The deflecting wrinkle on the teeth of Icelanders and the Mongoloid dental complex

Three local populations from Northeast Iceland are surveyed for the occurrence of the deflecting wrinkle of the metaconid on second deciduous and first permanent lower molars. The trait occurs more frequently on dm2 than on M1, and no sexual dimorphism is found, as expected. However, the frequencies are clearly within those predicted by the Mongoloid dental complex for Mongoloid populations. It is therefore suggested that the inclusion of the deflecting wrinkle in the Mongoloid dental complex be re-evaluated, and the racial diagnostic value of the trait taken with reservation.     

Socioeconomic status dependent medical complexities in children with sickle cell disease in Saudi Arabia

A look into the associations of socioeconomic status (SES) with prevalence of various complications in sickle cell disease (SCD) is necessary, for an improvement of societal norms, governmental health policies and strategies. We therefore studied the influence of SES indices on certain hematological and clinical parameters in children with SCD in Saudi Arabia. We included 32 female and 33 male patients aged 5–16 years, who were classified based upon their family income. Family monthly income was divided into 4 categories from lowest to highest, with socioeconomic class1 having low earnings of <5000 SAR; the middle income class divided further into class 2 with earnings >5000–10,000 SAR, and class 3 with earnings >10,000–15,000 SAR; and the higher income class 4 with earnings of >15,000 SAR. The assessment indices used were, the frequency of vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC), adverse events, and hematological parameters. A higher percentage of children affected with the disease were from class1, which is the low socio-economic class. It was found that the percentage of frequency of VOC pain crisis, and adverse events was higher in social class 1 patients than in the classes 2, 3, and 4. Also, the age group 5–10 years appeared more susceptible to adverse events and VOC. Our findings suggest the need to conduct future larger studies, to deduce the modifying influence of disparity in SES on certain clinical and hematological indices in children with SCD.     

“New Canadians are new conservatives”: race,incorporation and achieving electoral success in multicultural Canada

Despite declarations of race's irrelevance, the Conservative Party of Canada's (CPC) stance on race-related policies under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's leadership was key to every electoral campaign it fought. Moreover, it is not despite but because of their race that racialized political elites have been incorporated into the CPC and its antecedents. Indeed, beginning in the 1990s, the inclusion of Asian Members of Parliament (MP) became for the Reform Party of Canada, a weapon in the struggle for electoral success; that is, part of an era of Conservative racial realignment. By tracing the role of Asian Conservative MP in the rise of the Reform Party since its 1987 inception and the electoral success of the CPC (2006–2015), this article explores how racialized political elites become crucial to the legitimization of the racial state when it is through a discourse of inclusion that exclusion is crafted.     

Chocolate cities: A brief note from a race and capitalism perspective

Marcus Hunter and Zandria Robinson have provided us with an innovative methodology for analysing “maps” of African Americans’ lived political, social and cultural experiences past and present. Their powerful innovation is creating maps of the black experience based on black people’s lived experience. They argue that carefully tracing spatially blacks’ political, social and cultural patterns over time leads one to the conclusion that the shared experiences of blacks throughout the polity (and indeed throughout the Diaspora) have far more in common than not. I argue that we can better understand not only the maps that black people have created, but also chocolate cities themselves by using an analytical framework that integrates the analysis of the lived experience of black people with a structural analysis that interrogates the articulation of white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy. This framework is related to the developing research into racial capitalism that is now being conducted globally.     

Response to Ethnic and Racial Studies interlocutors

This symposium on my book, The Specter of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracy (Princeton, 2018) provides an opportunity to engage specialists in classical and modern political theory and philosophy, comparative racial and ethnic politics, and political sociology who have provided commentary on different aspects of the two overarching arguments intertwined in The Specter of Race; how students of democracy have largely ignored how racial and ethno-national hierarchy has been historically tethered to its practice , and how students of comparative politics have, for the most part, ignored how these hierarchies have informed the very development of modern democracies.     

The contested meanings of 'Asian American': racial dilemmas in the contemporary US

This article explores the contested meanings of the ‘Asian American’ concept in the US today. Since its emergence in the late 1960s, ‘Asian American’ has been defined by pan-Asian groups and organizations in the US as a collectivity bound by shared racial interests. Contemporary conditions have sharpened and highlighted the inherent contradictions and ambiguities of this conception of ‘Asian American’ as a racial interest group. Especially important have been the shifts in the composition of the Asian American population that followed the immigration reforms of 1965. Contestations of ‘Asian American’ also reflect larger uncertainties about the meaning of race in the US today, in particular, the nature of racial boundaries and racial disadvantage.     

EXTINCTION SPACE—A METHOD FOR THE QUANTIFICATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF CHANGES IN MORPHOSPACE ACROSS EXTINCTION BOUNDARIES

Three main modes of extinction are responsible for reductions in morphological disparity: (1) random (caused by a nonselective extinction event); (2) marginal (a symmetric, selective extinction event trimming the margin of morphospace); and (3) lateral (an asymmetric, selective extinction event eliminating one side of the morphospace). These three types of extinction event can be distinguished from one another by comparing changes in three measures of morphospace occupation: (1) the sum of range along the main axes; (2) the sum of variance; and (3) the position of the centroid. Computer simulations of various extinction events demonstrate that the pre‐extinction distribution of taxa (random or normal) in the morphospace has little influence on the quantification of disparity changes, whereas the modes of the extinction events play the major role. Together, the three disparity metrics define an “extinction‐space” in which different extinction events can be directly compared with one another. Application of this method to selected extinction events (Frasnian‐Famennian, Devonian‐Carboniferous, and Permian‐Triassic) of the Ammonoidea demonstrate the similarity of the Devonian events (selective extinctions) but the striking difference from the end‐Permian event (nonselective extinction). These events differ in their mode of extinction despite decreases in taxonomic diversity of similar magnitude.     

Racial Disparities in Prostate Cancer Mortality in the 50 Largest US Cities

IntroductionThis paper presents race-specific prostate cancer mortality rates and the corresponding disparities for the largest cities in the US over two decades.MethodsThe 50 largest cities in the US were the units of analysis. Data from two 5-year periods were analyzed: 1990–1994 and 2005–2009. Numerator data were abstracted from national death files where the cause was malignant neoplasm of prostate (prostate cancer) (ICD9 = 185 and ICD10 = C61). Population-based denominators were obtained from US Census data. To measure the racial disparity, we calculated non-Hispanic Black: non-Hispanic White rate ratios (RRs), rate differences (RDs), and corresponding confidence intervals for each 5-year period. We also calculated correlation and unadjusted regression coefficients for 11 city-level variables, such as segregation and median income, and the RDs.ResultsAt the final time point (2005–2009), the US and all 41 cities included in the analyses had a RR greater than 1 (indicating that the Black rate was higher than the White rate) (range = 1.13 in Minneapolis to 3.24 in Los Angeles), 37 of them statistically significantly so. The US and 26 of the 41 cities saw an increase in the Black:White RR between the time points. The level of disparity within a city was associated with the degree of Black segregation.ConclusionThis analysis revealed large disparities in Black:White prostate cancer mortality in the US and many of its largest cities over the past two decades. The data show considerable variation in the degree of disparity across cities, even among cities within the same state. This type of specific city-level data can be used to motivate public health professionals, government officials, cancer control agencies, and community-based organizations in cities with large or increasing disparities to demand more resources, focus research efforts, and implement effective policy and programmatic changes in order to combat this highly prevalent condition.