combat surging virus cases ahead of the olympics infections are rising in the capital the national vaccination drive has got off to a slow start the raised alert status means the opening hours for bars and restaurants will be cut the measures a jew to begin on monday and will continue for one month more news whenever you want it of course including the latest on the events today with coronavirus and people reacting to the death of prince philip on the websites al-jazeera dot com. this is al-jazeera these are your top stories britain's prince philip queen elizabeth's husband has died at the age of 99 he was married to the queen for 73 years and served alongside her through the length of her reign the royal family has entered an official period of mourning. tributes are being coming in for the duke of edinburgh from around the world philip was praised for helping to modernize the british monarchy but was often prone to gaffes and impromptu remarks the medical

examiner who performed the only autopsy on george floyd has told a u.s. court he died from a police neck restraint and not drugs dr andrew baker says floyd did have underlying health issues and evidence of drug use but neither directly caused his death. those events are going to cause stress hormones to pour out in your body specifically things like adrenaline and what that adrenaline is going to do is it's going to ask your heart to beat faster it's going to ask your body for more oxygen so that you can get through that alter cation and in my opinion the law enforcements of dual restraint in the neck compression was just more than mr floyd could take by virtue of those hard conditions you know mr floyd's use of did not cause the duel or neck restraint his heart disease did not cause the the subdual or the neck restraint. 19 people have been sentenced to death in me and over the death

of an army officer as associates it comes as the fierce military crackdown continues following the coup on february the 1st rescue workers say at least 4 people have been killed in the southern city of boggo but it's thought the true number could be higher. the u.s. says this new guidelines which will make it easier for its officials to meet their taiwanese counterparts washington's hoping to strengthen relations with taipei after an increase in chinese military activity around the island china says the u.s. is colluding with taiwan to challenge beijing. and biotech have applied for approval to use their covert 19 vaccine on 12 to 15 year olds in the united states the drug companies say phase 3 trials for younger teenagers have been effective they plan to make similar requests around the world in the coming days those are your headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera after studio b. unscripted more news in 30 minutes i'll see that. talked to al just.

tell me what the government you represent is now illegitimate and we listen we do not sell the fence material to any country during the conflict and yet we meet with the global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on syria. biology and anthropology and genetics is really founded in a racist ideology my name's adam rather 3rd i'm a geneticist author and broadcaster i will inevitably get loads of racism i'm being called a racist because i'm talking about races here i'm by 16 i'm an economist once i'm political card say an activist. enforcing the cove it could just be a dress rehearsal for something much worse than the climate and potentially other pandemics and things that can go wrong science is political and always has been political and he's saying it's not you haven't been paying attention for the last 500 years.

or so i've been dying to ask you there in the specter of how to argue with a racist how do you argue with a racist. yeah. i sometimes worry that that title is a little weird for what the book actually sets out to do. and the point is if you structure your your arguments with with facts and with science and with history then these are tools which obviously clearly anti racist in their in their nature they're not a political science isn't a moral it does inherently have a political stance because it's done by people and so you know i sometimes think the conversation gets distracted by talking about white supremacists or active neo nazis and you know there's plenty of them around but in fact i'm more sort of concerned with talking to people who say who effectively have racist views or say

things which are effectively races without really knowing it because it's built in race and racism is built into our society when i was writing a lot of the younger people were saying. to me. you know i wish i had this when i'm in the pub when i'm sitting around the dinner table the thanksgiving table and talking point does my uncle or or someone who says something which is why you know won't black people better at sprinting or well you know on jewish people more intelligence and that's what i wanted to do is to say well these stereotypes correct what is the data where are you getting that information from and be out as those those stereotypes relate to how we understand history and how we understand you know historical persecution zoie storable racisms and in almost all cases what turns out to be the case is one the data is probably not true and to the stereotypes the rooted in in history and says you know that you know you've got

a better argument i'm going to disagree with you to some extent because whilst i find no pixie for helpful when i was campaigning and knocking on thousands of doors actually facts don't seem to work that well when you have conversations with people or. because people always seem to find another 5 told they all you know they just won't necessarily believe you what did weigh was emotions animation and connection and then bringing in some facts i went gungho like you know i've been doing stats for many years as you know whether it be some of the stuff i did 50 b.c. looking into whether we'd have a prime minister and finding that in a black kids you have to work 12 times as hard than a white stay educated and 90 times as hard as the why privately educated to become prime minister you know but for the most part people too many take that aim what they did take in was stories of you know my great grandmother being part of the

