Perhaps the most interesting reading material in my opinion was “Chapter 12: On The Dissecting Board.” This Chapter tells the Story of Belton, an African American teacher elected to succeed the position of a former teacher who was forced to resign following a law deeming white men teaching black students illegal. His story very much depicted the degree that African Americans were viewed as specimen rather than people. Like many, Belton was the victim of an unfair arrest, after refusing to purchase food at an establishment that wouldn’t let him sit down. The conversation between a doctor and postmaster who saw him was disgusting, with very blatant descriptions about the “specimen” and the things he would do if it meant he would have the ability to dissect him. This eventually came to fruition, with the initiation of a lynching in return for a barrel of whiskey, courtesy of the doctor. In general, this falls in line with the stories and examples found throughout Medical Apartheid, but the manner in which this was written offered a type of story arc that immersed me to a certain extent. Not to say that I have any type of relatability, but even its brevity I found myself invested and empathetic towards Belton’s hardships. Especially when considering that he was ultimately a great person. Teaching is a very noble occupation, even more so during a time period where many sought to silence African Americans and keep them uneducated. That adds to the severity of the fact that he was only looked at as an experiment when he had nothing other than good intentions. He was a person, with values and hopes, and even seeking an occupation was met with hostility because his body was valued over him. Overall I appreciated this material, and considering how much it interested me coupled with the fact that it was (fairly) discussed than some of the longer works, it would be remiss of me to leave it unmentioned.
Birth Control- In More Ways than One
While we were working on the collaborative blog posts in class I was able to discuss multiple different relevant themes that could have been used for the post. While they were all ideas worth exploring, not all of them could be used in our collaborative blog post, just for the sake of time. I would like to explore one specific idea that we discussed further. In Clay’s Ark, when the people who live with the organism have children, the children do not look like what we think a baby would look like. They also don’t grow in the same way we would think of a normal child growing. They are covered in hair, and they are nimble and quick on their feet, especially for their age. They also have more peculiar aspects, like being able to sense the sex of a child while it’s still in the womb just by listening to its heart beat. When Keira and Rane each meet children who were born on the farm, Keira accepts them as they are, and Rane chooses to judge them. Rane’s judgement of the children reminds me of the discussion of reproductive health in Medical Apartheid. In both cases people believe that there are groups who should not reproduce, but for different reasons.
Rane and Keira automatically have very different responses to the children that live on the farm in Clay’s Ark. While Keira and Rane are separated they each get a chance to meet different children who have grown up on the farm. Keira meets Zera, and Keira tries to make her comfortable. When talking to Zera she even invites her to sit on her lap. Eli is the one who makes Zera get off of her, and to the judgement of Lorene, Zera’s mother. When Lorene asks Keira if she thinks she would be willing to have a child that looked like Zera she even says “I think I could handle it (Butler: 546).” On the other hand, when Rane meets Jacob, she doesn’t understand what he is or why he looks the way he does. She rejects the idea that she will ever have a child that looks like him, saying “I never cared so much for the idea of aborting children, but if I thought for a moment that I was carrying another Jacob, I’d be willing to abort it with an old wire coat hanger! (Butler 532).” This statement offends Stephen, who she is talking to when she says this. To reject having children just because they look a certain way is hurtful to the people on the farm, especially because they know she will either be overcome by the organism and start having children, or she will die in the process.
In Harriet Washington’s Medical Apartheid, she discusses the relationship between black people and reproductive experimentation in great detail. The first quote of the chapter is from Barbara Harris, who says “We don’t allow dogs to breed. We spay them. We neuter them. We try to keep them from having unwanted puppies, and yet these women are literally having litters of children… (189).” There is then a reference to a specific woman, Fannie Lou Hamer, who had her uterus removed against her will in 1961. She had surgery to remove the pain that she felt in her abdomen, and later found out that she had her uterus removed as well, for no medical reason. She was unable to have children because of this, but it lead her to be “A lifelong opponent of birth control (Washington: 190).” After she had her uterus taken without her consent she felt that by creating birth control, the government was using it as a means of surveillance in order to keep black women from procreating. After she felt like she had her choice taken away from her she felt that it was important to keep her reproductive right to procreate, without the interference of birth control.
