What's good y'all? You're listening to Code Switch, the show about race and identity from NPR.

I'm Gene Demby.

Okay, so earlier this spring, as part of its war on all things that it deems woke,

the Trump administration turned its sights to the Smithsonian Institution, which runs a bunch of national museums.

In an executive order, the White House said that the Smithsonian had, quote, come under the influence of a divisive race-centered ideology, end quote.

And to underline their point, that executive order singled out an exhibit at one of the museums, criticizing it because it, quote, promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct stating race is a human invention, end quote.

The White House seemed to be playing footsie with the idea that race is rooted in science.

But the scientific consensus here is real clear. Race is not biological. that race is rooted in science.

But the scientific consensus here is real clear. Race is not biological.

We can't look at somebody's genetic information and say,

this person belongs to this racial category and not that one.

That's not how it works.

And of course, how people are treated in so many ways

is influenced by their races and has very real consequences

for their biologies and their health. I mean, there's been a lot of research into how

race affects health outcomes too. Research that the Trump administration has cut funding for

because DEI. But those aren't the only ways that race shows up in people's medical lives.

I mean, doctors are still often taught to use a patient's race as a kind of shorthand for risk,

which in turn shapes who does or does not get diagnosed with certain kinds of diseases.

It's a really sticky way that race science, you know, this idea that race is biological, which again,

it is not, is embedded into our medical system. And so on today's episode, we're going to get

into how that race science shows up at the doctor's office even now and what we can do about it.

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