Month: December 2019

Bouncing off my previous Blog Post, I will be continuing the analysis of consent and its role in the decision-making process. Similar to Percival Everett’s “Zulus”, Octavia Butler in “Clay’s Ark” creates a fictional future society where characters are faced with a daunting decision that will deeply affect numerous individuals on a global scale. In “Zulus” it was the choice of whether or not to release a chemical agent ending all human life on earth. In Butler’s “Clay’s Ark”, the characters are faced with the decision of spreading or containing an alien symbiont that has adapted to live inside the human body. Both Everett and Butler, through their characters moral dilemmas, are able to express the importance of consent and the influence that it should have on our decision-making process. 

This type of moral dilemma is clearly demonstrated by the characters living in the microcosm that is the Clay’s Ark ranch. In the novel, the character Eli, a geologist who was a part of the Clay’s Ark mission to the Centauri System, becomes infected with an alien symbiont that merges with human DNA and slightly alters it, giving the infected individuals new abilities and urgent compulsions such as the persistent need to spread the organism to others. In order to manage this compulsion, while still preventing a world-wide epidemic of its infection, Eli creates an isolated, self-sufficient community where the organism can be contained and those infected can live an almost happy life. Additionally, in order to appease the compulsion, Eli sends groups of individuals to gradually capture and take in groups of people, infecting them and thus making them a part of the community. Although the situation is still highly non-consensual, it is Eli’s best effort at preventing world-wide catastrophe while still pleasing the organism. 

Despite Eli’s best efforts however, his system is put to the test when Blake and his daughters are abducted into the community. Blake is a doctor, and the minute he is captured and forced onto the ranch he is persistently motivated to find an escape for his family in order to receive what he believes to be real medical attention, thus risking a world epidemic: “He hoped he could escape them too and get real help. Medical help, finally” (Butler 592). Blake’s grave mistake when making this decision is overestimating his ability to fight the organism’s given compulsion.  Thus, he puts the world in danger just to hold on to a hope that he might be able to save himself and hopefully his children from the organism. Eli and Meda (a fellow resident of the community) continuously urged Blake of the dangers of leaving the ranch and the precaution that it requires. Yet, despite all of the warnings and basic understanding of how the organism works, Blake still makes the decision to escape. In this decision, Blake does what he feels is best for himself, without care of the consequences that it could have on the world around him. It was a decision made in arrogance, as Blake believed that he could study the organism better than Eli ever did.

Eli and Meda had gone into great detail about the organism and how it is a creature of its own with its own wants and needs. But despite the warnings from individuals who have been fighting the organism’s compulsions for years, Blake still seemingly chooses to do what he wants for himself. However, when we look more closely at what we know about the organism we can also question as to whether Blake’s motivations for leaving the ranch might have been altered by the organism. Especially since the minute he leaves the ranch, he is unable to resist the compulsion, and infects a truck driver immediately after his escape: “I grabbed him, her father said. “I couldn’t help it, couldn’t control it. He smelled so…I couldn’t help it. God, I tore at him like an animal.” So like the blue sleeve, the blood on his hand was not his. He had spread the disease” (Butler 618). In studying the organism, it is clear that it actually alters the human brain. Thus, we can conclude that when Blake made the decision to leave the ranch the decision was not entirely his own. When describing the organism to Blake, Meda had stated: “He said his wife and the other doctor did autopsies on the crew member who died before them. They found little round organisms in the brains of every one of them” (Butler 498). Eli’s wife, who was a doctor, had done all she could with advanced technology to study and stop the spread of the organism, but no methods were effective, and it became clear the organism become infested in your brain.

When we personify the organism to have its own thoughts and motivations, consent and the process of decision making becomes an entirely new and tricky concept to grasp. Was Blake entirely in control of his actions and his thoughts at the end of this novel? Or was it simply the organism pushing him to do what it has wanted all along, to infect the planet.  Looking at it from this perspective, we can compare the characters Blake and Eli and their will power in fighting the organism. Was Eli or Blake more justified in their actions? Begging this question, we have to remember that Blake was captured against his will by Eli and forced to be infected with an organism that he never consented to have. After he survives the infection, Blake is then informed that he is not even allowed to leave the ranch that he has been kidnapped to and he is condemned to give up his other life and create one on the ranch. From Eli’s perspective we can say that he is doing his best to make a bad situation right in the best way he knows how. So, who is truly to blame for all of this nonconsensual action? At the end of the day, it is the organism that we have blame; however, we must not forget that human-will still plays a factor as the organism is not fully in control as demonstrated by Eli and his efforts. In comparison, it can be concluded that Eli was entirely more successful as a character at containing the organism and its compulsions than Blake.

