Mackenzie’s Blog

She grew up in your shadow. 

The light of their eyes always on you,

it wasn’t easy.

She tried to let them know but her words were never enough.

Have you tried closing your eyes?

All the darkness you see

that’s the life she’s been walking through.

Like sun shining through a closed eyelid

their love was faded.

She knows it’s always been you.

The north star of a human; a gift.

In chapter 37 Deborah excitedly called Rebecca telling her she wanted to go to school. She told her “I keep thinkin, maybe if I understood some science, then the story about my mother and sister wouldn’t scare me so much.” Deborah really wanted wanted to become educated, she even told Rebecca that she would go to college. Unfortunately, later in the chapter Skloot says Deborah came to the realization that she couldn’t afford school. This demonstrates the abstract of alienation, specifically class. Deborah so desperately wanted to go to school and become educated, but because of her class she was unable to afford school. It makes me sad that she had to give up something she was so passionate about because of her lack of money.

In the U.S. today many people still can’t afford college. It’s sad to think that for years now people have been able to get an education because the expense of it is too much. The article ‘Low-Income Students Cannot Afford 95 Percent of Colleges’ touches on the subject of inequality. It claims that “This inequity enables a wealthy student to attend essentially any college while effectively shutting out many of her peers.” I believe this is saying that the education systems we have are focused around the upper class. They believe that people with money are more valuable, therefore they should be able to get an education. This relates deborahs situation where she couldn’t get a proper education because she was poor putting her in the lower class category.

In chapter 33 Deborah and Skloot go to the hospital where henriettas daughter Elsie was held. Paul Lurz the hospitals director gives them an article called ‘overcrowded hospital “loses” curable patients.’ The article talks about the treatment of the patients at the hospital, for example, “when they had beds, they usually slept two or more on a twin mattress, lying head to foot, forced to crawl across a sea of sleeping bodies to get to the bed.” Not only was the hospital overpopulated, many of the patients there were abused and experimented on without consent. Some of the patients weren’t insane either. This really drew my attention because I remembered previously in the book, on page 165, when the Lacks family talked about doctors stealing black people from the streets to experiment on. This made me wonder, could the same hospital that Elsie was held at be responsible for stealing people from the streets? The theme of alienation was really shown in this chapter. All of these people were being experimented on and tortured because of their skin color. It really makes me wonder what the treatment was like at the mental hospitals for white people. Were they still treated badly or did they get better treatment because of their skin color?

I’m chapter 15 Skloot starts to talk more in depth about what happened to the lacks children after Henriettas death. She talks about how sonny, Deborah, and Zakariyah were all abused by a lady named Ethel. They were beaten, starved, and forced to do work. I think this shows a theme of alienation, specifically class. Kids are taught at a young age to respect their elders and listen to the adults. So, with the adults having much more authority over the children, they didn’t know any better than to be quiet and let it happen. I want to focus specifically on deborahs abuse. Not only was she beaten by Ethel she was also sexually assaulted by Galen multiple times. Even though she was young she knew something wasn’t right, so she tried to tell her father, but he ignored her and let it happen. This made me upset because there is so much of this happening now a days too, where women are sexually assaulted and not believed. I can’t even begin to imagine how that would feel for Deborah, especially at such a young age. I think a lot of deborahs anxiety and nervous issues are not only from the stress of not knowing anything about her mom, but from the abuse she suffered as a child.

I found this source that focuses on the statistics of abuse on young children, specifically young girls. I think this source helps to understand exactly what child abuse is and the overall impact that it has on a child’s life and future.

In chapter 17 Skloot goes into depth about a virologist by the name of Chester Southam. She focus’ specially on his experimentation done on Jewish prison inmates. Southam wanted to see what would happen if a healthy person was injected with the HeLa cells, so he conducted his research on prison inmates. He injected each of them with the HeLa cells and began his research. The problem with this was that he wasn’t informing the inmates that he was injecting them with live cancer cells. I took an interest in all of this because not only was he injecting healthy people with live cancer he completely lied about ever doing it claiming that he didn’t know consent was needed. I found it crazy that after injecting over 600 people he only lost his medical license for a year. Many people claimed that what he did was Nazi work and were saying that the first rule in the Nuremberg code is consent is essential. I wanted to know more about what exactly the Nuremberg code was so I looked it up and rule one wasn’t the only rule Southam broke. Rule five specifically states that “no experiments should be conducted if it is believed to cause death/disability.” There is no cure for cancer meaning, if Southam’s hypothesis was found to be true and injecting people with HeLa cells gave them cancer he was inevitably causing their death. As stated in this article “The Nuremberg Code aimed to protect human subjects from enduring the kind of cruelty and exploitation the prisoners endured at concentration camps.” Everything Southam did was a violation of the code and human rights.

In chapter 8 Skloot points out that “segregation was law, and it was understood thay black people didn’t question white people’s professional judgement.” I found this to be really sad because Henrietta knew that she wasn’t okay. She stayed silent because she was just glad to be getting treatment since segregation and discrimination was so widespread. Later in the chapter Skloot says that Henrietta went back to the hospital multiple times saying she was unable to walk from the pain and that the pain was spreading. The doctor even wrote in their notes that the patient looks chronically ill but sent her home anyway. It’s sad to think about that because of her skin color Henrietta didn’t get the proper treatment she should’ve. Although there’s no cure with proper treatment she may have been able to live a little longer or live her last days with no pain, but because of her race she was sent home. Near her last few days the doctors stopped all treatments on Henrietta which made me wonder was it because there was nothing else they could do? Or was it simply because of her race?

This chapter really made me wonder how many black people were refused treatment, and if things like what happened to Henrietta are still happening. I wanted to know more so I found an article titled “Dying while black: Perpetual gaps exist in health care for African-Americans.” This article talks about how patients that are black generally receive worse pain management compared to their white counterparts. It goes into more depth stating that “at the end of their lives, black patients do not receive the same comfort care, including eye contact and touch, from physicians that white patients do.” I believe this is similar to what happened to Henrietta. It’s unable to be sure why the doctors stopped her treatment but I believe that her race played a big factor. This article really points out the discrimination still going on in health care today.

After reading the first few chapters of this book I have realized that it’s less about Henrietta’s cells, but more about her family and her life. In chapter one Skloot talks about how Henrietta never wanted to go to the hospital, because of the lack of black people accepted in hospitals. I found it very interesting that she would rather suffer. This shows how black people were treated back then and really showcases the theme of alienation. Because of her skin color Henrietta was afraid to get treated, causing her to find out about her cancer after it was too late. Not only was she afraid to go to the hospital, after she finally decided to go, they lied to her. She was never informed that the radiation treatment would cause her to not be able to have kids anymore.

A source that I found that really interested me was “Institutional Racism in the Health Care System.” This article points out that even though segregation is now illegal, it can still be found within some healthcare systems. Some organizations continue to discriminate based on insurance status, and a majority of them are non-white candidates. I found this all very interesting because although, segregation isn’t legal like it was back then, people are still racist. Even years later, people are still having to experience what Henrietta did, because of the racism in the world.