Latest news with #RestoringTruthand
San Francisco Chronicle
5 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Toppled Confederate statue in DC to be replaced in line with Trump's executive order
WASHINGTON (AP) — A statue of a Confederate general that was toppled by protesters in Washington in 2020 will be restored and replaced this fall, in line with President Donald Trump's pushback on recent efforts to reframe America's historical narrative. The National Park Service announced Monday that the statue of Albert Pike, a Confederate brigadier general and a revered figure among Freemasons, would resume its previous position in Washington's Judiciary Square, a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. It was the only outdoor statue of a Confederate military leader in the nation's capital. The statue was pulled down with ropes and chains on Juneteenth in 2020 as part of mass protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Confederate statues around the country were toppled by similar protests while several military bases named for Confederate leaders were renamed. The Pike statue restoration, which is targeted for October, 'aligns with federal responsibilities under historic preservation law as well as recent executive orders to beautify the nation's capital and reinstate pre-existing statues,' the park service said in a statement. Restoration is part of a larger narrative In March, Trump issued an executive order entitled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' It decried post-Floyd efforts to reinterpret American history, stating, 'rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame." The order targeted the Smithsonian network of museums as having 'come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.' It also instructed the Interior Department to restore any statue or display that was 'removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.' Pike, who died in 1891, is more known for his decades-long stint as a senior leader of the Freemasons than for his Confederate military career. The Masons lobbied Congress for the right to erect the statue on NPS land in 1901 — provided that he be depicted in civilian, not military, garb. But Pike did lead a regiment for the Confederacy during the Civil War. And as the only outdoor statue of a Confederate leader in Washington, D.C., it had been a source of controversy for decades. Even the brief Park Service page on the statue notes that it has 'stirred opposition since it was first planned.' A long history of demands for its removal The D.C. Council asked for its removal in 1992. In 2017, Mayor Muriel Bowser struck an agreement with congressional leaders to eventually remove it. When protesters toppled the statue in 2020 while police officers looked on, Trump — then in his first term — called it 'a disgrace to our Country' on social media and called for their immediate arrests. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington's non-voting delegate in Congress, called the Park Service move 'odd and indefensible' in a statement Monday. Norton said she would introduce legislation to remove the statue permanently and place it in a museum. 'I've long believed Confederate statues should be placed in museums as historical artifacts," she said, 'not remain in parks and locations that imply honor.'
Winnipeg Free Press
5 days ago
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Toppled Confederate statue in DC to be replaced in line with Trump's executive order
WASHINGTON (AP) — A statue of a Confederate general that was toppled by protesters in Washington in 2020 will be restored and replaced this fall, in line with President Donald Trump's pushback on recent efforts to reframe America's historical narrative. The National Park Service announced Monday that the statue of Albert Pike, a Confederate brigadier general and a revered figure among Freemasons, would resume its previous position in Washington's Judiciary Square, a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. It was the only outdoor statue of a Confederate military leader in the nation's capital. The statue was pulled down with ropes and chains on Juneteenth in 2020 as part of mass protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Confederate statues around the country were toppled by similar protests while several military bases named for Confederate leaders were renamed. The Pike statue restoration, which is targeted for October, 'aligns with federal responsibilities under historic preservation law as well as recent executive orders to beautify the nation's capital and reinstate pre-existing statues,' the park service said in a statement. Restoration is part of a larger narrative In March, Trump issued an executive order entitled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' It decried post-Floyd efforts to reinterpret American history, stating, 'rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame.' The order targeted the Smithsonian network of museums as having 'come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.' It also instructed the Interior Department to restore any statue or display that was 'removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.' Pike, who died in 1891, is more known for his decades-long stint as a senior leader of the Freemasons than for his Confederate military career. The Masons lobbied Congress for the right to erect the statue on NPS land in 1901 — provided that he be depicted in civilian, not military, garb. But Pike did lead a regiment for the Confederacy during the Civil War. And as the only outdoor statue of a Confederate leader in Washington, D.C., it had been a source of controversy for decades. Even the brief Park Service page on the statue notes that it has 'stirred opposition since it was first planned.' A long history of demands for its removal The D.C. Council asked for its removal in 1992. In 2017, Mayor Muriel Bowser struck an agreement with congressional leaders to eventually remove it. When protesters toppled the statue in 2020 while police officers looked on, Trump — then in his first term — called it 'a disgrace to our Country' on social media and called for their immediate arrests. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington's non-voting delegate in Congress, called the Park Service move 'odd and indefensible' in a statement Monday. Norton said she would introduce legislation to remove the statue permanently and place it in a museum. 'I've long believed Confederate statues should be placed in museums as historical artifacts,' she said, 'not remain in parks and locations that imply honor.'