So, through all of this confusion what is Butler trying to communicate to us? The character’s moral dilemmas are intense, and they are faced with a question of should I do what is right for me or right for everyone else? Blake chose to do what he felt was right for him – escaping the ranch. Eli on the other hand chose to do what was right for all, even if the methods were nonconsensual. In defending himself, Eli might argue that creating the ranch was the lesser of two evils – infecting some in order to prevent infecting all. Unfortunately, all of Eli’s efforts to contain the organism are destroyed at the end of the novel by Blake’s decision to escape.

Circling back to “Zulus”, we can look at how Kevin Peter’s decision to end the world had similar motivations to Blake escaping the ranch. Kevin Peters was an intensely cynical character who felt that the post nuclear apocalyptic world had nothing left to offer him or anyone else for that matter; thus, releasing the agent would be a mercy to all humans left living on the barren earth. To Kevin Peters, the choice seemed black and white, the only answer was to end it all. Looking at Blake in “Clay’s Ark” however, it is clear that his decision-making process had become clouded with the underlying motivations of the organism. Although he may have escaped for himself, he still gives in to the organisms urges and infects an individual once he escapes. In conclusion, Butler is communicating to us that consent is a dense and highly complicated idea. Taking these lessons into account, and in studying the decisions of characters such as Eli, Blake, and Kevin Peters, it becomes clear that in order to make a consensual decision, you must consider all angles, motivations, and perspectives.

Throughout this semester, I have noticed so many different connections between the different books we read, but after I listened to Ben Chapman’s podcast, I forgot about all of the information regarding it. I let it go to the back of my mind until recently, I relistened to the podcast Food Safety Talk Podcast Episode 163 and found so much new information that I did not catch the first time I listened to it. One connection that really stuck out to me was between the salmonella case, and Alice Achitophel from Zulus.

When I listened to Ben Chapman’s podcast, I found the story about the lady’s son who got sick from salmonella particularly interesting. Her son was in his twenties when he got sick. Her son was dealing with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea and he didn’t get better right away. After about a week he got better, but then he started experiencing back and sciatic issues. He went to the hospital and stayed there for three days, during that time he was getting MRI’s done and had a needle put directly into the part of his back that was hurting. This resulted in the doctors finding he had salmonella and the infection was mainly around his spine. The salmonella had migrated from his gut to other parts of his body, so while in the hospital he was treated for sepsis. The man’s mother wanted to find out more about salmonella and see if he was part of an outbreak. She contacted Ben Chapman asked him what steps she could take to figure out if he was part of an outbreak. Chapman told her to follow up with local public health and the state health lab and ask if any of it was uploaded to Pulsenet and if there were any matches and where the matches were. The primary health provider hadn’t received anything back and was still waiting for a call back. After the primary health provider still hadn’t gotten a call back, the mother had looked on Pulsent herself but did not find anything. When the mother called Chapman and told him she couldn’t find anything Chapman thought “Of course not…it’s not there.” Chapman met with a food safety public health epidemiologist who had told him as soon as they link a bunch of things together and find the food type, they are out and not interested in going back and working with those patients or the food industry to figure out what had caused it. Chapman had said that no one takes the next steps of letting people know that they are a part of this, this can provide answers or closure. Also, doing something about it to move backwards to figure out what the root causes were, source attribution, and the contributing factors. These are steps that need to be taken to head in the right direction. The food safety public health epidemiologists seem to forget that the data they receive is a human being. The person probably wants to know the reason they got the infection and learn more about it. The mother of the man who had salmonella was unable to find anything out about the salmonella her son had been infected with. The need for speed to get the data seems to be more important than the person involved. The food safety public health epidemiologist said that after they find the information they need, they are done. What about the people connected to the data? They want answers regarding the infection and unless they know someone from the inside, they are left in the dark. It seemed that the need for data was more important than the people involved, even though it is someone’s life.

