Social Justice Event
I decided to do my social justice
event on The Immortal life Of Henrietta Lacks. For one my classes we are
required to read this book, and we had to attend a discussion on how race
played a big role in Henrietta Lacks’ treatment.
For those
of you who have not read the book, it is about a poor black woman whose cells
were taken form her without her knowledge. They called them HeLa Cells-
these cells became one of the most important tools in medicine and produced
billions of dollars. Her family was very poor and never received anything from
Henrietta’s cells. Often people question
if this process would have been different if Henrietta was a white female,
would she have known that doctors were going to take cells from her?
The first
text I would like to relate this too is “Tracking” by Jeannie Oakes. I know her
story is all about why Schools need to take other routes and has absolutely
nothing to do with hospitals, but it totally reminded me of this. Henrietta Lacks was very poor; she couldn’t
afford any type of health insurance that is why she ended up at Johns Hopkins
Hospital. Hopkins was known as a charity hospital and one of the few hospitals
that would actually treat black people. This hospital was totally tracked; they
had one section for white people and one section for black people. I believe that this is a main reason why
people are starting to question of Henrietta’s treatment was standard, or if it
was an experimental procedure. If Henrietta were a white female on the white
floor would the doctors have asked permission for them to take a piece of her
cancer tissue. One of the big issues that Oakes points out in the reading is
that by tracking it causes uneven opportunities. This can totally apply to
Henrietta Lacks’ story!
The second
text I would like to relate this too is Amazing Grace by Jonathon Kozel. Kozel
basically says that history repeats itself. Racism and poverty repeats due to
the system and codes of power. Kozel tells a story about a woman who was being
treated in a hospital and she talks about how poorly she was treated. “I went
to the hospital and, when I get there, it’s six hours before they can put me in
a bed. Then, when I go upstairs, the room is not prepared. The bed is covered
with blood and bandages from someone else. Flowers are scattered on the floor.
Toilet’s stopped with toilet paper. Bed hasn’t been made. I’d been through this
once before. Either you wait for hours until someone cleans the room or else
you clean the room yourself.” This quote
reminds me of Henrietta Lack’ experience in the hospital. Due to the fact that
she was a poor black woman with no health insurance her stays at the hospital
were miserable. She would have to wait hours in severe pain before she would
get meds. Because of poverty and the codes of power these doctors treated this
who side of the hospital this way.
The last
text this relates to is Privilege, Power and Difference by Allen G.
Johnson. Johnson says, “A huge store of
knowledge, from scientific research to passionate memoirs, documents this
trouble and leaves no doubt that it causes enormous amounts of injustice and
unnecessary suffering.” Johnson wants to change the rules of power. The reason this
reminded me of Henrietta Lacks is because her race played a big role in the way
she was treated. It was injustice that because of her race, she didn’t have an
option on what hospital was going to treat her. If the codes of power were
different back then, maybe she wouldn’t of been pushed away so many times. I feel very strong, that If Henrietta was a
white woman that she would have been taken more seriously.
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