Tag: henrietta

Live Forever, Or Die Trying

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Summary

This unit analyzes The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and how the historical context enabled for mistreatment and discrimination to occur to the Lacks family. Using the insight of patient privacy that we have now, it is easy to see what injustice the family suffered, however, at the time, it was debatable as to whether consent was required. We presented our knowledge in a variety of ways: fishbowl discussions, TIEAs, blog posts, verbal analysis, and reflections.

In this, you’ll find how a woman who died so young, was able to live forever.

Discussion

TIEA

Blogs on ILOHL

Discrimination Blog Post: Culture Shock

Privacy Blog Post: Money Grows on People

Verbal Analysis

Unit Reflection

 

Culture Shock

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;Fear of racial discrimination acts as a barrier to human connection.

As a young asian kid who just moved to sunny California, you’re not taught much about culture. All I knew was that I had to leave my childhood home, boarded on a plane with my teddy, and all of a sudden, I found myself in a new continent, in the middle of the brightly colored cereal aisle, white lights glaring off the reflection of the floor. I jumped in the shopping cart excitedly, whoops and cheers as the promises of my brother to push me around the store was blurred by the wind rushing past my ears.

Thanks to the emptiness of the aisle, we were able to dash down to the end before we were met by our mom’s glare. Not quite sure what exactly we were doing wrong, just assuming we were just not supposed to roughhouse in the store, the smiles dropped from our faces and we became serious once again, pretending to discuss the intricacies of Frosted Flakes vs Coco Puffs.

She reprimanded us for being loud and disturbing other shoppers, and we behaved for the rest of the trip; all the way from the cold freezers of milk to the pyramids of apples to the hot rush of air that spilled out from the heated car. Once we settled in the seats, she explained that we had to be careful with how we behaved, not only for the sake of how we were perceived, but also for the sake of how asians were perceived.

The underlying fear of being racially stereotyped or discriminated against is magnified by Henrietta’s family. After a history of doctors experimenting on blacks and being taken advantage of because of lack of education regarding cells, they were justifiably weary of Skloot.

“He warned her not to talk to white people about her story. She panicked and called her brother Lawrence, who told her the man was right.” (250).

They’ve had a bad time with reporters and doctors previously, so when Skloot, a white reporter, wanted to interview them, the family was against the idea. They’ve developed a skepticism to white people in fear of being stripped of their rights because of their race.  

Since black oral history has been filled with tales of ‘night doctors’ who kidnapped black people for research” (165).  

It wasn’t just the Lackses, the black community was afraid of being used by doctors because of the extensive use of black bodies in experiments.

Recently, due to coronavirus, the asian community has similarly begun to fear racial stereotyping. People are afraid of being discriminated or made fun of because they happen to be asian.

 

Quote Citation: Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Broadway Books, 2010. Print.

Image Citation: Rothstein, Arthur. “A man is tested for syphilis in 1935.” History Collection. Corbis. https://historycollection.co/20-photos-tuskegee-syphilis-study/

Money Grows on…People

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In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the idea of ignoring someone’s privacy for personal benefit becomes a big issue as her cells were cultured without her consent, then sold and mass produced, making big pharmaceuticals a lot of money. On the contrary, Henrietta’s family still remains poor, not being able to afford health care. 

Today, we will explore how the American people are exploited by corrupt systems that violates the people’s privacy for personal benefit, both in the medical field, and the law.

Henrietta Lacks

“Henrietta’s cells helped launch the fledgling field of virology…researchers around the world made several important scientific advances in quick succession (98).”

Through HeLa cells, doctors were able to conduct research they had never done before and advance further in science in just a few short years. However, this all happened without the family or Henrietta’s knowledge.

“Like many doctors of his era, TeLinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment.”
(30).

Back then, consent was not always required. Although there were standard practices that suggested the consent of patients before treatment, no one enforced it because the ethics of patients’ rights were of big concern. This rang especially true in places like Baltimore, where Henrietta lived, because black people being used by doctors was nothing new. Decades of non-consensual research near the Hopkins area that killed and violated the black population had brought on the idea that any research stemming from the use of the black people was only fair for the treatment that they got in return.

Police Brutality

In the song Love It If We Made It by the 1975, the band uses the phrase,

“Start with misdemeanours and we’ll make a business out of them.”

This is believed to be talking about the wrongful, racially motivated incarceration of black people in America.Stop Killing Black People by Alexandra Jones via Flickr/ CC BY-NC 2.0

In the US, 34% of the incarcerated population is African Americans, many of those arrested for nonviolent drug charges but still given sentences that deal time more than that for a typical misdemeanor sentence. Due to high rates of incarceration, the U.S. prison system is allowed to rake in billions of dollars in revenue every year, by using prisoners as free labor. They benefit and profit off of minor crimes committed by black people because often there is stigma and pre-determined bias surrounding the African American community. They ARE more likely to be stopped by police when they aren’t doing anything unlawful just because they are black. This can result in the officer violating their privacy in efforts to arrest them, ex: killing unarmed black people.

End Police Brutality by Jamelle Bouie via Flickr/CC by 2.0

Why? Personal benefit

Both in Henrietta Lacks and Love It If We Made It, there is clear exploitation of corrupt systems by using the bodies of the people for personal benefit. They are being taken advantage of by the same systems that were supposed to take care of them and protect them. This is where personal benefit supersedes a person’s right to privacy.

Citations:

Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Broadway Books, 2010. Print.

Daniel, George., Healy, Matthew. “Love it if we made it.” Genius Lyrics. 2019. https://genius.com/The-1975-love-it-if-we-made-it-lyrics.