As I listened to Ben Chapman tell us about the data it made me think of Zulus,with Alice Achitophel. Once Alice got to the camp, no one seemed to care about Alice, all they cared about was her baby. Alice was treated so poorly by the people at the camp, one person who stuck out to me was Body-woman Rima. Body-woman Rima was focused on the baby and didn’t care about Alice. “We’d best be careful, it might be harmful for us to breathe it in for too long a time(Everett,90).” Body-woman Rima was examining Alice to see if she actually was pregnant, she did not care about Alice’s feelings and spoke out about Alice’s stench to the point Alice was holding back tears. Once the camp received the information they needed, just like the food safety public health epidemiologist, they were done. Body-woman Rima did not seem to care about Alice and just worked fast to get the data she needed, just like the need for speed to get data, not caring about the people involved. Alice was tossed aside and forgotten, just like other important questions regarding the root of the infection, source attribution, and contributing factors in the food industry. “Alice Achitophel looked at the white walls, bare and clean and without windows(Everett,102).” Alice was taken to this plain room and was told it was a guest room, when in reality it was a room to trap Alice so she would not leave the camp. If they had treated Alice right from the beginning, then maybe ALice wouldn’t want to leave and they wouldn’t have to trap her to keep her there, but the people at the camp do not care about Alice, they just want her child. “And here, what will they do for me here? Probe me to death? Plow and harvest me like a field? And what after all this I give birth to a dead thing? Will I be dropped, left to starve somewhere in the territory(Everett,103)?” This also reminded me a lot of the salmonella case with Ben Chapman, Alice would be used to gather data, no one seemed to realize that she was a human-being. Once they got the data they needed from Alice, or the child, they would be done with her just like the food safety public health epidemiologist explained how once they link a bunch of things together, they are done and not interested anymore. The camp would not be interested in Alice anymore and would not care what would happen to her after she had her child.

As I listened to Ben Chapman’s podcast and about the man who had salmonella, I felt bad for the man. His data was used but he did not get the closure he deserved, he did not get answers to his questions because, like Alice, once they got the data they needed, he was forgotten and tossed to the side. Alice’s data was her child, once the camp had that, she would also be forgotten.

Decision making is a daily part of our lives. Whether a small decision, or a life-altering one, it is these small choices that determine what our future holds. In Percival Everett’s “Zulus”, the characters are faced with seemingly impossible choices that deeply affect not only themselves but those around them on a global scale. Tying this back to the central idea of this course, we can analyze what Everett is trying to communicate to his readers about consent, and how it should play a deep role in our decision-making process. One of the most tangible real-life examples of this being in medicine, as doctors are constantly faced with the question of is it worth helping one person or a group of individuals at the expense of another. In studying Harriet Washington’s “Medical Apartheid” we see the horrifying truth of what many doctors decided.

At the conclusion of Everett’s “Zulus”, the characters Alice Achitophel and Kevin Peters come across large chemical tanks which hold a gaseous agent designed to spread across the globe and end all human life. In this scenario, the readers are faced with the vastly contrasting personalities of Alice and Kevin, the two characters having dramatically different world views and opinions. In Kevin Peters eyes, pulling that lever will end all the suffering and nonsense that survivors of the war were left to contend with, as he is deeply cynical and feels that this world has nothing left to offer. Alice, on the other hand, the only fertile woman left on this world, is still hopeful that there can be a future for the survivors of the war. Looking at the conversation between the two characters, their opposing worldviews become extraordinarily apparent: “That is the Agent. That’s the gas they never let go. In the middle of the war they made it. It kills only humans…See the people, Alice? They come here to watch the resolve, Alice, to get up and release it…She was dizzy with pain, lost in all that she had heard, her mind coming slowly to understand that her child was not a primary concern or interest. But it was a living, breathing child and she could not let it go and she started to cry” (Everett 243). Alice at the end of this conversation realizes that Kevin does not share the same hopeful dreams for their child, a truly stabbing moment as the readers watch this scene unfold, viewing Alice’s hopeful nature be crushed by her faith in Kevin Peters. In the end, Kevin Peters makes the impossible decision for the both of them, Alice standing beside him with her eyes closed tightly shut: “He looked at her with that same face, that same face which had told her before and was telling her now that it was right and true and good and she put her hand on his atop of the lever. She questioned him with her eyes, then closed them” (Everett 245). 