Los Angeles Times
30-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Under Trump, the future of U.S. Latino history preservation is uncertain
The future of Latino history is in peril. President Trump's proposed 2026 budget, which is currently under congressional review, could halt plans for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino to expand on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The president's budget would not provide funding for the long-awaited Latino museum, which was signed into law by Trump during his first term. News of the 2026 budget proposal came after he issued a March executive order titled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,' which alleges a 'divisive, race-centered ideology' at the core of the Smithsonian Institution. Instead, the FY26 budget requests $5.8 million to fund and revert back to a Smithsonian Latino Center model, which shares U.S. Latino history and culture collections, programs and educational content throughout other Smithsonian Institutions. This is in lieu of developing a Latino museum on the National Mall, modeled after the National Museum of the American Indian or the National Museum of African American History and Culture. On June 6, the Republican-led Congressional Hispanic Conference submitted a letter urging the Senate and House appropriations committees to fund the museum. 'We also understand, and support, efforts to root out anti-American sentiment and DEI over merit-based ideology across our government,' the letter stated. 'That is why the leadership and membership of the Congressional Hispanic Conference have taken proactive steps to ensure the National Museum of the American Latino remains unbiased.' The Democrat-led Congressional Hispanic Caucus followed suit with a letter of its own, in support of the museum. 'Curtailing these efforts through inadequate funding would be a setback not only for the Latino community, but for all Americans who benefit from a more complete and inclusive historical narrative,' stated the letter. Currently, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino is rotating its temporary exhibits in the 4,500-square-foot Molina Family Latino Gallery at the National Museum of American History. It recently closed out its popular exhibit, '¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States,' which garnered nearly 1 million visitors across its three-year stretch. Now, the museum is collecting artifacts and installing its next spring exhibit, '¡Puro Ritmo! The Musical Journey of Salsa.' ' I always tell everyone I'm trying to represent over 63 million people in the United States,' says Jorge Zamanillo, director of the National Museum of the American Latino. 'But when we open a museum that's gonna have over 100,000 square feet of public spaces … imagine the kinds of stories you could tell.' For Zamanillo, a permanent site on the National Mall would make all the difference, not just for the preservation of Latino stories but for generations of Latinos to feel represented on a national scale. ' We served in every military conflict in the United States since the American Revolution,' says Zamanillo. 'When you start really studying our presence here over the centuries, it's amazing,' he adds. Following Trump's proposed budget, the Smithsonian Institution submitted its budget justification to Congress. No funding decisions will be finalized until Congress passes a final FY26 appropriation. Zamanillo knows that the process to secure a prime spot on the National Mall might take longer than expected, but he calls it a 'generational project' that once enacted will allow for Latino stories to exist in perpetuity. ' We're doing this for our kids and our grandkids, to make sure that they won't have the same issues [with] feeling underrepresented,' says Zamanillo. However, with the Trump administration hammering down on all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including equity-related grants, the future of Latino history preservation could face setbacks. On May 2, Trump proposed a $158-million cut to the federal Historic Preservation Fund, effectively eviscerating its funding, including the Underrepresented Communities grant, which has played a significant national role in supporting more inclusive preservation efforts. The National Park Service has requested zero funds for the upcoming fiscal year. The Times reached out to NPS for a comment on the phasing-out of the grant program but did not hear back. Early this year, Latinos in Heritage Conservation, a national network focused on supporting Latino preservation efforts, conducted an equity study that reviewed how many of the 95,000 National Register of Historic Places across the U.S. were associated with Latino heritage. The results were grim. LHC found that only 0.65% of the current registered sites in the U.S. reflect Latino history after analyzing survey data from state historic preservation offices as well as public information on the National Park Service's Historic Preservation Fund website. Historical sites can be any culturally or spiritually significant emblems and spaces — including a house, a monument or a cemetery — that are deemed worthy of preservation. In Los Angeles, for example, Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights is listed for its importance to the Chicano civil rights movement. Meanwhile, Boyle Heights' Forsythe Memorial School for Girls, a Protestant missionary school that sought to Americanize Mexican girls, is also on the list of historic places. However, the lack of historical site representation is even more harrowing when considering the fact that Latinos make up roughly 20% of the United States population. ' That's why we have to do this work,' says Sehila Mota Casper, executive director of LHC. Since 2014, LHC has worked to preserve and catalog Latino histories that might have gone overlooked by mainstream textbooks, museums and the federal