The connection I see between Clay’s Ark and Medical Apartheid is that each group is judged for having children. While Keira is understanding and open to the idea of having children, as Fannie was, Rane and the doctor who took Fannie’s uterus without her consent are judgmental over the children who each respective group is having, and they think it would be better to not have children or not allow someone to have children. While the children who are born infected with the organism seem to be doing fine physically, Rane still judges them for their appearance and actions. In the same vein, even though Fannie had not had any children and worked hard to make a living, the doctor still saw her as procreating too much, which is the same attitude we get from Barbara Harris’ quote. The use of the term “litter” by Harris also connects to the way in which Rane repeatedly refers to the children as animals. By equating children to litters of dogs both Rane and Harris are able to dehumanize them. By taking away someone’s reproductive rights, in either case, they would have their autonomy taken away from them as well.
Music Therapy
If someone were to try to put together a timeline for all of music history since the beginning of time, they wouldn’t. It would stretch around the world who knows how many times. What I’m trying to say is that music has been a part of human culture since the actual start of time. A simple drumbeat, or a simple rock smashing against another rock, to streaming 6 different studio albums in the matter of 5 minutes. Music has come so far and the way we get it also. There’s always one thing that music does though and that is affect your mood and the way you are feeling at that moment. Healthline has a great article on their website that informs readers about the fact music, whether it be sad sounding or upbeat, can alter your mood in a positive manner. Researchers and scientists have been doing tests all over the world focusing on the memorable experiences and emotions felt while listening to sad songs or upbeat songs.
A study that came from the Journal of Consumer Research stated that people tend to listen to sad music when they are experiencing a loss or grief in their life. This is because the music could be filling up that missing spot that they lost in them or they found something or someone through music that makes them feel less alone. Whatever the case may be, it is apparent that humans are attracted to sad music to make them feel better during times of struggle. Of course, however, not everyone reacts the same way and it is also true that many people are actually more sad while listening to sad music, which still could be helping them depending on their mental situation at that time. Other researchers found the results that shows the enormous amount of joy that can come from upbeat music. In 2013, the Journal of Positive Psychology published a study that stated it could take up to two weeks for music to completely boost your happiness and mood. Similarly, a 2015 review from The Lancet says that patients who listened to music before, during, or after the surgery experienced less stress and anxiety than the patients who didn’t care for the music. It just so happens that those patients also didn’t even need as much pain medication. Parkinsons, strokes, dementia, and much more are proven to be diseases where music therapy can be effectively used as treatment. The World Journal of Psychiatry did 25 tests and now can truthfully say that music is proven to reduce depression and anxiety, as well as improve overall quality of life and personal self esteem.
While I’ve mostly been focusing on talking about listening to music, it is also proven that creating music can also have major impacts on mood and self esteem. In the United Kingdom, there is a unique orchestra where people with dementia are actually together making beautiful music. The research shows music gives people something to do to make themselves happy. Creating something like music can boost so many neurons in your brain and actually change the way you feel right when you listen to it. To me, that’s the most fascinating part about music is what it does for people mentally and emotionally. The fact that sounds put together in an artistic way can elevate your life is the most cool form of science in my opinion.
Can it actually change your mood? As mentioned earlier, even cavemen stomping their feet and smashing rocks making sounds and simple beats can feel the positive effects of listening and/or creating music. Musicians today are so passionate about what they do and that inspires me that something they can create with their imagination and creativity can in turn elevate the quality of their own life. Although not everyone is affected by music in the same ways as others, everyone has that one song that you turn on in the shower and belt the lyrics to because it just feels right. For this reason I love music and I appreciate the fact it will continue to impact people’s lives everyday.
Value
After writing my last blog post and re-reading some things in the book Zulus by Percival Everett, I started remembering all the things in this book that I found extremely interesting. We read this book towards the beginning of the semester, so I sort of forgot about it until now. Going back and looking at this book I started thinking about the word “Value”. The definition of value as a noun by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “the monetary worth of something” and the definition of this same word as a verb is “to consider or rate highly”. What I was thinking about is the value of a human. Do humans really value other humans? In the books and articles that we have read it really does not seem like we do. Especially in the medical world because we have read about so much discrimination and racism. Why do we not value each other’s lives?
