studies. One of the leading fields of study at the time was eugenics. Scientists believed that by analyzing the works of Mendel and his contemporaries, researchers could effectively weed out humanity’s most undesirable traits (Norrgard, 2008). In a noble quest to alleviate genetic flaws the inadvertent perversion of ideas became the foundation for what appears to be the social construction of race. Somewhere along the lines, eugenics became more about isolating certain human characteristics, like skin color, and relegating them to a hierarchy of societal importance (Norrgard, 2008). Race is simply defined as a pattern-based concept that allows for the general public to draw conclusions based on an individual’s geographical location and thereby predetermining their inclusion into a particular social group (Yudell, et al., 2016) The philosophies embedded in social ideas about race has long been at the heart of contentious discussions throughout the last century. It has led to individualized implicit personality theories by which people tend to link certain attributes together because of an apparent frequency in a particular racial group (Greene & Heilbrun, 2015).

Throughout history, people have consistently tried to prove that groups with inborn qualities can either vastly improve or degenerate different races over time. This rhetoric has been proven multiple times throughout the course of the last century in the United States and Nazi-reigned Germany. Supposedly, this rhetoric has been disproven throughout the United States; however, there are proven accounts that the United States government has recently supported this theory of sterilization of minorities by supporting the eugenics movement, which was not only in Nazi Germany, but also on United States soil. The topic of improving the genetic makeup of different races has not only just become a common theme for many modern day countries to use to make their societies more genetically fit. However, it has adopted the basis for current racism that is clearly apparent in today’s society. If improving genetic fitness was not a concern to past societies, then people in general would be a lot more open to interracial and cross-cultural relationships rather than completely disregarding the idea of dating someone that is visibly genetically different.

Genetic information can be identified at any point throughout a person’s lifespan from pre-conception until after death. In addition to heritable, biological information, family history, genetic test results, and medical records are also sources of genetic information” (Jenkins & Lea, 2005). We are put in a position to gather and retain information that could be utilized for a better future, but is confidentiality involved for the sake of profiting? Ask yourself, who should have access to genetic information? Who owns and controls it? How can families resolve conflicts when some members want to be tested for a genetic disorder and others do not?

The fear of genetic discrimination is a phobia gripping many people around the world. People find themselves asking, could my genetic information raise my health bills? Could this cause me to be rejected from a job opportunity? These anxieties are causing people to lash out at genetic research, and ultimately the human genome project. People do not want our understanding of human genomics to advance. This is because the risks of the development of the technology could inflict on them. A major risk is genetic discrimination. I believe that genetic discrimination is wrong and governments should continue to prevent it because it is an invasion of privacy, it violates equity, and it could really hurt people with genetic

Due to scientist’s interest in human genetic variation, human racial classification became a focus of scientific investigation by evolutionary biologists attempting to categorize individual humans based on presumed patterns of biological difference. Scientists had hoped to classify humans in the same way that they classified other species. These scientists attached hierarchical titles to these categorizations; they claimed that differences in skin color, physiognomy, and geography were associated with scientifically measurable differences in character, aptitude, and temperament (Smedley, 1998). However, studies supporting these claims have been unsound (Gould, 1981). Categorization of humans by racial and ethnic groups continues, as researchers must remain aware of this historical legacy of the science of heredity as the genomic era continues to develop (Bonham et al., 2005).