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Panofsky on Distortion of Science to Further a Racist Agenda

Undark spoke with public policy professor Aaron Panofsky about soul-searching in the science community after the May 2022 shooting in Buffalo that took 10 lives. The gunman who targeted Black victims cited genetics research as a rationale for his white supremacist views. Panofsky noted that the shooter’s manifesto included “prepackaged, meme-ified research objects” from “various blogs, various components of Reddit and 4chan, and so forth.” Such ready-to-share memes are used by far-right bloggers, white nationalist outlets, amateur scientists and other fringe figures to willfully misinterpret science to further a racist agenda, said Panofsky, director of the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics. The article also shone a light on large-scale genomic studies aimed at finding genetic solutions to public health and social problems. In addition to fearing that their findings may be twisted in dangerous ways, some researchers acknowledge that the emphasis on genetics might draw attention from the true drivers of these problems.


 

Panofsky on Science, Rhetoric and White Nationalism

Inside Higher Ed spoke to Aaron Panofsky, professor of public policy, about the launch of UCLA’s Initiative to Study Hate, which supports research into understanding and mitigating hatred among social groups. Panofsky will lead one of 23 projects representing several disciplines. His research will explore how white nationalists use and reject scientific research and language in their rhetoric online. Hate is popularly perceived as the emotion felt “when you want to lash out against someone,” Panofsky said. But the ways white nationalists painstakingly attempt to back up their claims with scientific research show hate is more than a knee-jerk emotional reaction. “Part of our study is about how complicated hate can become, especially when it’s connected with science or an ostensibly rational discourse,” said Panofsky, who directs the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics.


 

Panofsky on Distortion of Science to Justify White Supremacy

Public Policy Professor Aaron Panofsky spoke with STAT News about the distortion of genetics research to rationalize white supremacist ideologies. The gunman who killed 10 Black people in Buffalo, N.Y., this month cited such research in a document claiming that proof of a racial hierarchy is written into the human genome. Panofsky wrote a history of the field of behavioral genetics and has studied how its findings get co-opted by far-right groups. “Of all the ancient racist tropes they could have drawn from, they picked this pseudoscientific package of ideas about genetics and replacement theory,” Panofsky said, referring to the conspiracy theory that white people are being intentionally replaced by immigrants and people of color. “It’s this language of science and genetics that they find empowering and convincing, and which they think legitimates their perspective.” Panofsky called for stronger scientific and ethical standards in the field of sociogenomics, as well as more education so that teenagers encountering misinformation online are more resistant to radicalization.

Message From the Dean: Grappling With the Tragedy in Buffalo Some thoughts in the aftermath of a mass shooting in which Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, were targeted

To the Luskin Community:

Let me echo the Chancellor’s comments in this BruinPost regarding the events in Buffalo. More than a dozen people shot, 10 killed, in another explicitly racist attack by a gunman intent on killing African Americans. And let me augment the chancellor’s remarks by reminding us all that just three days earlier, in Dallas’ Koreatown, three Asian women were injured in a mass shooting that is now ruled part of a string of anti-Asian hate attacks on Asian-run businesses across Dallas, and a growing record of anti-Asian hate up more than 300% in the last year.

These attacks occur at the intersection of two of America’s most grievous plagues — the ongoing scar of racism in too many forms to count, and the seemingly endless capacity for gun violence. I am angry. Perhaps you are too. I am angry because neither of these struggles is occurring by chance, in a social vacuum, emerging un-prompted from other social phenomena. Rather, these emerge from explicit ideologies of white supremacy and entitlement to the means of deadly force which are promoted — previously with a wink and a nod and increasingly with shameless embrace — by political forces who think they can manipulate these evils to their own political gain.

I will not stay silent in these moments. The parroting of racist conspiracy theories by elected officials inspire, encourage, and provide emotional justification for the evil and the disturbed in our society to carry out these attacks. They are not isolated social phenomena and we should never treat them as such.

I do not have the right words of comfort here, other than to remind you that there are services available on campus (see links in the Chancellor’s message) for those of you grappling with these events. And I want you to take comfort in each other in knowing that the forces of light — those of us who would resist, battle, engage the forces of divisiveness and hate — are stronger. The good outweighs the bad, those motivated to peace and coexistence have right on our side. Our work at Luskin is explicitly dedicated to empowering those with solutions and stopping those interested only in destruction and nursing their resentments. Meet violence with determination for change. Speak out. Shout out. Work harder to create justice.

In solidarity and sadness,

— Gary

Gary M. Segura
Professor and Dean

 

Panofsky on White Pride, DNA and Denial

Aaron Panofsky, associate professor of public policy, society and genetics, and sociology, spoke to the New York Times about his research on white nationalists who learn from DNA ancestry tests that they may not be as white or European as they previously thought. By analyzing the “white pride” online discussion forum Stormfront, Panofsky and researcher Joan Donovan of Harvard University found that commenters shared test results even when they indicated mixed heritage, and that their fellow white nationalists offered potential reasons those results should not be trusted. Among them: skepticism about the tests’ interpretations of the science and conspiracy theories about Jewish-owned genetic testing companies’ multicultural agendas. Since he launched the study, Panofsky said, genetic tests have increasingly been used to encourage the “mainstreamification” of white nationalism. “Science cannot save us,” he said. “The political problem of white nationalism needs to be confronted on the level of values and law enforcement.”


 

A Message to the UCLA Luskin Community Dean Gary Segura's statement on the tragic events in Charlottesville — 'we remain deeply committed to engaging in the kind of work that creates a better future'

My friends in the Luskin community,

For the kind of work that we do here at Luskin, the tragic and horrific events in Charlottesville last weekend cut very close to home. The forces of division are strong and, for the first time in a generation, they are being legitimized, and endorsed by the highest powers in the country. Our nation is in mourning, as adherents of the abhorrent ideology of white supremacy murdered a woman (and injured dozens) in broad daylight in a university town. Heather Heyer is among the most recent and visible casualties of racism, but she is not the first and I am sadly certain she will not be the last.

That racism, sexism, homophobia, islamophobia, anti-Semitism and white supremacy kill is hardly news. Their effects are everywhere, if only you are willing to look. Racial disparities in political representation, educational opportunity, net wealth, access to affordable health care, home ownership, and contact with the carceral state are manifest and written into institutional arrangements that preserve social inequalities rather than disrupt them.

Women face wage and health care discrimination, mosques burned as Muslims are banned, Jews denounced by white men wearing swastikas, gays and lesbians beaten and murdered, transsexual persons demonized and legislated against, and undocumented immigrants who do some of the hardest jobs in the society described as rapists and drug mules by the President of the United States and deported at an accelerating pace.

All of these things were true on the day before the Charlottesville marches and murder last weekend. These affronts to human dignity and well-being are what makes our work so important. At Luskin we train scholars, policymakers and community leaders who work hard—together—every day to alleviate and transform these social injustices. We must continue to produce state of the art research in the service of all of our communities. In Los Angeles, we know that our diversity is not a weakness; in fact, it is our strength.

It is my fervent hope that these tragic events become a tipping point. We should be more motivated than we have ever been. We should be more fully mobilized than we have ever been. And we should work even harder to bring the tools of our professions, our training as applied social scientists, our insights, our skills at distilling fact from propaganda to this struggle.

In a spirit of hope and action, we remain deeply committed to engaging in the kind of work that creates a better future for all communities. And we must fight like hell to achieve that goal.

Best wishes to you all,

 

 

 

Gary Segura
Dean