government. With no national inventory of Latino heritage sites, they remain invisible to organizations that may otherwise fund and protect them. LHC has designed its own conservation grant, the Nuestra Herencia Grant, which the organization says is the nation's first grant program dedicated to funding Latin Heritage Projects. Its inaugural cycle will fund a traveling exhibit for the Blackwell School in Marfa, Texas, which was the only public education institution for the city's Mexican American students from 1909 to 1965. LHC also launched its Abuelas Project in 2021— which pays homage to grandmothers, often the culture bearers in Latino families — to help fill gaps in folk knowledge. The national digital library consolidates 26 oral histories, 700 photographs and other community-submitted materials. ' We wanted to create something that allowed us to look outside of those parameters [in museums and libraries], and acknowledge that colonization has erased our history,' says Mota Casper, who has championed Latino preservation for over a decade. One of the Abuelas Project includes an interactive website focused on the Bracero program, the temporary program that brought over Mexican workers due to agricultural and railroad labor shortages between 1942 and 1964. The program played an integral role in shaping national identities and communities, as well as U.S. relations with Mexico. 'The purpose [of the Abuelas Project] is to find sites and stories that someone knows to be true, but it wasn't in the local newspaper, it's not online, not in the history books,' says Mota Casper about the Abuelas Project. Today, however, only one remaining historical site, Rio Vista Farm, is left to tell its story. The processing center, formerly Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center, was designated a National Historic Landmark by the secretary of the Interior in 2023, through the Underrepresented Communities Grant. 'This history is not only important for us just to tell a truthful story, but it's also to ensure that our contributions are seen and felt for generations to come,' says Mota Casper.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The History of Government Influence Over Universities
New York University professor of political science and presidential advisor, McGeorge Bundy, reviewing a document in his office on May 02, 1984. Credit - Bettmann Archive On March 27, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled, 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,' which aims to root out the 'corrosive ideology' that casts American history in a 'negative' light. Critics have denounced this as an attempt to control ideas—part of a broader trend of unprecedented attacks against academic freedom and the independence of institutions of learning. But the truth is that the push to align scholarship with government interests is not new. Throughout the 20th century, the relationship between colleges and the state was a messy one. American universities were vital to advancing the government's power and global influence, especially through Cold War-related research and development. Nonetheless, they were also a threat to the government when scholarship challenged official narratives and agendas. Today, Americans are witnessing a resurgence of such concerns. History shows that they may lead to censorship and curtail critical research—while also proving to be self-defeating. Many of the achievements that Americans most proudly celebrate were inspired by acknowledging the brutal realities of the past. The Cold War exemplified the complicated relationship between universities and the federal government. As the conflict dawned in the late 1940s, the government quickly realized that universities could do more to help than simply provide scientific breakthroughs and defense materials: the humanities and social sciences could be just as valuable in fighting the Soviets. At a time when the nation was engaged in ideological warfare, knowledge was power. Understanding the enemy—historically, politically, socially, psychologically, economically and culturally—was a matter of national security. And the government lacked the expertise necessary to understand foreign cultures and political systems. Officials understood that universities, by contrast, were well situated to provide this knowledge, so they enacted an array of programs to empower academics through grants and research institutes. The goal was to push scholarship toward topics that could inform domestic and foreign policy. The True Story of Appomattox Exposes the Dangers of Letting Myths Replace History As a result, over 20 years, the scale and scope of state influence on scholarly research grew dramatically. The government was instrumental in creating new academic fields, including area studies, and it shaped social science research for strategic purposes. One example was the creation of the Russian Research Center, which was a collaboration between academics and the government. Based at Harvard and directed by Harvard faculty, its board was comprised of professors from various universities. It drew on expertise from different fields, including history, political science, economics, geography, law, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, and other disciplines. Sigmund Diamond—a historian and sociologist who studied and briefly worked at Harvard during this period—chronicled the extent of the alliance. According to Diamond, although the center received a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, it reported directly to the State Department and other intelligence agencies. Its mission was clear: to produce scholarly research and expert analysis useful to the government's ideological warfare against the Soviet Union. This included studies on the attitudes of Russians toward their homeland in relation to the rest of the world—the sources of Russian patriotism, attitudes toward