british working costs or oh yeah i went to that school too and having a connection with a teacher. and then building the foundation of can they. action and then trying to bring in like maybe some more scientific arguments did you learn the only joran we had when you were going door to door yeah what was it like it was really fun i have to say i really enjoyed doing ok i mean people might find that crazy people actually do want to have political conversations and when they don't they make it really clear so. you know you can back off quite quickly the thing i found is that it's very rare that someone's racist to your face i mean it did happen it was very rare and people who just want to. they speaking kind of human to human and they they want to know a little bit about you and they're willing to have a conversation and that really surprised me one of the things that really struck me

from like twitter well divest is knocking on people's doors was how much more hopeful i was after a 2 hour session of like knocking on people's doors and talking to them rather than looking at my replies on twitter and so you know people really surprised me and people would say that they change their minds about sent things but not if a 5 unfortunately and i'm spent my whole life like yeah i mean how to put together it was often because i had a really nice conversation with you today and you know sometimes having that conversation was not for me didn't have to bring in the stats and the science it's very hard to change people's minds i was saying that it's very very hard times i felt like people would just be like say ok ok just because i wanted to get rid of me or your work is so i was really going also how quickly when you open the door and i didn't do that right i don't i don't go door to door i like to see you like how you're i think of you with a racist and just be so depressed so quickly i mean how quickly were people judging you they look you up and down and go here is someone who looks like you i don't

know anything also about you and therefore you fit into the following stereotypes that i'm going to adhere to i have to demonstrate that i belong to the area and to go beyond because people just would assume so i was like are you from new in which the people that i know is that part of east london where there's more people that look like me and i've been i why would you assume but when did it become. this point of like i belong and you don't well again i think this is a lot to do with our sort of cultural amnesia and very selective telling of the history of empire that actually black and brown people have been present in this country well since roman times admittedly in smaller proportions but that once you understand that phrase the we are here because you were there and that empire is the reason that we live in a multicultural society that if we teach that if we have a much richer understanding of the relationship between the various colonized

places that occurred during. during the years of empire maybe there would be a better a better sense of belonging there with the stops being so i mean if you have a question and your belonging i grew up in a small town in the east coast of england that was when i 1st experienced racism but you know bear in mind i look like this right so my dad is is is from yorkshire . and my my biological mother is indian via guyana right so that's my mixed race miss i did experience some racism in that in that village when i was growing up but it's not you know it's minus stuff and also your parents since 81 i always go on which people of color got which is that you can have to work twice as hard to get anywhere i can get but i didn't get that because all of my experiences of racism were effectively positive and maybe that is a reflection of my own privilege and and being mixed race rather than.

integrated into one particular ethnicity the parent has with me and it was to import them part my dad to us about racism he in fact used to tell us if anyone calls you that he went yeah. he used to make us practice punching on him this is hilarious when i'm no violent person he said a line the 3 of us up and say right punch me here as hard as you can if any one of us says it. i mean the face i was 6 years old right. this is and then my mom at the same time who was the polar opposite to my so my dad and was actually from pakistan and she would say you know if they say that you tell them that the p word means clean in or do i'm sorry like one time primary school in the playground said to me that he would and i said and i thought about it so i punched him i said i use mom's line and i decided not to punch him and say i said the p. word means clean and he was so confused. that he doesn't this is odd to me like

this because he has never said anything again about he just looked so confused so he said my version of that story it's the parallels are very striking up because because when i got called the he was school when i was about 7. by a kid whose name i still remember but i went. i did punch him. and i do you know advocate violence. but i got summoned by the headmaster. and i was terrified because i thought i was going to get into big trouble yeah and what happened was he suspended him and so the outcome for this is what i mean by being positive experiences that's really good because my thing is just to say just ignore it yeah yeah so that's why i think that my own personal experience my own personal narrative is is not necessarily very informative for my own so the development of my ideas it's not absence it sets you apart to try to understand what was going on in that situation but i can't pretend that i've been the recipient of serious

racial abuse through my life more so if you i mean i think i mean yeah i mean you get trolled down if you're a public person joe so you know it's. and there's certainly been instances 3 life but for me you know it's more about the subtle ways that these things come up you know being in the room when you know your colleagues are talking about migrant labor and they say well migrant labor is the come. from the caribbean and pakistan has become obsolete and they're in the room and my privacy for go and. so this is and actually i experienced a lot more racism when i went to the university of oxford and. in light middle class well you know the think tank well then this is you know today the stereotype about the white working causes was a really negative because epithet like this race is green and my experience of growing up with a white working class of course is that racism everywhere but i got much worse

racism and like when i was at the university of oxford which really scared me because i was like these people are going to be in positions of power they are going to run the wild and i know what they really think i've seen them get drunk yeah. it was really important to me deciding. you know do you do policy. myself to be more public in my was so i thought i know. what these people really think of office and what they think of what can cost people especially so i'm just on a big t.v. program on the b.b.c. and i was used as an example of the b.b.c. successful racial diversity and when i heard that i was like if i am your racial diversity then you have a real problem yeah and it's very important that you point now because they will use you know i will use us at times and it's really important that we say this is it real change real change is when i see you know. ethnic minorities in this country and people all around the world you know being given real opportunities not

