Think tanks are issuing a wake-up call in Britain to the danger posed by scientific racism
Health institutions and policymakers must ‘wake up’ to the danger posed by scientific racism and attempts to normalize an ideology that poses a significant threat to minority communities, think tanks warn.
The Institute of Race Relations, the Race Equality Foundation and Race on the Agenda say they have been vocal in recent years about the return of “race science” beliefs as the subject of open public debate, with little response from national institutions. .
Scientific racism is the belief that inequality arises from biological causes rather than social causes. It attempts to use research to legitimize the idea that there is such a thing as genetic superiority and is often deployed to resist efforts to improve diversity and dismantle structural racism. More recently, it has been used by right-wing politicians to argue for hard borders or the mass expulsion of migrants from Western countries.
An investigation by The Guardian, working with the anti-racism campaign group Hope Not Hate, has revealed that an international network of activists and academics seeking to normalize scientific racism operated with secret funding from a multi-millionaire US technology entrepreneur, who claimed to use data from the British Biobank. The facility stores genetic information from 500,000 volunteers.
The think tanks and campaign groups say the latest research has significantly raised the stakes around the issue, saying “today’s fringe ideas could be tomorrow’s mainstream”. They have called for immediate action to hold those responsible to account and challenge the ideas they spread.
Liz Fekete, the director of the Institute for Race Relations said: “Black health activists, dedicated researchers, and civil liberties and race organizations have been raising their voices about the return of race science for years, with little evidence that those in powerful institutions, especially health institutions, are listening.
“Now the Guardian/Hope Not Hate exposé has raised the stakes. It provides a timely wake-up call to healthcare organizations about the threat posed by NHS users from minority backgrounds.”
She added that her organization was concerned that “today’s fringe ideas could be tomorrow’s mainstream. The path to this mainstreaming has already been set, in culture wars that ridicule any attempt to tackle racism, even as structural, systemic and popular racism increases – especially (Enoch) Powell-esque ideas against Muslims and immigrants. Ideas based on cultural racism, a hierarchy of cultures, with Western culture at the top, have already become mainstream, so why not scientific racism?”
Jabeer Butt, the CEO of the Race Equality Foundation, said: “Race may not have a biological basis, but racism has profound biological consequences, with poorer health being a major consequence.”
Kulvinder Nagre, research and policy coordinator at Race on the Agenda, said it was appalling that those who support scientific theories of racism may have accessed sensitive data submitted for health and genetics research.
“Race science and eugenics have been increasingly discussed by certain fringe and online communities over the past decade, in line with the growing trend in ‘anti-woke’ theories and right-wing, populist discourse.”
The penetration of such ideas into more mainstream culture, he said, could be demonstrated by the controversy surrounding secret eugenics conferences held at UCL that came to light in 2018, as well as the “growth in influence of ideas around the ‘great displacement theory’ in western countries. politics”.
Nagre added: “While eugenics will never again be a respected scientific discipline, we must remain hypervigilant to the dangers of destructive racism hidden behind a thin veneer of scientific legitimacy. Scientific racism is the ultimate justification, and often the motivation, behind almost every genocide and attempted genocide that has occurred since the 15th century.”