What gave Alice and Kevin the right? Was it okay that they made this choice to end all human life on earth as only two people in a world of several others? In my opinion, this is an intensely non-consensual act. Looking back on the readings that we have done throughout the semester in Harriet Washington’s “Medical Apartheid”, it is easy to see a parallel between the mindsets of several doctors and Kevin Peters. For example, in chapter ten of “Medical Apartheid”, Washington exposes the abusive and malice experimentation done on Philadelphia’s Holmesburg prisoners by Dr. Albert M. Kligman. The experiments were performed on African American prisoners as to gain a better knowledge on the field of dermatology. But at what cost? Numerous prisoners were left scarred and in deep excruciating pain against their own will. Dr. Kligman even went as far as to induce illness on his patients for his own personal gain: “…Kligman was inducing foot fungus, not treating it, because he saw the opportunity to conduct lucrative experiments upon thousands of captive bodies…” (Washington 249). It is horrifying to see how individuals such as Dr. Kligman were able to justify these actions based on the merits of harming few for the betterment of several others. Although Kevin Peters was most certainly not reaching levels of malice on the scale of Dr. Kligman, there is still something to be said about what Everett is trying to express through his character. Everett is aware of the nonconsensual elements of our society and how sometimes people in powerful positions are able to make life-altering decisions for many even though they are only one person. Dr. Kligman, in a position of power over the prisoners of Holmesburg prison, abused his status and managed to get away with nefarious medical experimentation, just another real- world example of the nonconsensual atrocities that have and still plague our society. 

As Everett concludes his novel, you are left uneasy and dissatisfied with the journey that you were just dragged along, as in the end, nothing was accomplished. However, the takeaway of “Zulus” is not the conclusion of the story arc. Rather, it is the collective reflection on human nature as we follow the evolution of a population left shell-shocked after a nuclear catastrophe. With a deadline to the population, Everett paints a scene that strips away all the distraction of an innovating world. His characters are left only with survivors and how they treat one another – and the results are shocking, yet not entirely foreign to what we experience in the real world today. The novel leaves you to question all of the above, and that in conclusion was Everett’s purpose.

The epigraph for this course is a quote that was spoken by Dionne Brand: “my job is to notice…and to notice that you can notice”. The act of noticing is important in one’s education as it is in becoming knowledgeable about racism, yet to notice can also be burdensome. The burden of noticing may come from feelings of powerlessness over the inability to change a situation as one envisions. Coping with feelings of hopelessness could prove to be challenging, especially if other mental health difficulties are present within the individual.  In Colson Whitehead’s novel, Zone One the African American protagonist Mark Spitz has PASD while also trying to make sense and cope with living in a zombie apocalypse. The literary devices the author uses to symbolize the experience of PASD are used to make the readers undermine his behavior and thinking in relation to his conception of his racial identity, as proved by the shocking ending, and to foster readership empathy.

In today’s world of superficiality and beauty standards, people are always noticing the physical attributes of each other. Whether or not they make a comment about it, is a personal choice. Teeth have become a key marker of beauty, but also of distinguishing socioeconomic status.

A Washington Post article, “The Painful Truth About Teeth,” by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan addresses the concerns for dental health among low-income Americans. The authors are effective in demonstrating the severity of this issue by focusing on real-life examples to correspond with grim statistics on the state of dental health in a 21^st century nation. The article examines Dee Matello, a working-class individual from Maryland’s Eastern Shore, “the poorest part of one of the country’s richest state” according to the authors. Jordan and Sullivan point out that nearly $1 billion is spent by a few Americans for luxury cosmetic dentistry while 1 in 5 Americans older than 65 don’t have “a single real tooth left.” People like Dee and her husband have a steady job yet lack the dental insurance or cash to spend on maintaining a perfect set of teeth.

The issue of dental health causes great suffering for Americans, who may have to prioritize other financial decisions over their teeth. Professionals within the field are aware of these changes and its domino effect on other aspects of their patient’s health. According to Dr. Patricia Higgins, rural areas (such as Maryland’s Eastern Shore) have a noticeably higher level of dental health problems. She attributes our nation’s reliance on prescription drugs as a cause for issues such as dry mouth and cavities. The director of the Chesapeake Health Care dental dept., George Acs also believes that medications may have caused the side-effect of minimized dental health. The article states that more than 2 million emergency room patients in 2016 were treated for oral pain and infections. Ac’s primary concern is that ER doctors are not properly equipped to treat certain dental issues. Instead, they often prescribe antibiotics and opioids. For lower-income groups, the flaws within the health system have much greater ramifications than someone with greater access to medical treatment. Dee Matello claims that teeth “are the telltale, visible signs of wealth.” This may suggest that not having proper dental care may lead to further stigmatization of lower-income individuals.

Teeth have long been considered a part of human identity. It can give an indication of our oral health while also a marker of socioeconomic status. When it comes to race, teeth seem to be yet another way to objectify the human body to suppose inferiority. Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington gives many examples of how teeth have been used to claim the racial inferiority of blacks. Besides the noticing of skin color, teeth were another way in which black people were identified and othered.

