PETITION: Against ‘Race Realism’

Justin Oakley and Michael Selgelid
Editors in Chief, Monash Bioethics Review

Monash Bioethics Centre
Menzies Building
20 Chancellors Walk
Clayton Campus
Monash University
VIC 3800

Sydney, 20 November 2018

Dear Professors Oakley and Selgelid,

We are writing to you as the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association to express concern about the publication in the Monash Bioethics Review of an article entitled ‘Defending Eugenics’ by Jonathan Anomaly.

In our view, this article normalizes a practice that has been, and continues to be, associated with the discipline and punishment of racialised people since the 19th century when it was first suggested by Francis Galton, a ‘race scientist’ whose ‘spirit’ the author wishes to ‘reclaim’ in the interests of reducing the ‘consequences of people reproducing at random.’

The author attempts to avoid the charge of racism by arguing that the virtues of eugenics should not be tempered by the ends to which these ideas were put by the Nazis during the Holocaust. There are a number of problems with this proposition which we would like to outline:

1. It is impossible to dissociate an idea from the context in which it emerged and the practices which it led to. The very idea of manipulating the population in order to attempt to facilitate a ‘eugenic utopia’ comes to fruition within the context of European colonialism, and the increased power of European states to quantify and manage populations. The main targets were the poor, the disabled and those considered racially ‘inferior’.
2. Anomaly’s discussion of the Holocaust attempts to avoid racism by making the argument that it was ‘dysgenic’ to eliminate the Jews as ‘arguably among the most intelligent and productive people of the twentieth century.’ Such an argument, while attempting to avoid racism, still operates with racially essentialist terms by generalizing about all Jews; it is notable too that Jews of colour are omitted from Anomaly’s claims.
3. Anomaly clearly believes in race differences, arguing that it was only the ‘the racist direction the eugenics movement took in the United States and Germany’ that led scientists to ‘deny that races exist.’ It is our contention that it is impossible to disentangle the belief that the human population can be divided into so-called races from the injustices that continue to be associated with that belief. And in the specific case of the article, it is impossible, to argue that races exist while claiming that one’s proposal to introduce eugenics into policy making is not racist.
4. Eugenic practices of the type discussed by Anomaly in the paper, are still in practice. The author believes that the language of eugenics was merely used to mask the ‘morally abhorrent policies and pseudo-scientific claims’ of the Nazis. However, eugenics principles were applied much more widely than that. In our context here in Australia, the Eugenics Society of Victoria was in operation until 1961. The practice of removal of Aboriginal children, which is still ongoing, reaching unprecedented levels today, has its roots in eugenics as its ultimate aim was the control of the Aboriginal population. The practices of forced sterilisation are still in use against Indigenous women in Canada for example. Dorothy Roberts has documented the extent to which the US welfare system has been restructured to inhibit the reproductive freedoms of poor Black women (https://penntoday.upenn.edu/research/revisiting-killing-the-black-body-20-years-later). Therefore, the policy proposals, presented by Anomaly, to improve what he calls the troubling ‘current demographics of Western countries’ are not mere hypotheticals.
5. In fact, Anomaly makes clear what troubles him when he remarks that pronatalist policies put in place by the Swedish state have resulted in higher births among those of Somali origin rather than ‘native-born Swedes.’ He also makes reference to ‘impulse control’ as hereditary, an argument also made by the conservative US publication, The National Review, which argued that Black children had less impulse control than white children, thus justifying their exclusion from school. Therefore he cannot claim that racism does not motivate his argument.

At a time when so-called ‘race realism’ is booming, despite being thoroughly debunked by the great majority of scientists, the scholarly community must take responsibility for the ideas it endorses. There are serious questions to be answered about how an article that proposes that ‘future people would be better off if people with heritable traits that we value had a greater proportion of children’ passed peer review.

It is our view that there is absolutely no way of separating the notion of there being ‘more valuable heritable traits’ from the fact that modern western societies have associated value with whiteness, abled-bodiedness and prosperity to the detriment of racialised people, the disabled and the poor.

