How to Argue With a Racist: What Our Genes Do (and Don’t) Say About Human Difference Hardcover – August 4, 2020

This book should be read by nearly everyone. As a university professor, I needed a book that spelled out how the race concept was originated and used over time for a course I teach. I also needed a book that explained the biology and fallacies we live with over race. I strongly recommend this book.

This is a very insightful book that addresses some of the racial myths that plague our society. Unfortunately, the poison of racism and the underlying myth that human beings can be categorized into discrete boxes are at the heart the persistence of racist beliefs. I gained a lot of knowledge by Mr. Rutherford's analysis of genetics. From a scientific stand point the classification and idea of "races" is deeply outdated and is based on 17th and 18th standards. What I find amusing is that these European males always put themselves as the highest apex in the racial scheme of things. Like the term Caucasian to signify, white Europeans. Anthropologist Blumenbach coined that term because he collected skulls throughout he world and thought the people living in the Caucasus Mountains had the most beautiful skulls, hence, Caucasian. Strange this blatant racist term persists to celebrate white supremacy. White European males of this era made these simplistic assumptions to justify their own superiority and put themselves in exalted status simply because they could do so without any scrutiny or rigor behind their beliefs. Racial categorization is man made. It is subjective. It is artificial. Just as a country's political boundaries and borders are artificial so is the belief in racial classification. That's why modern scientists and genetics give little credence to the utility of racial classification. It is too arbitrary and vague and does not offer scientific value.The most interesting quote I found in the book is the following: 'Humans suffer universally from a syndrome that Richard Dawkins called the "tyranny of the discontinuous mind". We yearn to categorize things and fail to recognize continuity. We strain to put things into discrete boxes, and define things by what they are rather than what they do'.I think the people who are giving this book negative reviews are doing so because this book has debunked their belief that races do exist and somehow it matters. People with low self esteem gravitate to a belief system that they belong to a group or tribe however ill define the group is. The definition or criteria of group categorization is always vague and changes over time. This is the 21st century. We know a lot more about the human species through our genetics than ever before. All human beings are more alike than their supposedly differences. That's the point of Rutherford's thesis. It demolishes the anachronistic notion and concept of race and, therefore, it demolishes the fuel which gives fire to racists to preach their sectarianism.

More so history book on the origins of racism. The book is a travel back to the future of racism.

I ordered this because it was required reading for one of my classes. It was easy to read and even easier to follow. Rutherford knows how to write to the masses without using jargon or Academic terminology, so I appreciated that. I would recommend this book to anyone practicing anti- racism or their decolonization journey.

Though I thought it tedious at first, this account opened my eyes in a manner that only one like Dr. Rutherford can. 10/10 would recommend

Dispels untruths told about Blacks for generations. Should be read by all segregationists.

No one who reads and agrees with the premises in this book will be able to use its contents to successfully convince another person of any particular view regarding racism. The main theme of the book could be captured in a single sentence: "All humans are of the same species, and thus, the same 'race'." Science proves it with genetic studies. Racists ignore that fact for economically self-serving reasons.

This was a concise book with exceedingly clear writing, underlining what modern science says about many culturally pervasive questions about race, genetics, and geneology. All the mythbusting and the explanations of scientific findings (& uncertainty) in the context of old & new racist thinking was exactly what I wanted from this book.I was also treated with plenty of fascinating tidbits about humans and their DNA — my favorite being that every person alive in ~1500 BCE with living modern descendants is related to *every single person* alive today.I highly recommend this one!

EXCELENTE LIBRO

A succinct demolition of the commonest misunderstandings about 'race'

I loved Dr. Rutherford's book. It was fantastic and soo well written.