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Watch Dorothy's interview on the Tavis Smiley Show!
Dorothy Roberts is an award-winning author and expert on the interplay of gender, race, and class in legal issues concerning reproduction, bioethics, and child welfare. Her latest book is Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century.
"Roberts is consistently lucid. Her book is alarming but not alarmist, controversial but evidential, impassioned but rational." -Publishers Weekly, starred review
A decade after the Human Genome Project proved that human beings are not naturally divided by race, the emerging fields of personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, genetic genealogy, and DNA databanks are attempting to resuscitate race as a biological category written in our genes. In this provocative analysis, leading legal scholar and social critic Dorothy Roberts argues that America is once again at the brink of a virulent outbreak of classifying populations by race. By searching for difference at the molecular level, a new racial science is obscuring racism in our society and legitimizing state
brutality against communities of color at a time when America claims to be post-racial.
"This fascinating book is a must-read for those looking for an enlightened discussion of race in the 21st century."
-Library Journal
Moving from an account of the evolution of race—proving that it has always been a mutable and socially defined
political division supported by mainstream science—Roberts delves deep into the current debates, interrogating the
newest science and biotechnology, interviewing its researchers, and exposing the political consequences obscured by
the focus on genetic difference. Fatal Invention is a provocative call for us to affirm our common humanity by ending
social inequality preserved by the political system of race.
"This is the best book of the year. . .If you read one work of nonfiction a year, make this the one.” -New York Journal of Books
"Named on Ten Best Black Books of 2011 (Non Fiction)" -Washington Afro American & Afro.com
"In a provocative analysis of the emerging fields of personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, genetic
genealogy and DNA databanks, law professor Dorothy Roberts warns that the science of genetics in the United
States is at risk of being used to obscure racism in society."-Nature
"Fatal Invention is an eye-opening, urgent, and ultimately inspiring exposé of the new racial science. Essential reading.”
-Danny Glover
“A terribly important book on how the ‘fatal invention’ has terrifying effects in the post-genomic, ‘post-racial’ era.”
-Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, professor of sociology, Duke University, and author of Racism Without Racists.
“Fatal Invention is a triumph! Race has always been an ill-defined amalgam of medical and cultural bias, thinly
overlaid with the trappings of contemporary scientific thought. And no one has peeled back the layers of assumption
and deception as lucidly as Dorothy Roberts....You will not be able to put this book down."
-Harriet A. Washington, author of Medical Apartheid and Deadly Monopolies.
“Roberts has issued a compelling and provocative warning: our freedoms are threatened by a new biopolitics that
reinforces a false concept of race and turns us into ‘biocitizens’ whose DNA can be exploited both by the government
and big business. Everyone concerned about social justice in America should read this powerful book.”
-Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union.
"Roberts offers a bracing antidote to the fatalistic view that DNA determines social structure, identity and health
status, and calls instead for new forms of biocitizenship premised on the full democratic engagement of our one
human race. This book should be read by any and all grappling with issues of science, social justice, and racial
equality.”
-Nancy Krieger, PhD, Professor, Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health
Dorothy Roberts is an award-winning author and expert on the interplay of gender, race, and class in legal issues concerning reproduction, bioethics, and child welfare. Her latest book is Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century.
"Roberts is consistently lucid. Her book is alarming but not alarmist, controversial but evidential, impassioned but rational." -Publishers Weekly, starred review
A decade after the Human Genome Project proved that human beings are not naturally divided by race, the emerging fields of personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, genetic genealogy, and DNA databanks are attempting to resuscitate race as a biological category written in our genes. In this provocative analysis, leading legal scholar and social critic Dorothy Roberts argues that America is once again at the brink of a virulent outbreak of classifying populations by race. By searching for difference at the molecular level, a new racial science is obscuring racism in our society and legitimizing state
brutality against communities of color at a time when America claims to be post-racial.
"This fascinating book is a must-read for those looking for an enlightened discussion of race in the 21st century."
-Library Journal
Moving from an account of the evolution of race—proving that it has always been a mutable and socially defined
political division supported by mainstream science—Roberts delves deep into the current debates, interrogating the
newest science and biotechnology, interviewing its researchers, and exposing the political consequences obscured by
the focus on genetic difference. Fatal Invention is a provocative call for us to affirm our common humanity by ending
social inequality preserved by the political system of race.
"This is the best book of the year. . .If you read one work of nonfiction a year, make this the one.” -New York Journal of Books
"Named on Ten Best Black Books of 2011 (Non Fiction)" -Washington Afro American & Afro.com
"In a provocative analysis of the emerging fields of personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, genetic
genealogy and DNA databanks, law professor Dorothy Roberts warns that the science of genetics in the United
States is at risk of being used to obscure racism in society."-Nature
"Fatal Invention is an eye-opening, urgent, and ultimately inspiring exposé of the new racial science. Essential reading.”
-Danny Glover
“A terribly important book on how the ‘fatal invention’ has terrifying effects in the post-genomic, ‘post-racial’ era.”
-Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, professor of sociology, Duke University, and author of Racism Without Racists.
“Fatal Invention is a triumph! Race has always been an ill-defined amalgam of medical and cultural bias, thinly
overlaid with the trappings of contemporary scientific thought. And no one has peeled back the layers of assumption
and deception as lucidly as Dorothy Roberts....You will not be able to put this book down."
-Harriet A. Washington, author of Medical Apartheid and Deadly Monopolies.
“Roberts has issued a compelling and provocative warning: our freedoms are threatened by a new biopolitics that
reinforces a false concept of race and turns us into ‘biocitizens’ whose DNA can be exploited both by the government
and big business. Everyone concerned about social justice in America should read this powerful book.”
-Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union.
"Roberts offers a bracing antidote to the fatalistic view that DNA determines social structure, identity and health
status, and calls instead for new forms of biocitizenship premised on the full democratic engagement of our one
human race. This book should be read by any and all grappling with issues of science, social justice, and racial
equality.”
-Nancy Krieger, PhD, Professor, Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health