In the book Zulus on page 105 it says “Everything around her was skin, like bark on a tree and she was not adipose, but meristem tissue. She was life and they should beg her forgiveness.” And then later down on this page Body-woman Rima was talking to her and she said to Alice “you are a vehicle and nothing more”. This woman is here tearing down Alice and saying that she is only a “vehicle” and her life has no meaning other than to reproduce. Alice is trying to stay positive and says she is meristem tissue. Adipose tissue is a fatty tissue that stores energy in the form of fat and cushions and insulates the body. Meristem tissue is found where growth takes place and it gives rise to similar cells. Alice is trying to say that she is not just some fatty tissue that does almost nothing. She is the tissue that is special and can reproduce. Her life has meaning. She is trying to value her life while the rebels are not valuing her at all. They just want to use her body. Like Body-woman Rima said, she is a vehicle that they can use, and they do not think she is anything more than that. No one values her as a human and throughout the whole book everyone is tearing her down. However, she knows she has value.
In Zone One by Colson Whitehead, once the disease had infected a person then they no longer had any value. Once a person is infected, they are bound to be killed. They cannot be saved after they are infected. Something in this book that I did find very interesting is when Mark sort of creates a story for the stragglers before he has to get rid of them. He tries to give these people value. They once were normal people with normal jobs, and they should have all had value. But once they were infected, they were as good as dead and their lives meant absolutely nothing because they were dangerous. This is a bit different than Alice in Zulus because they have no choice but to try and rid the world of these zombies. While for Alice they chose not to value her as a person.
In an article I read called Grave Robbing, Black Cemeteries, and the American Medical School by Allison C. Meier, it talks about students in medical schools who stole the bodies of African Americans to use for dissections. These cemeteries were often not protected because most of the people buried in these cemeteries were poor and usually African American. The bodies of African Americans, like it said in the article, “were involuntarily used in medicine”. African Americans all throughout medical history have been treated like test subjects instead of humans. The families of these people thought their loved ones were still buried in those graves and little did they know, their loved one was actually lying on a medical table in some college being cut up into pieces.
Humans do not value other humans. I will never understand this. We are all humans and just because someone doesn’t look like your standards or is overweight, or even black does not mean they should be put down. An African American has a family just like everyone else and works to make a living just like anyone else. They are human and they deserve to be valued. Doctors seem to have a very bad history of not respecting people. Men, women, and even children. Doctors think they can test on whoever they want without consent. These doctors do not seem to think about anyone but themselves. Everyone should understand the worth of another human and think highly of them. Everyone has value and we should not let terrible people ruin our value. I think a huge problem in our world is not valuing each other. We all need to understand that we are all equal and each one of us has value. Everyone needs to be a little more like Mark and try to understand someone else’s life.
The Power of Adaptive Clothing
Many people don’t even realize how much clothing affects our everyday life. From the first sock you put on in the morning to your pajamas at night, it all affects our brain. Not everyone is as interested in clothing and fashion as others (or me), but I’m willing to bet that everyone in this class has at least one pair of jeans or one T-shirt that when they put on, they feel more confident and happy about themselves. The reason I am so into clothing is just that. Watching other people get joy from getting a new piece of clothing or pair of shoes actually warms my heart. Mindy Scheier, a fashion design expert who now has her own clothing company spoke on a Ted Talk that my Mother sent me the link to. The video is Mindy telling the tear jerking story of her young son and her experiences with trying to make a difference in the fashion industry and for people with disabilities.
Mindy Scheier has three kids and is married. She has been working in the fashion industry years and was already a fashion design expert after attending fashion design school. A personal connection I share with Mindy is that before she goes to bed every night she catches herself thinking about what she’s going to wear the next day. I laughed out loud in the library when I heard this because it reminded me so much of myself. Her middle child, Oliver, was born with muscular dystrophy which if you aren’t aware of, is a disease that affects your pulmonary system and your physical strength. As a young toddler, Oliver had to eat food out of an eating tube. He also wasn’t able to get up in the morning and dress himself. He already had a rough and isolated life to begin with. His mom and him decided the best thing for him to do was wear sweatpants to school because he wasn’t able to work zippers and buttons.