We seem to have entered a phase in academia and public life where debate for its own sake has trumped any commitment to the principle of protecting those most vulnerable and creating the conditions for a more just society for all. As critical race scholars who are only too painfully aware of the practices to which ideas of race have been put, we suggest that it is never the time for an article that defends eugenics to be published in a reputable international scientific journal.

We hope that you will consider this letter and take the necessary steps to address the processes of peer review that led to this misguided decision.

Yours sincerely on behalf of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association

Alana Lentin
Associate Professor, Western Sydney University and ACRAWSA President (2017-19).

Additional signatures:

Jonathan Kaplan, Oregon State University

Elaine Swan, University of Sussex, UK.

Dr Sharlene Leroy-Dyer

Dr. Maria Elena Indelicato

Evelyn Araluen, University of Sydney

Dr. Ameil J. Joseph

Dr Jordy Silverstein, Postdoctoral Research Associate, SHAPS, University of Melbourne

Dr Joanne Faulkner, Macquarie University

Matt Mason

Melanie Ostell

Robin M Eames

Jane Park, University of Sydney

Dylan Weinberger

Anna Carastathis, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion University, Athens, Greece

Ronit Lentin

Jason Gray

Dr. Sunny Singh

Rebecca Kukla, Professor of Philosophy and Senior Research Scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University

Claudia Malacrida, PhD

Kathleen Mary Collins

Melinda C. Hall

Zoé Samudzi

Shelley Tremain

Zoe Lawlor

Terri E. Givens

Estée Klar

Amina Jamal, PhD Associate Professor Department of Sociology Faculty of Arts, Ryerson University

Dr. Meenal Shrivastava, Professor & Chair, Centre for Social Sciences, Athabasca University

Katherine Ellinghaus

Malory Nye

Amy Thunig

Tristan Ryan

Lauren Bull

Dr E Brayshaw

Tereza Hendl

Michelle Cahill

Tim Busuttil

Mari Kain

Tom Lynch

Dr Albert Atkin, Macquarie University.

Carolyn D’Cruz, La Trobe University

Ryan Al-Natour

Bethany Phillips-Peddlesden

Karen Schamberger

Aurelien Mondon, University of Bath

Bev Henwood

George Morgan, Western Sydney University

Robbie Fordyce

Suneel Jethani

Caitlin McGrane

Kate Mannell

Ghassan Hage, University of Melbourne

Jane Ku, University of Windsor

Alex Page

Lauren Stinson, University of New South Wales student

Lyn Bender – psychologist

Supporter

Lana Tatour, University of New South Wales

Fiona

Sadhvi Dar, Queen Mary University of London, UK

Dr Lisa Tilley, Birkbeck, University of London

Julie Billaud

Wulf D. Hund, Professor Emeritus, University of Hamburg

Sarah Bracke, Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam

Sara Salem, LSE

Karim Murji, University of West London, UK

Stefanie Affeldt, Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg

Gurminder K Bhambra, University of Sussex

William Scates Frances

Dr Nivi Manchanda

Akanksha Mehta, Goldsmiths, University of London

Felix Mantz, Queen Mary University of London

Dr Rick Saull, Queen Mary, University of London

Sara Farris, Goldsmiths, london

Ajay Parasram, Dalhousie University

Ida Birkvad, QMUL, University of London

Lucia Sorbera, The University of Sydney

Sharri Plonski, Lecturer in International Politics, Queen Mary University of London

Paige Donaghy

Jean Beaman, Purdue University (USA)

Aaron Winter. Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of East London

Shamira A. Meghani, University of Leeds

Ella Whiteley, University of Cambridge

William Rooke, LSE

Mariya Nikolova, RTG Minor Cosmopolitanisms

Jonathan Kaplan, Oregon State University

Roberta Millstein, UC Davis

Robert A. Skipper, PhD.

