22 May, 2009

 

Cutting off somebody else's nose to spite your face

Somebody described me as a "race realist" recently. I'm not sure whether my interlocutor intended this as a broad-spectrum insult or had some specific point to make about my perceived opinions. One thing's for sure: it was not intended as a compliment.

I was reminded of this ill-tempered exchange while listening to a piece on the radio about ethnically-targeted medical treatment. Research, it would appear, is identifying genetic correlations with the effectiveness of particular treatments which sometimes map very clearly onto what most of us understand pragmatically as race. In a fairly extreme hypothetical example, a particular drug treatment might be effective with 90% of White people, but with only 5% of Blacks. It is relatively new science, very much work in progress.

What was fascinating was that some of the interviewees in the radio package objected strongly to the research being pursued at all, and if it was to be pursued, to the results being applied clinically. Not because the conclusion might be wrong, but because both the underlying categorization of patients and the very result itself are racist. A good deal of dialectical squirmery was resorted to, but that is what their position amounted to.

So in the name of the cardinal political dogma that all races are equal in all respects — indeed that race does not really exist and is at most a social construct based on melanin prejudice — effective medical treatments must be suppressed. It seems that the Righteous would rather a patient suffer unnecessarily or even die so long as their precious political dogma remains intact.

Well, Sunshine, if rejecting that kind of thinking makes me a race realist, then I rejoice at the description.

Comments:
Now, is this not proof that political correctness and 'goodthink' are modern day religions? Religions without a God, granted, but religions nonetheless.

It's also a heresy to say that condoms protect against HIV and AIDS in some parts, I hear.

 
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