One day in 3rd grade Oliver came home from school and told his mom he wanted to wear jeans to school the next day like everyone else in his class. Mindy explained how hard that hit her. This is when she realized her kid had a love for fashion just like she did. After that she started designing adaptive clothing which is defined as clothing designed for people with disabilities, elderly, or anyone necessarily struggling. She did this because she knew that the jeans would make her son feel alive, feel like him again, and have that self esteem to be able to put something on and be happy about it. Mindy saw the negative effects the isolation of simple clothing for the disabled and wanted to make a change. Adaptive clothing had already existed prior to this, however, since it wasn’t stylish it wasn’t making the people who already felt isolated and targeted, confident about the way they looked.
Scientists actually created a name for this. ‘Enclothed Cognition’ is the co-occurrence of two factors: the physical experience while wearing the clothing, and the symbolic meaning of the clothes directly affect how you feel about yourself through your brain. Mindy started talking about how there is a professor from the UK named Karen J. Pine who wrote and published a book on the psychology of fashion. A specific thing that Mindy shared with us during the video was that Karen J. Pine wrote that when you put on clothes you adapt the characteristics of that piece of clothing. Which goes back to Oliver, this is why he was feeling so isolated, because when he got up every morning to only be able to put on the same sweatpants he was mentally damaged already. With around 1 billion people in the world suffering from a disability, Mindy Scheier created Runway of Dreams which is Mindy’s fashion brand that collaborates with other high fashion brands to make high quality and stylish, adaptive clothing. Mindy managed to be the first designer ever to create a mainstream adaptive clothing collection. I am super inspired by Mindy and loved sharing this.
“Zone One” and Income Inequality
Throughout this course, I have seen many posts comparing the circumstances of “Zone One” to the current landscape of the United States. Emphasis on comparing, there are several arguing that a dystopian zombie infestation is on par with, or even better than, the overall current condition of the country. I am not a proponent of disparaging comments and I do not want to devalue anyone’s opinion, of course everyone is entitled to their own perception of our country. However, I do believe that as a nation, the United States is better off in its current state than it would be if we were dealing with an ongoing zombie issue.
I am not arguing that the United States is perfect, or ignoring the fact that there are many issues in regards to poverty across the country. The United States, like many other countries, is far from a finished product; we are constantly attempting to implement new systems to be as fair and just as possible. I think to say that something like the Trump Administration is equal to the American Phoenix government is rather extreme.
Realistically, if the United States were to fall into an apocalypse, than yes the wealthy would have the best chance of survival. I think that contending The Trump Administration or Republicans are the only ones that would act in a matter of self-interest is rather short-sighted. Many popular Democrats are also very wealthy, Bernie Sanders is a great example. I find it hard to believe that in the event of complete nation-wide chaos he would act in a manner unlike that of the elites within the American Phoenix. Although that’s morally questionable, I do believe that is the reality.
Secondly, we need to look at the current state of our country. Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan’s Washington Post article “The Painful Truth about Teeth” was an example used to promote the idea of income inequality. I don’t disagree that the inability to receive proper dental care is a terrible situation. I personally have great insurance thanks to my father’s profession. I have no way of relating to a person that is struggling to get the help that they desire. But I think to place the blame on the concept of income inequality and the 1% isn’t necessary. The United States is currently doing very well economically. Income inequality is an argument used to basically state that “this person has more than that person.” That is allowed, and it is perfectly understandable that some people would be wealthier than others. Jeff Bezos is constantly ridiculed for reasons I can’t comprehend. He provides services that people want. People value those services higher than the value of the things he needs to live a basic life and continue his business. The result is profit. In my opinion, that isn’t immoral. I don’t think he should be mandated to give up a substantial amount of his wealth because others have less than him. You can be envious of the wealthy and empathetic to the poor, and also be just in your beliefs. You can disagree with that belief, as I am sure many people do, and I don’t think that makes them a bad person. I believe that Socialism-esque tax brackets actually limit mobility. If a business owner is on the cusp of a bracket that would decide whether or not they get taxed 15% or 50%, why would they attempt to inch forward if the result could be detrimental to their business?