on not disproportionately on no wait is not disproportionately dying from whatever bar or so illness is coming up you know having equal access to public services that's the real change so i want to see it's not just the odd it's a black faces in high places right like yeah yeah i'm not no no exactly and you know we see we see a good representation of black and brown faces on t.v. but we don't see it behind the camera and we see amazing representation of black faces in you know football for example but we don't see any of it in the managerial struggle noticeable i really needed to have power he gets to write the script he gets to coach the team he gets to be the dodds right so yeah bad type of representation real representation of bell power you know this is the only thing yeah and and even the conversation about racism still today is too superficial for me and i want to go much deeper think much more about institutional change ok sure

we have from audience questions and. i know you from toronto canada. as you said racism is politically advantageous in a world supremacist world wins elections is one of the engines that keeps capitalism running justify subjugation of racialized people to go into labor and poverty so why are we still trying to argue it's recent about the scientific basis of richard's humanity when he would serve them to recognize him well that's a great question but i think that the answer from my point of view is and part of the motivation for writing this book is that there are i found that. the science in this book is not new and not controversial so the idea of the biological essential as a man the biological basis for race has been utterly taken down by science by genetics that is a non-controversial thing to say within the lab within academia but what i found as a science communicator and in talking to publics is that that that information

hasn't filtered down into into public consciousness and that's on me right you know that's my job is to do that. and then secondly on top of that it's that in the last few years with the rise of. populism and nationalism and changing political discourse but also the way the public embrace particular genetic ancestry testing kits products i think has actually changed the conversation about race and reintroduced biological essential as in my ideas into the public discourse in a way that i don't think any of us within genetics anticipated so i think part of my job is actually just again disabusing people of those of those ideas in a way that i didn't think we'd have to do if we were having this conversation 10 years ago yeah i do i want to acknowledge it's how hard it is to do this way

especially if you're a person of color and to have these conversations with racists is exhausting and there's just tiresome need to think what's the point of having this conversation that it's not going to they're not going to see air but i think more generally what we have to do. is counter to the way in which. racism is being used to support certain governments and certain ideologies or right wing you know quite mainstream ideologies and we've got to keep having that conversation and one of the areas that i find i get most hope is when i have this conversation with the younger generation who are not everyone but for the most part seems much more up for talking about this we need to all do the work and have the conversations and it doesn't to start with government starts with the in your own household and within your own family and at your school and you know we need people to do the what isn't just people of color let's have another question

so you just face a little bit on how cool the defects in equality how do you think it could have been different was coded if you listen for the polarization we had towards the virus thank you really has exposed the levels of inequality in societies whether it be about gender based inequalities whether it be about race whether it be about income and who's losing their job who is most likely to die and it's really society under an x. ray and demonstrate how much inequality matches and that is a lesson for us going forward because unfortunately cove it could just be a dress rehearsal for something much worse and you look at climate and potentially other pandemics and things that can go wrong and i think. ok he says societies that canada cough. are import that can stick together that follow instructions that's going to be really important for any kind of crisis coming up yeah from my perspective exposed to how we think about science and society as well in the

relationship between science and policy. and so you know the fact that it was racialized into discreet ways early on one was the provenance of the disease so there was you know racialized attacks right here in london a kid from my own university with from singapore was beaten on oxford street in america that there are so many attacks against chinese americans and korean americans there has a son with a pedia page you know numbers in the many thousands already so that was that was one aspect and then how. minority groups are more likely to be infected or more likely to die and these are best explained by socio economic factors rather than rather than sort of you know genetics or molecular biology you can't deal with with a pandemic without having science and you can't make vaccines without science that you know that that is our job in this process but if you don't deal with the underlying problems. and in fact the underlying causes of this pandemic which is

man's humankind interaction with nature itself the fact that we are encroaching upon territories because of climate change and causing climate change which means that we are interacting in nature where these viruses coronaviruses live humankind is not exonerated from this conversation it's not a natural phenomenon that this that this occurred to this pandemic occurred it's because of our integrated relationship and changing relationship with the environment i think we're going to take another question. hi. family growth up his education an anti-racism education system i think how large is still not widely taught in schools and university or when it is taught it's quite a seclusive to slavery. or history rather than an intersectional subject across all 4 subjects so in your respective fields economics and

