On episode 14 of the Top Rank Podcast, “The New Racial Science” co-hosts Isabel Flower and Marcel Rosa-Salas spoke with Professor Dorothy Roberts about the politics of genetic ancestry tests. 

In 2017, over 12 million Americans had their DNA analyzed by genetic ancestry testing companies. This recent boom in popularity has turned “knowing your roots” into one of the biggest consumer products of the past decade. However, it is critical to the question how genetic ancestry tests are shaping societal understandings of race and ethnicity. 

Professor Dorothy Roberts is an acclaimed scholar of race, gender and the law, and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with joint appointments in the Departments of Africana Studies, Sociology and the Law School. She is also founding director of the Penn Program on Race, Science & Society in the Center for Africana Studies.  Her major books include Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century ; Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare,  and Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty.

Episode 14: The New Racial Science, a conversation with Professor Dorothy Roberts

Top Rank is a process-oriented research platform, founded in 2015, that highlights people whose work is challenging and shaping our perceptions of contemporary culture. 

Co-hosted by Isabel Attyah Flower and Marcel Rosa-Salas