I am okay with economic disparity. Personally I don’t see an issue with the rich getting richer; I’m more inclined to be worried about if the poor are getting poorer, and the fact of the matter is they are not. To say that our country parallels that of a dystopian nightmare because there is a person in office that you don’t like is pretty contrived. The gap between the poor and the rich is lessening, and that is because the poor are entering the middle class, not the other way around. Sadly there are people that can’t afford the care they see fit, but our rights that have been outlined to say that you have the freedom to seek any care that you see fit, not that the care will be granted to you. I don’t believe that this country or our government parallels that of the events surrounding “Zone One” at all, and I wouldn’t think that no matter what administration was in office. I’ll make those comparisons around the time that I need to start worrying about zombies.
Consume
In her comments on one of my earlier blog posts, “The History of Zombies”, Dr. Beth mentioned: “Note your use of the verb “consume”–can you make something of this, go deeper in a subsequent post?” I spent a lot of time wondering and thinkING about how I could make a blog post out of a word that is used so unreservedly and is so flexible in its definition—and it is very flexible in its definition. Merriam-Webster has a total of five definitions listed for “consume”: to do away with completely, to spend wastefully (or to use up), to eat or drink especially in great quantity (or to enjoy avidly), to utilize as a customer, and to engage fully. In the way that I used “consume” in my previously mentioned blog post, I feel as though it best fits the definition of “to engage fully”.
But in thinkING and looking at these definitions, I can see how they apply to and connect to so much of what we have done in Literature, Medicine, and Racism this semester.
One of the first things I remember doing in this course was reading Fortune’s Bones by Marilyn Nelson aloud in class. So much of this work from Nelson stuck out to me—from the actual story of Fortune being told to the individual words she used to tell the story, there was so much to pay attention to. The combination of these two factors came into play in so many cases, including, “Fortune’s legacy was his inheritance: the hopeless hope of a people valued for their labor, not for their ability to watch and dream as vees of geese define fall evening skies” (Nelson, 13). As an outsider of Fortune’s life, this line from Nelson is a demonstration to me of how Fortune’s life and legacy were consumed by doing work and the value of this work that he had no say in doing. For many today, we look at legacies as who someone was and what they accomplished in their lifetime. However, when someone doesn’t get a say in what their life consisted of, this is completely unfair to do. This is a large part of why I find that, in Fortune’s case, I think the word consume can be used to describe the way his life and legacy were spent and used up on things he didn’t get to choose.
However, on the flip side of Fortune’s Bones, there were many who found themselves consumed by Fortune’s story. In the “Afterword” of Fortune’s Bones, Marie Galbraith, the Executive Director of the Mattatuck Museum, describes how there was a process lasting three years to restore and uncover the history behind Fortune and his bones. Galbraith goes on to discuss how many people were involved in this process—the Mattatuck Museum’s staff, a team of anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians, and researchers—and describes the process as being a “community-based project from its beginning” (Nelson, 31). I find it so incredible that so many people would be willingly consumed with the story of a man whose life and legacy were both consumed by a story he didn’t get to choose.
In seeing how the word “consume” could be used to describe so much of what happened in Nelson’s Fortune’s Bones, I also have thought back on other works we have read and thought about how “consume” can apply to them too.
In Toni Morrison’s Home, Frank Money was consumed with anxiety about what had happened to his sister. In Zulus by Percival Everett, the primary government of the people was consumed with the desire (and, depending on who you ask, the need) to control their population. Octavia Butler’s Clay’s Ark shows what could be the outcome of a community being consumed by a mind and body controlling microorganism. Zone One by Colson Whitehead shows a human population being consumed (in several definitions of the word) by a population of former humans who were now skeles.
With the way all of these works of literature connect back to the word “consume” in some way and to various extremes, I’m beginning to see how important the flexibility of language is. My classmate Rachel Cohen wrote a blog post called “Words”, where she discusses a different aspect of the complexities of language—how where we are from can alter the way in which we say certain words. These complexities and those like them are things I have never (or almost never) thought about before. However, in taking this class, I have discovered so much more about how it is the complexities we see in language that make it so interesting. The way we view and interpret these complexities will ultimately affect how we see the stories told through the literature we read for this class. Make sure that when you encounter these complexities, you let them consume your thoughts for a moment and let that consumption give you a new understanding of what you’re working with.
