Ask the Scholars

In the organ transplant world, I know there's a big focus on trying to recruit more African Americans to donate organs, under the assumption that race-matched organs are going to have a better chance of success. It's true that people who are closely genetically related are more likely to have a good genetic match on organs. For example, siblings can often donate organs to each other or will be well matched for each other. It doesn't always happen, but it's more likely to happen. So if yo...

To build on what Pilar just said, I think there is a crude assumption out there that race is a metaphor for family. That the family is a small related group and a race is a big related group. People take that metaphor too literally, when in fact there isn't necessarily any biological truth to it. This question takes as a presupposition this false assumption.

I think Jon and Pilar have really hit the major crux of it. I just want to add that even when you accept the assumption built into this question, it may not be true for the reasons you think it is. If the assumption were true, is it because of race? The answer is no, it's not because of race, it's because of geographic closeness and genetic similarity. We tend to be more genetically similar to people whose ancestry we share, but that isn't the same thing as race. You have to look at wher...