Monthly Archives: April 2019

Remember to Make Things Clear…

Grade 10, Language and Literature G10

In life, the majority of people normally in some way experienced the time when someone misunderstood one’s intentions or information on their actions and leads to major attitude differences as a consequence. I’m not an exception either.

In my earlier childhood, I had once got in trouble because of teacher misunderstanding my facial expressions. The teacher was giving me a command to follow while I was giving him a little smile which he became more aggressive after that. The command was to copy down all the school rules on paper as I disrupted the class to answer questions for my classmates, which I felt very innocent about it. I was giving the teacher a little smile since I feel it very innocent about it and hope to be asked about the reasons for it, but the teacher, however, misunderstood it.

He assumed that I was being disrespectful to an adult as I smile back while he was talking, and even asked a faculty from the school to verify the fact that in Chinese culture student should not be smiling when teachers are speaking in a serious tone. In the end, I still didn’t get the chance to express my thoughts or even the intention of that innocent smile, which after that I had clearly remembered the importance of making the right expression in order to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding from people. Misunderstanding tends to make enormous differences in attitude by misinterpreting one’s intentions.

Do You Smile Too Much? by Minda Zetlin via inc.com / CC BY-NC-SA

The power of misunderstanding can be also shown in the story The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks. David Lacks misunderstood the intention of John Hopkins and signed the autopsy permission form of Henrietta Lacks.

“The doctors asked again about the autopsy. They said they wanted to run tests that might help his children someday.”(90) 

David’s misunderstanding and the influence from John Hopkins had hugely impact on the further investigation of Henrietta’s body and most importantly public the discovery of Hela cells which the Lacks family turns out being dissatisfied about that.

Moreover, in the story, Skloot was on the trip with Deborah attempting to find the mysterious sickness of the members of the Lacks family. The first vivid conflict became to show up as Deborah misunderstood about the smile from Skloot’s facial expression.

“I smiled. Not because I thought it was funny, but because I thought it was sweet that she was protective of her sister”(283)

“You’re lying!” Who are you working for?”(283) 

Deborah misunderstood Skloot’s smile and suspect that she was working for John Hopkins which in another way see her as a betrayer. However, this conflict as Deborah was aiming to test the limit of Skloot temper.

Thunder fans burn Kevin Durant’s jersey by Jacob DeLaughter via foxsport.com  /

CC BY-NC-SA

Similar cases also happened in today’s sports world. People tend to misunderstand the players that have been traded to another team. They turn from love to hate instantly. They tend to forget players’ former contributions to the team and criticized their leaving as a betrayal. However, as some people said, “It is still a business.”

 

Citation:

  • Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Broadway Books, 2010.

Just Going to Do It, No Matter What?… (Progress vs. Privacy)

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In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, there was a great finding that was found in Henrietta’s body. It was one of the most significant discoveries that largely helped the human’s medical to move a big step forward from the past. The discovery is named “Hela cells” and this was originally found in Henrietta’s body. Although this discovery made a huge and positive impact on human society, there was still some unethical action between it.

George Gey was the first person that found the Hela cells directly from Henrietta’s body. However, as the book stated, “Henrietta knew nothing about her cells growing in a laboratory”(Skloot, 42). It shows how George Gey did not ask for any consent from Henrietta before taking her cell into a laboratory for further investigation. Moreover, Gey decided to give these samples freely to all scientists all over the world to help to prove the cell’s functions. Henrietta Lacks still knew nothing about it even after she died by the reason of aggressive cancer.

I believed what George Gey has done was unethical and considered inhumane. This totally violates one’s privacy and most importantly, he did it for the purpose to benefit himself so he can work on further observations about the cells. However, all of what George did have not to get any consent from either Henrietta or the Lacks family. Although he made a significant discovery and contribution to the human medical society, the issue still more towards the moral aspect of a person should not publicly release one’s private information and should be considered unethical and illegal in nowadays.

It reminds me of a comedy movie called “Inside Out”. In the movie, there are 4 emotions that are transformed into characters that help to control the overall brain emotion in different circumstances. However, in some scenes, “anger” also tries to manipulate and take over the whole situation as he did not ask for any consent of other emotions and directly make his call right away. It shows the action of how someone ignores others and attempting to achieve something that benefits themselves more than others.

Anger by Andrew Smith  via (CC BY-SA 2.0)