authority, and how Russians felt about the suppression of individual freedom. With this knowledge, the government could exploit discontent, foster instability, and leverage dissent against Soviet policies. The center at Harvard was just one example; there were others at universities across the nation. In the early 1960s, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy delivered a lecture at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He emphasized the strong connections that 'bind the world of power and the world of learning,' arguing that 'there is gain for both the political world and the academy from an intensified process of engagement and of choosing sides and of engaging in the battle.' The government, in his view, would benefit greatly from historians whose work illuminated a 'deeper sense of the realities of power and its use.' But the government's alliance with the academic community came with risks. If critical scholarship could dissect the enemy and boost American Cold War efforts, it could also be turned inward. Research disciplines that probed into the historical, political, social, and cultural vulnerabilities of other nations could also cast a critical eye on the U.S., raising sobering questions about American history and the nation's unflattering record on civil rights, social unrest, imperialism, and more. That made universities dangerous, and in the anti-communist hysteria of Cold War America, the government viewed them with suspicion. As molders of the nation's youths, educators were under scrutiny lest they indoctrinate students with radical ideas. Government officials stoked this paranoia. 'Countless times,' remarked Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy—perhaps the era's most prominent red baiter—in 1952, 'I have heard parents throughout the country complain that their sons and daughters were sent to college as good Americans and returned four years later as wild-eyed radicals.' Academics who offered critical assessments of the nation's history and policies were suspected of communist sympathies; they caught the eye of the FBI and the government subjected them to surveillance and intimidation. In 1956, a survey of over 2,000 professors showed that 61% had been contacted by the FBI; 40% worried that students might misrepresent their politics; and about a quarter would not express their views for fear of the government. The FBI targeted some historians in particular. The FBI considered them dangerous because of their ability to challenge patriotic myths and undermine the accepted narrative about the nation's past. This was allegedly dangerous not only in the classroom, but also in the public square as it could raise questions about government policy. That risked stirring up public dissent and calls for reform. A Historian's Case for Protecting Even Offensive Speech on Campus C. Vann Woodward, the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize-winning Yale historian, was one scholar who landed under government surveillance for his critical views of America's past. More than any other historian of the 20th century, Woodward's writing exposed the horrific realities of racial segregation in America. He was also a staunch proponent of free speech and civil rights. Even Martin Luther King, Jr. drew inspiration from his scholarship. When Woodward criticized the House Un-American Activities Committee—which members of Congress used to engage in anti-communist witch-hunts—and signed a petition calling for its elimination, he provoked government scrutiny. The historian would later remark that his profession offered a corrective to the 'complacent and nationalist reading of our past.' But during the Cold War, the U.S. government had no patience for potentially subversive views about the nation's past—even if they were accurate. It wanted scholars to offer penetrating insights into the history and politics of foreign regimes, but not at home. Patriotism became a litmus test, and scholars who applied their expertise to offer critical analyses of America's revered narratives were suspected of harboring a dangerous un-American ideology. Today, government anxieties about historical discourse have resurfaced. Trump's executive order warns of a 'distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.' It condemns what his administration sees as an effort to 'undermine the remarkable achievements' of the nation and 'foster a sense of national shame.' But the truth is that this directive risks undermining the potential for such 'remarkable achievements' in the future. In many cases, including expanding civil (or legal) rights for African Americans and women, progress resulted from the work of scholars like Woodward and the way it empowered Americans to grapple with the less savory chapters in the country's past. Americans acknowledged an un-sanitized version of U.S. history and worked to correct wrongs in order to ensure a brighter future. The lessons from the Cold War's record of state censorship of ideas are clear. Nuanced historical truth cannot thrive or die based on its political usefulness to the current administration. Suppressing the complexity of the nation's past to curate a comforting national story will not lead to truth, sanity, or the sorts of achievements that Trump wants to celebrate. History matters, even if it does not align with the interests of those in power. Trump's attempts to control the narrative of American history is not merely a threat to academic freedom, but also to the nation's ability to confront its past and shape better policies for the future. Perhaps the President is right to worry about institutions of learning. Because knowledge, when un-policed, threatens the status quo. In a free society, that's a virtue, not a threat. Jeffrey Rosario is assistant professor at Loma Linda University in southern California. He is currently writing a book on religious dissent against U.S. imperialism at the turn of the 20th century. Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Write to Made by History at madebyhistory@