Too Insecure
From birth to now, I have always been aware. Aware that I was most likely lesser off than someone else, had looked different, even lived differently. When I was younger I often found myself to be insecure about the way I lived. When my parents divorced, I was split right down the middle. I moved between the two different homes on Friday at the Stewarts Shops at 4 pm on the dot. Never earlier and never later.
Kids found it different, considering divorce wasn’t common in my area at that time. They always wondered why I would bring a large backpack packed to the brim with stuff if I stayed an extra night at either home and didn’t have time to return my items. I remember having to sit with a woman and talk about how I felt regarding the situation and if I was comfortable and enjoyed both places where I resided.
Traveling between the two houses made me feel as if I was transforming just as much as my lifestyle would. My dad was always super easy going and a lot more carefree. On the other hand, my mom was a lot more strict and had more structure, yet was also a bit easy going. I had to be more aware and alert when at her house, she always challenged me mentally and encouraged me to do as much as I could for school to better myself. My dad was the opposite, though he did encourage school work, there was a lot less to be worried about.
Despite that, I was always insecure. My lifestyle revolved around that idea. My father was an older man and struggled to find a steady job, until he eventually retired. Money was always tight but there was often wiggle room. We would eat the same things, and a lot of pasta, only because it was the cheapest. An article from Hunger and Health (Feeding America) states, “An estimated 1 in 9 Americans were food insecure, equating to over 37 million Americans, including more than 11 million children.” Beginning at a young age I had become food insecure, not even realizing that it was a real thing.
As I grew up and was able to become more independent, I would go out to eat with my friends and become insecure about what to order. I didn’t want to order big meals because that would cost more money and I only had a small amount to spend every couple of weeks. However, my friends weren’t necessarily in the same situation as I was growing up so they would buy whatever they wanted and ended up wasting half of the food at whichever place we decided to go to, which I could never imagine doing.
Growing up on a tight budget between both households, has taught me to manage the money I do have at any given time and not spend it on pointless things. It has also allowed me to gain self control and appreciate the true value of a dollar. I have learned to become less insecure about the situation I have been raised in and make the most of it because there are more people in this world that live the same as I do, if not worse.
E. coli and its Connotations
Earlier this semester, our class had a Skype conversation with Professor Ben Chapman after we listened to a podcast called “Food Safety Talk 163: Grown on Chia Pets” by him and Don Schaffner. Chapman and Schaffner spoke about food safety in their podcast, and they discussed their research regarding it. In our Skype conversation, Chapman went into further detail about an event that occurred during one of his research studies on food safety. There was an incident where during a deception study, one of his research participants became highly upset when they discovered they were not disclosed the full truth about the experiment. The study involved a biological marker on raw chicken, and in this case, it was nonpathogenic E. coli. The experiment was done as a deception study in order to obtain accurate, unbiased data regarding whether or not people wash their chicken before cooking it. The biological marker was utilized to see the projected spread of bacteria on chicken when people are preparing it. The nonpathogenic E. coli was mentioned in the consent form given to participants in the study, and it was referred to as “biological tracer organism” (Chapman and Schaffner, 2018). The participant was unhappy to discover later on that this biological tracer organism was E. coli. They felt as though they were lied to about what the study entailed, and believed to have been put at risk of contracting something harmful.
I personally could understand why someone would get upset or feel scared when finding out they had been exposed to E. coli. The bacteria E. coli is normally presented to people as harmful. This is true, but only to an extent. There are different strains of E. coli, and some are indeed, safe and nonpathogenic. I myself have done many experiments with E. coli in biology labs, therefore I personally wouldn’t even think twice about being at risk if I was told I came into contact with E. coli. However, I fully understand why someone without the same experiences as me with this bacterium would be scared upon finding out they were exposed to it. This whole situation told to us by Chapman really made me realize how important it is for consent forms to present information as clearly and thoroughly as possible. It also made me think, was I ever presented with full disclosure of the risks behind the E. coli that I did experiments with?
