Conservative columnist William Saletan, after analyzing a National Cancer Institute study that reveals African Americans with gender-based cancers have a “significantly worse overall survival rate” than whites, concluded that the likely reason is genetic differences in our racial makeup.

The NCI study found that black Americans are 21 to 61 percent more likely than whites to die from ovarian, breast, and prostate cancers, even when dynamics such as income, education, and access to medical care are factored in.

The findings could point to any number of things, such as our community’s disturbing history of late-stage diagnoses, which could be the result of a misguided but reasonably understandable mistrust of the medical community.

Saletan, however, argues that it’s our DNA. There’s just one problem with his theory: It’s wrong.

There is no gene that equals black or white, or any race for that matter. When it comes to the human genome, we’re all pretty much the same. Here’s what Saletan has to say:

“Denying that race is real or that genes play a role in racial differences is just as simplistic as pretending that race explains everything or that discrimination has vanished.”

He goes on to proclaim that people are afraid to acknowledge genetic differences along racial lines for fear it will “lay a scientific foundation for segregation.”

Hello? The Bell Curve? The Tuskegee Experiment? The African slave trade?

We don’t have to look far to see how race and “DNA coding” can be dangerously manipulated for financial or social gain. And when it comes to medical classifications, that notion just smacks of so-called genetic inferiority. Saletan wastes no time supporting this idea, too.

In discussing his theory on biology and black Americans, he references a column he wrote two years ago about race, heredity intelligence, and the reasons white American kids have higher IQs than black American kids. They have bigger brains, he claims. So, from his perspective, if biological determinism manifests itself in intelligence, it makes sense that it would extend to health outcomes, too.

But here’s the real deal: Discussing genetic differences based on race sidetracks us from the issue at hand, which is closing the cancer survival gap, the original purpose of the study. The fact is that a more comprehensive analysis is needed, and this is where documenting the health trends of ethnic and racial groups becomes important. It is indeed worth exploring.

There’s little doubt, for instance, that obesity and stress exacerbate illnesses among African Americans, as does our diet. To make matters worse, African Americans don’t regularly visit a doctor, nor do we develop long-term relationships with medical professionals. Probably that mistrust creeping up again. But these issues are as much about social and environmental influences as they are about personal choices and lifestyle practices.

Saletan doesn’t appear to consider any of this before pronouncing our racial makeup the culprit. If you ask me, it’s because focusing on DNA is an easy way out. If people can point to a scientific explanation for why blacks don’t fair so well when battling cancer, then we don’t have to scrutinize our nation’s health care system or examine external contributors to poor survival outcomes.

The biggest danger, as Raina Kelley wrote in her column for Newsweek, is that we’ll start talking about medical conditions in terms of “us or them.” And, as history shows, that sort of deviation is just a big fat waste of time for everyone.

But for good reason. I know the truth, and I want to share it with others. Spoken like a true convert, huh? The sad and not-so-sad reality about most cancers is that if you catch them early, they’re highly curable. But, according to a recent report by the American Cancer Society, black Americans are being diagnosed at more advanced stages. Early screening is obviously the answer here, but that requires seeing a physician regularly, something black people don’t do. We have an unhealthy distrust of medical professionals, and that kind of attitude will be the death of us—literally.

And it’s not just about cancer. The same is true for any number of health-related issues. Now, I’m no doctor. But Rob Gore is. When we discussed health disparities and the black community, he talked about how crucial it is for people to be informed. He would know.

Most days and nights, Dr. Gore can be found in the emergency room at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y. He chose to do emergency room medicine to assist urban populations in need. A few years back, he went to Kenya to help set up health clinics and schoolhouses, followed by a trip to Guyana to do the same. He’s headed to Haiti in April to work with the underserved there. This guy is like Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization all rolled up into one. He’s also the first doctor I reached out to after my diagnosis, and he’s been my friend ever since. Dr. Gore told me a large number of his patients have no idea about what’s going on with their health. He urges people to “listen to their bodies, develop relationships with their doctors, and be active participants.”

When it comes to improving health outcomes in the black community, some of the barriers often cited are social inequality and lack of access to care. There’s no denying that African Americans receive a different level of care when compared to whites, but studies also show that we significantly underuse our medical resources. Moreover, in this information age, all Americans have equal access to news, data, and studies. There are Websites on just about every health topic imaginable. Most doctors are reachable via e-mail. And for those of us who aren’t Internet savvy, Dr. Gore recommends attending community health fairs, tapping into resources at your church, and going to the library.

Becoming your own advocate is the quickest way to help reverse the disproportionate number of late-stage diagnoses in our community. That and changing our attitude toward those in the medical community. One thing I realized from talking to Dr. Gore, and the extraordinary team of doctors who treated me, is that health professionals really do want to save our lives. Maybe it’s time we helped them out with that.