science how do you think lisa take place in order for us to be learning about racism and understanding and to racism in the education system so i think we're interesting nexus right now because the concept of anti racism has been weaponized against and to racism which is you know fundamentally problematic you know our government are focusing very much on this question of whether the introduction of of discussions about anti racism you know are serving education i teach at u.c.l. just over there and we have race and genetics and race and eugenics integrated into our buyout biology courses and that's been like that for 40 years i think that might be a slightly unusual history because a lot of race science and eugenics actually occurred at u.c.l. and what i've discovered in the last couple of years since doing this book is that

that conversation doesn't even spill outside of the biology department at u.c.l. let alone into the broader society i think that overall. my sense is that to normalize these conversations is part of the social change it requires a political movement and it requires you know revolutionary voices and conservative voices but ultimately you know i do think the arc of history is towards progress i think that is true i think we're in a weird blip at the moment i don't we i mean do you do you agree or disagree with that i hope it's by also warry that we are you know regressed same i think we are a very worrying time if we're not going to. learn the lessons from covert. we're not able to say ok yes we truly are going to build back better we're going to make sure we do do a green you'd say oh and we do have higher wages and you know invest more in our health care systems and the rest of it. then we would have missed this this major

moment in which we could have had the acceleration of change positive change like there was off to the 2nd world war and just just a question as well and just what the economics discipline condemning is all kinds of problems with the way in which the economics is tool but one thing i would say to those studying economics right now is to oss. distributional questions i asked him will this policy or will this particular way of looking at markets he will be affected he will win and he will lose and ask why and when you are says questions and you follow that through why you always come back to issues of prejudice and it's really important for us to push back on subjects like you know your hair i'm hearing from you on science and genetics and you know economics which also kind of thinks of itself as a science sometimes even though it's a social science i think it's fairly obvious to the audience we both like. in the nest. and you know asking people to. be challenged well

deliberately challenge and i didn't get into this to talk about race i go into this because i really like evolution and d.n.a. and genes but the point but there comes a point where you know if you're a scientist talking about humans then you can't not talk about this and i think that you know that's my message to to my my scientific. colleagues and friends is that it's not enough to sit back and say you know what we did the research and it's up to people and publics and governments to talk about the policy implications necessary or otherwise for my work we are part of society and i think it's the same for economists as well that that that we need a much better more integrated approach to understanding. history and how our history informs our present science is political and always has been political and if you say it's not you haven't been paying attention for the last

500 years yeah the missing really gets to speak to you and even though. i know this is history and science of racism and the way in which science is often used by racists i think it's one of the things i really take from this conversation is really but if us as individuals trying to do our work and finding in all disciplines in economics and in science there's this massive blind spot when it comes to race and racism and prejudice and the way in which it's playing out in all industries all sexes i think that some think that everyone can look at their own spare of work and understand that racism and prejudice is always bad we all have it within our us but we socialised to be racist all the time we have to take that action to fight and it's at the individual level and within all disciplines if

we're willing to be have that conversation and be brave then we will be somewhere else in 5 years or in 10 years and that is the work that needs to be done so even though it's difficult or i do find it difficult. it's a positive sign alternately because you know it wouldn't be worth changing it was it hard away like that absolutely and it is the struggle for that for a reason so keep going yes keep going i'm going to do the things we can. go hard or anything going to do that. i couldn't accept the reality that my actually going to go on a rubber boat across the aegean with 60 people to seek. saddam in europe when i was a teenager listening to him i never expected that this would have been it's very very important for me that you acknowledge the honor that is due to my food i don't

care the color of your skin i don't care that the city please cook my food but at least respect my roots to come here navigating b.-o. crissy racism language barriers to borders and statements and then rebuild your life is by itself a success. from the al-jazeera london broke out to people in thoughtful conversation people use the lowest get agreement they describe the outsider with no host and no limitation the difference between a migrant and refugee is purely a choice when you are refugee you are forced to speak thought one of as mcallen and has an ak at what has happened a lot in the west is that culture and food are separated studio b. unscripted on al-jazeera.

planet earth a wondrous diverse ecosystem but human activity is the escalating climate change and posing an x. the stench of threat in the lead up to us to al-jazeera run special cover documentaries discussions and reports exploring the consequences of all actions and inactions and showcasing ways in which some are seeking to turn the tide a season of programming exploring the climate crisis ahead of earth day on al-jazeera. the athletes are larger than life but the world of sumo wrestling is shrouded in secrecy one a one nice gets rare access inside

a sport where ancient tradition meets modern scandal on al-jazeera play an important role in acting it would. ringback face. a nation in. mourning tributes in the u.k. and around the world after the death of prince philip at the age of $99.00. he was queen elizabeth's constant companion for 7 decades we look at the legacy of a no nonsense royal who could be controversial. hello again i'm peter dobby you're watching al-jazeera live from our headquarters here in doha also.