As I thought back to the times where I worked with E. coli, I realized that I was in fact not thoroughly told what risks working with the bacteria posed. I also thought about how I performed experiments with E. coli even back in high school, where one might think a description of the bacteria we were using would be sent home to parents to ensure them that it was safe. Our parents were never notified, and no consent forms or descriptions of the E. coli strain we were using was ever presented to us. I was told the bacteria wasn’t harmful, but I wasn’t given any proof, nor was there any elaboration. Upon thinking back to this situation, I can understand even more as to why someone who may not have a background in science as I do would be concerned when they hear they came into contact with E. coli. Chapman stated that he understood the participant’s concerns as well, and that is why he strove to make changes in the wording and explanation in the consent form to prevent another situation like this from happening again in the future (Chapman and Schaffner, 2018).
Overall, learning about this research situation and the misunderstanding of E. coli made me notice that I myself went through a similar event, but I had a different reaction. I realized that the difference in my reaction to that of Chapman’s research participant is that our backgrounds with the terminology differed. It made me understand just how important the wording and explanation of the terminology used when presenting someone with a description of what they are going to experience is. I may have been presented with a lack of information just as the research participant was, but luckily, I had a better experience due to my understanding of E. coli. This pushes me to never assume what others may already know or not know, and that I will always be sure to fully explain everything I present to someone if I am to do research myself one day.
Literal vs. Figurative War
In Zulus we are left in the aftermath of the war that killed off so many on Earth. There is not much mention of what exactly started the war, but the impacts of it are clear. In Medical Apartheid, we are provided with information on the war that has been waged against black people for centuries in the U.S. Harriet Washington focuses on how this war was led throughout the medical industry primarily, but in conjuncture with the context of the racial issues of the time, depending on which era she is talking about. The first war discussed is done in the public eye with an acknowledgment of the actions taking place, while the war discussed in Medical Apartheid is done in private, with heads turned in the opposite direction. Each act of war is harmful in different ways, but it is also hurting the population as a whole, even if certain people don’t feel any direct consequences.
In Percival Everett’s Zulus there is a world left over after what could be described as the apocalypse. We are never told exactly why the war began or what happened during it, but we are continuously reminded of what it has caused. After Alice Achitophel is moved out of the city and the group has to walk through the scar, she notices that the earth has a distinct red color, similar to the color of blood. She asks “Why is it red like this?” and Theodore Theodore responds that “The war did it (Everett: 57).” The earth around them has been altered severely by the conflict, and there is not much they can do about it. Even when she asks direct questions about how the scar was created, there is not much of an explanation given to her about exactly why or how it happened. The only explanation is that the war caused it, simple as that. The attitudes left over afterwards are even more pessimistic, with Alice Achitophel saying “God must have died during the war (Everett: 17).” The war has left everyone disheartened and scared for the future, since they think it will only lead to the demise of humanity. Although they can’t be sure of it, Alice Achitophel and Kevin Peters do eventually spread the Agent and actually kill everyone, but they couldn’t know that in the beginning. In Medical Apartheid there is not a war as defined by its literal definition, but there is an attack on black people within the U.S. going on during our history, and even present, that Washington presents us with. She tells us that, because of the population that doctors and scientists were made up of primarily until the last few decades, “They could afford to be frank… Therefore, a doctor could be open about buying slaves for experiments, or locating or moving hospitals to areas where blacks furnished bodies for experimentation and dissection (Washington:10).” The fact that black people were being attacked wasn’t being publicized because there was no way to tell everyone when a lot of people were illiterate, and even if it had been known there isn’t a strong case to argue that people would have cared. The black community was well aware of the acts taking place around them, and even today when it is mentioned many are seen as gullible for believing such myths. This war was done privately, but the effects were the same as the war that occurred publically.
The impact that the medical experimentation on black people had is still prominent today. The medical system is seen as untrustworthy to many, and there are fields within the industry that are heavily based off of these experiments, such as gynecology. Although this conflict was not waged publically there were still major impacts like the war that occurred in Zulus. The literal meaning of what a war is and isn’t does not change the impacts that a literal or figurative war can have. In many ways people may even call the experimentation and dissection of black people a literal war. They were targeted and many thought they would eventually be killed off, but they were also mostly unable to defend themselves, so it could be seen as an ethnic cleansing as well. Even though in Zulus some people immediately died after the agent was released the first time there were also people left behind. These people were hurt in the long run, just like the people who were not directly experimented on were hurt in the long run in the U.S. Even though they were not directly impacted it still harmed them because of the cultural effects this experimentation has had.