Everyone Is African: How Science Explodes the Myth of Race

Scientifically, there are more differences within each race than between races. And that’s because race is an illusion, a social construct, and has little to no basis in scientific reality. Unfortunately, in today’s politically charged world, race remains a hugely influential concept.

Everyone Is African can hopefully be a gateway to changing all that. This easily accessible and thoughtfully presented scholarly book starts by debunking the idea of race as a scientific construct and then builds on that premise, exploring myths and misconceptions about intelligence- and race-based social issues through the lens of a practiced and accomplished scientist. Fairbanks contrasts our long and unpleasant history of racial profiling and discrimination with the slow and steady development of scientific literature attacking the foundations of racial bias and its unpleasant offspring (like Eugenics and tokenism).

It’s a little depressing that in 2015 we need books like Everyone Is African. But, at the same time, if we do need them, I’m grateful we have intelligent, capable authors like Daniel J. Fairbanks to bridge (and hopefully shrink) the knowledge gap.