The misuse of race in medicine has far-reaching implications across practice, teaching, and research in hematology. This session is intended to explore what race is and what it is not, and illustrate how systemic factors, including racism, influence health care access and outcomes. The session will also explore strategies to tackle systemic racism in patient care and how to create conditions for equitable care for patients with blood diseases. Dr. Joseph L. Graves Jr. will provide a summary of the history of biological conceptions of race and describe modern evolutionary conceptions of race. He will then address how this understanding can be useful in employing the power of modern genomic tools applied to human biological diversity, including how the use of these tools completely unravels the false premises of racial medicine. Dr. Chanita Hughes Halbert will define health care disparities and describe the nature and distribution of social determinants of disparities in disease risk and outcomes. She will also provide an overview of structural racism and its impact on health care outcomes in diverse populations.