Book Review: What's Real About Race

Image: The cover of the book is a black background with a multicolored striped double helix illustration going down the center. In large white letters across the top is Rina Bliss, Below that, "What's real about race," and below that, "untangling science, genetics, and society."

I picked up Rina Bliss' What's Real About Race because I have frequently found myself very confused about what race actually is, when it makes sense to call attention to it being made up as a means to control and oppress, when there are real measurable differences in health supposedly genetics based on race, and when race is a culturally existing phenomenon deeply affecting the lives of everyone in different ways. I really enjoyed this book because it does what many authors struggle to do- offers a summary of science, social justice, history, and other elements written in a way that many people outside academia are able to understand.

Bliss is a researcher in sociology and genetic science and seeks to dispel myths around the use of racial categories as distinct genetic groups while also confronting the reality that race is very much at a systemic and personal level. This shows in the ways she navigates across different modalities while conveying information to the reader that weaves them together.

I consider myself fairly well read at this point on ideas about race as a social construct. I am less familiar with how race exists in the genetic realm and it appears that I am not alone in that. Even social justice focused doctors and scientists seem to be consistently confused or knowingly convey inaccurate information in the ways they summarize their findings. The reasons for these mistakes made by scientists and medical professionals have such a wide range that it is odd how they often come to the same place of treating racial categories as clearly delineated, homogenous groups with simplistic origins and similar genomes. For some, it is straight up racism and eugenics. For others, it is habitual use of outdated and disproven classification systems that are sometimes required by certain journals and platforms. For corporations, like geneology DNA labs, it's a capitalist venture, becoming ever more destructive as these companies grow. For others still, it is to seek liberation and appropriate care and attention for oppressed and marginalized racial groups. 

What Bliss shows is that even the most social justice minded scientist, including BIPOC ones, can suffer from implicit bias or from improperly categorizing the spectrum of humanity into distinct genetic categories that do not exist. She also offers solutions to these modalities and approaches, directed both towards scientists and medical professionals as well as the reader. She expresses the importance of being able to interpret the way journalists also fall into these traps when reporting on research or demographic disparities in media. 

Bliss' ability to navigate all of these elements is a strength that makes this book live up to the title. Is Race real? Yes and no. Here and there. Relevant in many situations and irrelevant in others. All of this packed into a small volume that is readable for the masses makes this a really strong book that is not quite like other things I have read.

This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.