BBC News
20-04-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
'Biological reality': What genetics has taught us about race
As US President Donald Trump takes aim at the Smithsonian Institution for "anti-American ideology", Adam Rutherford examines what the science of genetics has taught us about race. When scientists unveiled the first draft of the Human Genome Project 25 years ago, it seemed to deliver the final word on some antiquated myths about race. It provided definitive evidence that racial groupings have no biological basis. In fact, there is more genetic variation within racial groups than between them. Race, it showed, is a social construct. But despite that fundamental finding, which has only been reinforced as work on human genomes has continued, race and ethnicity are still often deployed to categorise human populations as distinct biological groups. These are views that can be found circulating in the pseudoscience on social media, but they also still creep into scientific research and healthcare systems. It is even more troubling when this thinking finds its way into the halls of government. President Donald Trump and his administration have made no secret of his rejection of many aspects of the scientific worldview. Since returning to the White House, he has made sweeping cuts to science funding for biomedical and climate research, but in a recent Executive Order, Trump took aim at what most scientists now regard as biological reality. Entitled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History", the Presidential order, signed by Trump, targeted an exhibition in the Smithsonian American Art Museum called "The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture". The order is part of a broader attempt to shape American culture by eliminating "improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology" from the institute's museums. It states: "Museums in our Nation's capital should be places where individuals go to learn – not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history." The exhibition itself is criticised in the text for promoting the idea that "race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating 'race is a human invention'". The order offers the exhibition as an example of a "harmful and oppressive" shift in the narrative portraying American values. This is the point when people like me, a geneticist who specialises in the history of race science, get a little bit vexed. The issue here is that the sentence cited from the Smithsonian is 100% correct. This is neither controversial in science nor history. Human variation is, of course, very real. People are different, and we can see those differences in skin pigmentation, in hair colour and texture and in other physical characteristics. These differences cluster in locations around the world: people from the same region on average look more similar to each other than to people from other areas – so far, so obvious. In the 18th Century, these traits were the primary determinants for a new fashion for categorising humans in supposedly scientific terms. The Swedish botanist Karl Linnaeus is legitimately credited as the father of modern biology, as he gave us the classification system we still use today: genus and species. Every living thing is named according to this system, for example the bacteria Escherichia coli, or the lion, Panthera leo, or Gorilla gorilla, which probably doesn't need explaining. We are Homo sapiens – wise people. But in his foundational work Systemae Naturae, Linnaeus introduced another tier of classification for us, designated primarily by that most visible of human traits: pigmentation. Linnaeus gave us four types of human, lumped together by continental landmasses: Asiaticus – people with "yellow skin", and straight black hair; Americanus – indigenous Americans, with "red skin" also with straight black hair; Africanus – "black skinned" people with tight curls in their hair; and Europeaus – "white skinned" with blue eyes. These designations are clearly absurd – none of the colours are accurate, even if you took the obviously incorrect view that millions of people share the same skin tones even within those categories. But the roots of the race designations we still use today are visible in these labels. Some of these terms have fallen out of social acceptability and are considered racist. But we still use "black" and "white" as descriptors for millions of people, none of whom really have either black or white skin. Even if this colour scheme were true, Linnaeus' original descriptions only began with physical traits. What he included in later editions of Systemae Naturae, which became the basis for scientific racism, were portrayals of behaviours. Asiaticus were described as "haughty, greedy and ruled by opinions" while Americanus were labelled "stubborn, zealous, regulated by customs". Africanus women were denoted as being "without shame" while both sexes were said to be "crafty, lazy, and governed by caprice". He described Europaeus as "gentle, acute, inventive, governed by laws". By any definition in any age, these assertions are racist and entirely incorrect. Of course, in examining history, we must be wary of judging people from the past by our own standards. But as the foundational text of modern biology, introducing a classification system for humans that is ludicrous, racist and most importantly, hierarchical, would leave an indelible mark on the centuries that followed. Over the next 200 years, many men would seek to refine these categories with new metrics, including pseudoscientific interpretations of craniometry, or skull measurements. They never settled on a definitive answer about how many races there are – none of the characteristics that were being used are immutable, nor exclusive to the people