Rema Hamami

In this poem, I am “under the influence” of the poet Marwa Helal. 

Poem read from right to left-

,other each into melting are days the All

?home back go finally I will When

,country corrupt this in Trapped

.freedom Craving 

,said they opportunities Endless

,part suffering endless the out Leaving

,tired is here Everyone

As I finish the final chapters of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I want to reflect on my past reading. I honestly enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. Although there were parts where I honestly couldn’t continue and would have to pick up on reading the next day, this book actually didn’t take me too long to finish. In my final post, I’d like to bring to attention the experiences of Henrietta’s youngest daughter. When they were getting the records for her from the Mental ward institute and to the family's surprise, they saw all the things they were doing to her. They saw how the staff was treating her and how they tortured her. Skloot gave us a horrific picture in the book and described how there was someone's hand around her neck and how her face was all contorted. She painted a terrible picture in our minds about the way that they chose to treat her as an African American girl. This, for me, was probably the hardest part to read and really showed the abstract of alienation because of race. It honestly just gives a bad image to the whole medical community because now we know how they tortured this little girl because of her darker skin tone. 

As a secondary source to conclude the book, I decided to go with an article talking about how the American Health care system is failing African American women. This really sums up a lot of this book because it has many parts that include different white physicians just manipulating the Lacks family and not actually treating them like people. They treat them as subjects in a bigger plan of theirs. This can also be tied back to when the Lacks family got blood work done and told that it would help them not get cancer in the future, which was not true for the record. The healthcare system in America has earned many prestigious titles, but it’s about time that we fix something simple, like respecting all patients equally, to have an even greater relationship between physician and patient. 

As we conclude reading, I see that religion is becoming increasingly important and prevalent. One example is that when her daughter later learns about her mother’s cells, she ties it back to her mother still being alive to her. Deborah believed that her mom’s spirit lived on through these cells. Another example is that when the HeLa cells were used in experiments, they grew at such a fast rate that they contaminated all the research that some researchers spent millions of dollars on. I see this as a way of Henrietta getting back at some of these people for not only not getter her consent to take the cells but also because her family was not given a share of the money from her cells. 

As I looked more into this, I wanted to really bring in the religious aspect and found an article talking about how some patients beat the odds and actually have medical miracles. This is honestly how I would describe Henrietta, because of her beating the odds of science and actually living on in the form of her cells. In the perspective of Deborah, her mom’s spirit is still alive today, even with all the racial segregation that she had to go through when she was just wanting help from a physician.

When Henrietta passed, I noticed that the two abstracts that I chose, Money in America and Alienation because of Race, started to really connect. I saw that because of her family's race, they were not given a chance to even get a sum of the money from the profit generated from her cells, which ties in money in America. We can also see that they were completely manipulated by these docors because the doctors didn’t see the point in giving recognition to them or even the slightest bit of respect. It can be further assumed that this book really shows how your race can affect the money that you earn or could potentially earn.

I really disliked this idea because I didn’t that your race could determine how high or low your income is. In our news and media, we know always talk about the privilege men may have over women in the workplace, but racial injustice is never brought up when talking about this issue. 

As I looked deeper into this, I found an article called “How Racial Segregation Leads to Income Inequality” that talks about how there is an actual gap between the incomes of black and white people. The author, Joe Cortright, shows evidence to this and states how although it may be getting better, there is no denying that there is a  huge gap in pay. In Henrietta’s case, it was no surprise that people that were white and in a higher class made money from her cells. She and her family were only victims of this evidence and were even struggling to make ends meet, while others were making money off of their loved one.

Going through the book, the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I was astounded to find out how her mindset and mood were when the doctors told her that her cells would save a huge number of lives. She thought about how someone else would get ‘good’ from it and how she was actually happy to know that she will be part of something bigger. Although the doctors at the time may have been concerned with the money aspect, bringing in the Money in America abstract, she was not. She shows character through this and doesn’t even ask about the money or benefits for herself. This raises the question for me of what does money change about a person's character? 

We give money, especially in America, so much worth and so much time thinking and worrying about it. We spend our whole lives just trying to get the job that’ll give us the most or trying to climb the latter to the best job. But when we look in Henrietta’s case, she didn’t let money change her or her happiness for the other people that may be helped from her cells. She didn’t look towards greediness but instead showed empathy for others. 

As I looked deeper into this, I found an article from CBS News that talks about how money affects human interaction. The author, Stepanie Watson, talks about how money actually changes us for the worse. Watson states,” Those who had money on their minds were less inclined to help someone in need and more inclined to work alone than interact with others.” This really indicates how negative the effects are when people are always thinking about the money aspect of a situation. This also may go to show why the doctors acted the way they did just for money, it was because the greed made them less inclined to help someone in need, like her family for instance.

The abstract that I saw come up a lot of the time in this book was the fallacy of Alienation because of Race. You could see this many times in the novel, starting where she had to go to Hopkins hospital in the first place because she was black. It was basically a charity hospital that she had to travel far to get to in the first place. In this example we see how alienation is there because of her race. With this information, I start to question of how race could’ve played into the quality of her health care. Because of the color of her skin, she got used as a test dummy be the doctors. I had never really realized this before since I am not affected by this cruel segregation. I see this as being horrific because I didn’t think that the color of your skin could affect if you have a horrible or good experiece when getting treated at the hospital. These physicians just threw all medical integrity away and didn’t think much of it since she was a colored woman.

As I looked more and more into this topic, I came across at an article that stated the following, “NAM found that “racial and ethnic minorities receive lower-quality health care than white people—even when insurance status, income, age, and severity of conditions are comparable.”” This information from a relaeased report by NAM(National Academy of Medicine) really goes to show the differences that people are shown because of their race and class. It gives us an insight and tells specifics of how black people are not receiving the same care at their white counterparts. This system of poor healthcare is quite concerning because it may lead to some sort of outbreak that could’ve been prevented by better quality healthcare.

Once I started this book, the author really took me by surprise because she included the abstract of Money/ Class in America as early as page 5 in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Rebecca Skloot states after reporting her findings on the He La cells, “That was it. I looked up HeLa in my parents’ encyclopedia, then my dictionary: No Henrietta.” This really surprised me because I expected, since these cells have helped us with many important findings, on the medical aspect, that we would care enough to at least know Henrietta’s name. I wonder, was it because these people didn’t care enough to give her credit and were just concerned with the money aspect? Or was it because they didn’t want to give the credit to a colored woman. 

This really astounded me so I did some more research and came across an article called “A Name Lacking Recognition: Henrietta Lacks. Better known as HeLa.” by Taylor Chaplin. She brings to attention how although Henrietta didn’t know she was making a difference at all, with just her cells, and that she still had a very big and unforgettable effect on the medical field. From helping with different studies to many synthesized vaccines, Henrietta’s name still didn’t show up when googling these vaccines or studies. How could someone help so much with something but you still don’t give them any credit? This is what I ask myself when I think about the crazy things that people have done with these cells only to put their names at the forefront of these projects. Although this is hard to think about, we can see this happen a lot throughout history to many colored people. 

There are many things I want from my education. It’s endless the opportunities that are given to us at school to explore what we want to do when we’re older. I think the school “system” though, keeps us motivated by setting up grades/scores.

What I really want is knowledge and wisdom out of my education, not just good grades/scores. I don’t want to come to school just working to get A’s on those pointless required classes, I want to have a drive to go to school and internal motivation to gain knowledge and perspective. Other than actual knowledge, school almost gives a security shield to when we go into the real world.