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Articles on Scientific racism

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Human evolution is typically depicted with a progressive whitening of the skin, despite a lack of evidence to support it. Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov/Wikimedia Commons

Racist and sexist depictions of human evolution still permeate science, education and popular culture today

From Aristotle to Darwin, inaccurate and biased narratives in science not only reproduce these biases in future generations but also perpetuate the discrimination they are used to justify.
Museums across the U.S., including at Harvard University, collected human remains, which were often displayed to the public. Smith Collection/Gado/Archive Photos via Getty Images

US museums hold the remains of thousands of Black people

Proposed legislation would identify and protect African American cemeteries. But it wouldn’t cover the remains of thousands of Black people in museum collections.
W.E.B. Du Bois in his office at The Crisis in New York City, 1925. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries

W.E.B. Du Bois embraced science to fight racism as editor of NAACP’s magazine The Crisis

As editor of the magazine for 24 years, Du Bois featured articles about biology, evolution, archaeology in Africa and more to refute the rampant scientific racism of the early 20th century.
Alie Fataar, photographed during his exile in Zambia, was a revolutionary teacher. Courtesy of Alie Fataar

Born into revolution: reflections on a radical teacher’s life

Alie Fataar exemplifies the type of teacher South Africa sorely requires today if its classrooms are to be used to develop a new generation of critical, engaged students.
This clay facial reconstruction of Kennewick Man, carefully sculpted around the morphological features of his skull, suggests how he may have looked alive nearly 9,000 years ago. Brittney Tatchell, Smithsonian Institution

Kennewick Man will be reburied, but quandaries around human remains won’t

A 9,000-year-old skeleton became a high-profile and highly contested case for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. How do we respectfully deal with ancient human remains?
Scientific evidence shows overwhelmingly that people across the world are genetic refugees from Africa. Shutterstock

How science has been abused through the ages to promote racism

Despite science refuting the existence of different human races, people have used “race” throughout history to divide and denigrate certain people while promoting their claims of superiority.

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