“what are you Think the incidence of Covid-19 is right for us? This is the question many black people living in Berlin asked me in early March 2020. The answer: we don’t know. Unlike other countries, especially the US and UK, the German government does not record racial identity information in official documents and statistics Because of the country’s history with the Holocaust, the call Race The name (race) has long been controversial.
For some, data that focuses on race without considering intersecting factors such as class, neighborhood, environment, or genetics is sneakily deceptive because it may fail to encapsulate the multitude of factors that influence well-being. Likewise, some information makes it difficult to categorize a person as an identity: a multiracial person may not wish to choose an racial group, one of the many puzzles that complicate the definition of demographics. There is also an element of trust. What if there were reliable statistics documenting racial data and health in Germany? What does it mean that the government may access, collect or use this information? As in the history of AI, numbers often do not capture the black experience well, or are often misused. Is there confidence that the German government is prioritizing the interests of ethnic or racial minorities and other marginalized groups, especially in health and medicine?
However, the lack of data collection around racial identity may mask how certain groups may be disproportionately affected by disease. Racial self-identity can be a marker for data scientists and public health officials to understand the incidence or trend of a disease, be it breast cancer or Covid-19. Racial data helps understand inequality in many contexts. In the United States, statistics on maternal mortality and race have been a harbinger of how African Americans are disproportionately affected, and have since served as a persuasive basis for policy changes in behaviors, resources, and childbirth practices.
In 2020, the educational association Each One Teach One, in partnership with Citizens for Europe, launched The Afrozensus, the first large-scale sociological study of black people living in Germany, investigating employment, housing and health – a deepening of this The racial makeup of groups and the institutional discrimination they may face. Of the 5,000 people surveyed, more than 70 percent were born in Germany, with the other top four being the United States, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. The Afro-German population in Germany is heterogeneous, reflecting the African diaspora from various immigrants, whether Fulani from Senegal or descendants of slaves from the Americas. “Blackness” as an identity does not and cannot grasp the cultural and linguistic richness that exists among people who fall into this category, but it may be part of a picture that gathers shared experiences or systemic inequalities. Afrozensus doesn’t reveal anything black people don’t know,” said Jeff Kwasi Klein, program manager at Every One Teach. “Yes, there is discrimination in all walks of life. ” The results of the first attempt at race-based data collection suggest that ignoring Race Minorities are not allowed to eliminate prejudice in Germany.
that idea It was not uncommon for Europeans to use the word “Rasse” in the 18th century. In fact, some of the most famous scientists of the time not only used the term, but coined a pseudoscientific title to codify humanity.German physician and naturalist Johann Blumenbach coined the term “Caucasian” in a 1775 publication On the Natural Varieties of Human Beings, in which he divided humanity into five races. His colleague, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, followed suit, dividing the human taxonomy into four distinct species: European, American, African and Asian. Zoé Samudzi points out that German scientists such as Eugen Fischer, backed by colonialism, used color charts and hair textures of mixed-race German African colonies to demonstrate anti-intermarriage and eugenic claims. Fischer’s work later informed the Nazi racial classification system and the Nuremberg law, which held that German identity was based on blood, not birthplace. The exclusion of Jews and people of African descent from Germany also meant that the Nazi state discouraged intermarriage.exist Superior: The Return of the Science of RaceAngela Saini shows that the misconception that certain racial categories are superior to others is not a relic of the pseudoscientific past, but a phenomenon that European and American societies have grappled with throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
Instead of focusing on rigid, formulaic racial classifications, many contemporary scientists try to understand human movements and human ecosystems. Evolutionary biologists have demonstrated that cultural adaptation is far more important than phenotype. Skin color is related to the distribution of melanin in the skin, which is related to early human settlements relative to the equator. Unsurprisingly, the closer humans are to the equator, the more melanin in their skin, and the farther away from the equator, the whiter the skin. If we consider another factor in terms of context, we find that skin color—sometimes only associated with race—is an arbitrary category that defines human differences. One condition is sickle cell anemia, a mutation that occurs in people affected by malaria that is more pronounced in climates with heavy rainfall. This has led to the belief that individuals with sickle cell traits are descended from ancestors who had to deal with malaria parasites on their own in places like central India, eastern Saudi Arabia and equatorial Africa. If we group humans with traits that deal with environmental conditions, such as sickle cell traits, does the category in which we racialize humans change? Science is a patchwork in which no single gene or trait can explain human evolution. Whether to use the word “Rasse” in the German constitution – not to mention the question of data collection – is a live debate that attempts to complicate history with real life.
