Medical Hysteria in California

(or How to Maintain the Status Quo Through Junk Science and Lies)

by James A. Landrith, Jr.
October/November 2003

As was expected by me and others working to abolish "racial" classifications, Proposition 54 was defeated. This time. As I said before on INTERRACIAL VOICE when challenged by Susan Graham of Project RACE on our change of tactic from promoting a stand-alone "multiracial" category to abolishment of all categories, "If that process takes 50 years, so be it. There are plenty more where we came from who can pick up where we leave off." We lost one battle. The war ain't over, so gloat now, but in the end history will record your win as the beginning of the end of one-drop, junk science "racialism" and coercive stay-in-the-group politics.

Contrary to what some of my colleagues in the "multiracial" community wish to think, their new alliances with many of the same groups who viciously attacked the self-identification rights of "mixed-race" individuals, the concept of "interracial" relationships and integration will not lead those organizations to compromise on their "racist" positions. Far from it, my colleagues are playing directly into their hands and further validating the one-droppers and anti-miscegenationists who hide in plain sight in today's renditions of civil rights groups. That shame will be theirs to bear once their blinders have finally been removed for good.

The health scare tactics disseminated by those in favor of slavery-era "racial" classifications worked marvelously. The opponents of the Racial Privacy Initiative did a fabulous job of scaring folks into thinking that they would all die horrible, disease-wracked deaths without these arbitrary, junk science "racial" classifications. It was pure genius on their part and will be hard to counter given the amount of hysteria they were able to produce through innuendo, misinformation and outright lies. Yet the truth will prevail, it will only take longer.

These "racial" classifications are NOT now, nor have they EVER been based on genetic science. For the most part, health data culled by "race" is collected via one of two methods. The first method of data collection is accomplished via "racial" check-boxes, which 99% of the time require respondents to check ONLY one "racial" classification . How many people really attempt to include all of their ancestry on such forms and how many instead just check them based on perceived "race"? Further, most forms that actually allow multiple "race" responses are then collapsed back into one category only, regardless of how many boxes were checked. How exactly is this data supposed to be accurate if it is intentionally left inaccurate in order to placate the wishes of groups like the NAACP, which openly and vehemently argued in favor of maintaining the one-drop rule at the federal level? This medical necessity argument is all smoke and mirrors folks.

Further, much of this data is recorded via the perverse "eye-ball" method where the data recorder looks at someone and guesses their "race." This isn't exactly a sound scientific basis for making qualified medical decisions and it doesn't require a medical degree to figure out why. This is a particularly offensive and dangerous brand of junk science, which seriously endangered the life of (among others on a daily basis) author Brent Kennedy, due to his so-called "white" phenotype. Kennedy, a member of a "multiracial" population group known as Melungeons, suffered needlessly when diagnosed by a doctor who decided to rule out certain disorders based solely on his "white" phenotype. And this is what we are supposed be protecting by maintaining such arbitrary, guessing game classification schemes? Making medical decisions via eyeballing or check-box guessing games is dangerous and possibly grounds for a malpractice suit.

Dr. Koop, the former surgeon general, should be ashamed of his involvement in perpetuating this myth as the unwitting dunce of organizations bent on maintaining a perverse system of sorting individuals via processes like the one-drop rule, skin color and eyeball guessing games. How are we supposed to have faith in medicine when such an obviously arbitrary practice is still being promoted as scientifically valid? Let's bring on the leeches and start bleeding patients again. That's just as valid as this nonsense which gives greater weight to an historically prejudicial practice over real medical science.

My hat is off to those in the so-called civil rights community, the medical community, the anti-Latino immigration movement and the various hate groups for being able to work together to preserve a system of arbitrary, unscientific classifications that were established for the sake of ensuring a permanent and involuntary workforce in America. Kudos for siding with the slave traders! History will not forget the names and organizations who conspired to continue this scheme of boxing people in via dangerous junk science categories, created for the purpose of keeping people in bondage for profit.

You can bet on that.

James Landrith is the notorious editor and publisher of The Multiracial Activist and The Abolitionist Examiner, two cyber-rags dedicated to freedom from oppressive racial categorization. Landrith can be reached by email at: editor@multiracial.com or at his personal website/blog.