Multiracial People and MS
On September 3, #MixedRace Daily, published by MulticulturalFamilia sent out a story with this misleading headline: MS Risk Greater with Epstein-Barr Virus Infection, Multiracial Study Shows
This publication is geared to the multiracial community. Based on the misleading headline, we at Project RACE have been getting contacted by people wanting to know about why multiracial people get MS more often than people of one single race. The answer is very clear: MULTIRACIAL PEOPLE DO NOT GET INFECTED WITH THE EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS MORE OFTEN THAN SINGLE RACE PEOPLE. The term “multiracial” in this case was used to mean people of African-American and Hispanic backgrounds and was made clear in the body of the article, which is important to know, but not in this context. In our busy world, many people only skim the headlines.
I don’t know anything about #MixedRace Daily except that they supposedly put out timely stories of interest to the multiracial community. However, they often re-post stories with misleading headlines. In other words, they read the headlines, but not necessarily the stories behind those headlines. So the end result is truly fake news. Articles need to be read to find out the context in which the term, “Multiracial” is used. It is used differently by different countries, as well.
I personally wrote an email to them pointing out this particular mistake. #MixedRace Daily refused to retract or clarify its story. Things happen and legitimate news outlets make corrections whenever necessary. We at Project RACE get misleading or downright mistaken stories all the time, some of which are victims of the exact misuse of nomenclature. We fact check as best we can. We will not utilize faulty or misleading stories just to fill some space. We find this very, very objectionable. So should you.