to whom they were supposedly essential. We call this ideology "racial essentialism". But all of the many schemes put white Europeans as superior to all others. It was biologist Charles Darwin who first began to unpick these ideas, recognising in his 1871 book the Descent of Man that there was much more continuity in traits between people that had been designated as discrete races. By the beginning of the 20th Century, molecular biology had entered the stage, and the era of genetics would dismantle the biological concept of race. By the time we began to look at how genes are shared in families and populations, we saw that similarities do indeed cluster in groups, but these groupings do not align with the longstanding attempts to classify the races. The true metric of human difference is at a genetic level. In the 20th Century, when we began to unravel our genomes, and observe how people are similar and different in our DNA, we saw that the terms in use for several centuries bore little meaningful relation to the underlying genetics. Even though only a tiny percentage of our DNA differs between individuals, the genome is so large and complex that there is great diversity. Geneticists are still working to unravel how this alters people's health, for example. But those genetic differences do not delineate along the lines of what we call race. They follow ancestral lines, can differ by geographic location and can be traced through historic migration patterns. What we now know is that there is more genetic diversity in people of recent African descent than in the rest of the world put together. Take two people, for example from Ethiopia and Namibia, and they will be more different to each other at a genetic level than either one of them is to a white European, or indeed a Japanese person, an Inuit or an Indian. This includes the genes that are involved in pigmentation. Yet, for historical reasons, we continue to refer to both Ethiopians and Namibians under the race definition of "black". Or take African Americans, people largely descended from enslaved Africans brought to the New World: sequencing the genomes of Black Americans reveals echoes of the history of transatlantic slavery. They not only mixed genetic ancestry from the handful of West African countries from which their ancestors were taken, but also significant amounts of White European DNA. This reflects the fact that slave owners had sexual relationships – many of which would not have been consensual – with enslaved people. Therefore, the simple categorisation of descendants of the enslaved as "black" similarly does not make biological sense. They are genetically diverse in themselves and different from the African ancestors from which they are descended. To lump them together makes no scientific sense. So it is by consensus, usage and history that we continue to use the term "black". This is what we mean by a social construct. The concept of race has little utility as a biological taxonomy. But it is enormously important socially and culturally. Social constructs are how the world works: money and time are both socially constructed too. The value of a pound or dollar is applied by agreement against goods and services. Time passes unerringly, but hours and minutes are entirely arbitrary units. So, while race is not biologically meaningful, it has biologically meaningful consequences. The impact of most diseases correlates with poverty. As people of ethnic minority ancestry tend to be in lower tiers of socio-economic status, diseases tend to affect them more severely. This is true across the board, but was exposed early on in the pandemic. Black, South Asian and in America Hispanic people were disproportionately infected with and died of Covid-19. The media immediately began to search for a reason that reified a biological version of race, sometimes focusing on vitamin D metabolism, which is connected with melanin production, and has effects on viral infections. Some studies showed that lower levels of vitamin D did associate with susceptibility to covid infection among black people. But this is a correlation not a cause. More like this:• The people whose DNA held a secret• Why you have viruses hiding in our DNA• The mystery of the human genome's dark matter Underlying any slight differences in biology are much more potent causes: while so many of us were locked down, frontline NHS workers, people cleaning up our rubbish and driving our buses all were more likely to be from ethnic minorities. They simply had a higher risk of being exposed and so infected with the virus. Combine that with the fact that minority groups are more likely to live in multigenerational, dense urban housing, and the supposedly biological susceptibility fades. This is why genetics has played such an important role in the dismantling of a scientific justification of race and understanding racism itself. And it's why the latest statement from Trump's White House is troubling many in the scientific community. Trump frequently speaks about aspects of genetics to make political points. One view that he has expressed repeatedly is that some people, and predictably himself, are genetically superior. "You have good genes, you know that, right?" he said in September 2020 to a rally in Minnesota – a state that is more than 80% white. "You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn't it, don't you believe? You have good genes in Minnesota." Similarly, in the successful 2024 campaign, he denounced immigrants as having "bad genes". It's hard for someone who studies genes – and the strange and sometimes troubling history of genetics – to understand even what might constitute a "bad" or "good" gene. Ours may be a pernicious history, but the trajectory of genetics has been one that tends towards progress, and equity for all, as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. -- For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