Robin Dunford, University of Brighton

Joe Shaughnessy, Doctoral Student, University of Cambridge UK

Nicola Pratt, University of Warwick, UK

Alina Sajed, McMaster University

Macquarie University

Debbie Bargallie, Senior Lecturer, Griffith University

Massimo Amerena, PhD Candidate Moondani Balluk Academic Unit, Victoria University

Matthew Davis

Ina Roy-Faderman, M.D., Ph.D. , Oregon State University

Gabrielle Ayles

Tony Chemero, Departments of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Cincinnati, USA

Associate Professor Cristina Rocha Western Sydney University

Dr Lauren Piko

Anja Kanngieser, Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow, University of Wollongong

Dr Sara Dehm, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney

Oznur Sahin, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Dr Eleanor Byrne, Manchester Metropolitan University UK

John Pike, University of South Australia

Jess Bier, Erasmus University Rotterdam

James Trafford, University for the Creative Arts

Sithembile Mbete, Lecturer, University of Pretoria

Olivette Otele

Tanya Stul

Amrita Tarr

Ben Etherington, Western Sydney University

Lobna Yassine, social worker

Mick Caranx

Milena Doytcheva, University of Lille FRANCE

W.A. Baldwin, Durham University

Andy Fugard, Birkbeck, University of London

Jasmine K. Gani, Senior Lecturer, University of St Andrews

Stephen Ashe

Dylan Kerrigan, Lecturer University of the West Indies

Jasbinder S. Nijjar, Brunel University London

Aytak Akbari-Dibavar, York University

Danielle Young, University of the Ozarks

Simon Dawes, Université de Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, France

Dr John Narayan, Birmingham City University

Bethan Harries, University of Manchester

Keryn Hassall

Philip S. S. Howard, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

Souheir Edelbi, University of New South Wales

Heather Porter- Doctoral Student, Islamic Studies & Gender and Women’s Studies, McGill University

Srdjan Vucetic, University of Ottawa

Sarah Owens, McGill University

Bev Henwood

Cameron Smith, Macquarie University

Cammi Murrup-Stewart, Monash University

Sarah Lloyd

Gerald Roche, La Trobe University

Dr. Fatima Rajina

Dr Naaz Rashid, University of Sussex

Sean McMorrow, University of Melbourne

Ahmad Naman

Ralph Dorey, Northumbria Univeristy

Bee Spencer, Swinburne University of Technology

Patrick Reinhart Schwemmer, Musashi University

Don MacKeen, Lecturer

S.J. Adrienna Joyce, PhD Student, McGill University

Scott Brownlee

I Jin Jang, Universitat Jaume I

Egidio de Bustamante, Universitat Jaume I – Spain

Horatiu Halmaghi, MA Candidate McGill University

Alison Whittaker, UTS Jumbunna Institute

Fiona Belcher, University of Melbourne

Renata Tuccitto

Charlotte Sefton, Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

Dr Shane Hopkinson

Catia Malaquias, Starting With Julius

Kate de Bruin, Monash University

Rayna Lamb

Dr David Singh

Liz Grandmaison, Postgraduate Student, Flinders University

Francis Markham, Australian National University

Nathan Dick

Lonnie Gonano

Dr. Hariati Sinaga

Di Samuels Family Advocate

Carol Que

Associate Professor Peter Anderson Queensland University of Technology

Dr Robert Jackson

Cait

Keith Murfee-DeConcini, Disability advocate, United States of America

James Sheldon, PhD student, University of Arizona

Iain Childerhose, McGill University

David Mills

Ryan Cole, sex worker

Louise Mead

Dr Thomas Ryan

Matthew Horsley, PhD candidate, Monash University

Jill Martin

Lexi Brent, The University of Sydney)

Millie Andrews

Kevin Sharpe

Chere

Nicholas Mirzoeff, Professor, NYU

Dr Paola Crespi, Research Fellow, Goldsmiths College

Brianna Zimmerman

1. Roberts

Christopher Nagle, Western Michigan University

Gabriella Coleman, McGill University

Samantha Asumadu, founder of Media Diversified