Dr. Louis Agassiz was a Swiss naturalist who moved to America in 1846, becoming a professor of biology at Harvard and a well-known scientist. In his encounters with blacks in Philadelphia, Agassiz expressed his revulsion in a letter to his mother. He writes: “In seeing their black faces with thick lips and grimacing teeth, the wool on their heads, their bent knees, their elongate heads, their large curved nails, and especially the livid color of their palms, I could not take my eyes off their face in order to tell them to stay away…God preserve us from such a contact!” (Washington, 91) Dr. Agassiz seems to portray black people as an almost alien species by the horror-like depiction he provides. The word “grimacing” is intentionally paired with “teeth,” which reminds me of an animal with menacing teeth or even the zombie tropes found in Colson Whitehead’s Zone One. As early as the mid-nineteenth century, teeth are used in representing black people in a negative manner.

Teeth are more than just a representation of identity; they’ve been used in experimentation processes as well. In 1945, scientists sought to discover the effect of radioactive substances on patients. Ebb Cade was one individual whose living body was used by scientists and physicians for the testing of plutonium. This man-made element was labeled by the director of the Manhattan Project’s Medical Section “as the most dangerous chemical known.” (Washington, 217) In order to measure plutonium levels, Cade’s doctors pulled fifteen of his teeth and extracted bone chips. Washington emphasizes that Ebb Cade was one of many involuntary test subjects for radiation, participants who were often African Americans. The history of teeth is not exactly clean pearly-whites, and the state of dental health today indicated a society that uses teeth to mark differences among us.

In every science class I have ever taken, I immediately believed all of the information being taught to me was accurate. Not once did I ever step back and consider where the proof was for these facts. I trusted my educators, the textbooks, and all the class material presented to be correct. Then, in this course, we discussed that a major component of our self-reflective essay was to provide evidence behind the claims we made. When I first heard this, I was confused, as I never considered the need to provide textual support for my own beliefs when writing about a personal experience. I originally thought that my self-reflective essay would be entirely composed of my own feelings and thoughts. After discussing in class why we need to support our claims, I now see the importance behind providing evidence for my own thoughts and feelings. Without proof, all of my claims about how I grew throughout this semester would be weak, and hold no true value. As stated in Reflective Writing by Kate Williams, Mary Wooliams, and Jane Spiro, evidence needs to be provided in order to justify claims that one makes (Williams, Wooliams, Spiro, 2012). Now, I question why have I overlooked the importance of evidence in not only the science classes I take, but my own claims as well?

I decided to research why I may trust information right away, or not until I’m provided with evidence. The article “Why We Believe Alternative Facts” by Kristen Weir goes into detail about human judgment and why people are more likely to believe some things over others. Weir explains that humans determine what they believe based on a biased set of cognitive processes (Weir, 2017). This means that people are predisposed to trust the information that they do based on an already established thinking process. Weir quotes Dr. Ditto, a psychologist at the University of California, “’People are capable of being thoughtful and rational, but our wishes, hopes, fears and motivations often tip the scales to make us more likely to accept something as true if it supports what we want to believe’” (Weir, 2017). This shows that I may overlook the need for evidence if the information presented to me is something that already aligns with what I want to believe is true. In regard to my self-reflective essay, this may explain why I was confused at first about the need to provide evidence for my feelings and thoughts. If I am more likely to trust information without proof when it aligns with my beliefs, then it makes sense as to why I never considered justifying my own claims; my personal thoughts would parallel with what I already believe. I also see this correlation with my science courses as I am passionate about the field, and therefore, I would want to believe everything regarding science is true.

In the article by Weir, she goes on to state that, “Much of the early research on motivated reasoning showed that people weigh facts differently when those facts are personally threatening” (Weir, 2017). When I first read this, it became even clearer as to why I don’t seek evidence for claims made in my science classes or my own personal statements. For me, my core beliefs are rooted in science, therefore I would not find any portion of my science textbooks or lectures personally threatening. Then, Weir quotes Dr. Ditto stating, “’It takes more information to make you believe something you don’t want to believe than something you do’” (Weir, 2017). Once again, I see the connection between my lack of evidence seeking with the reasoning provided by Dr. Ditto and Weir. I am more likely to trust information presented to me by STEM educators and texts than others, due to its role in my established beliefs. If I was given information that contradicted what I already believed, then I would be more prone to seek the justification behind these claims. When it comes to my own personal statements or the material I come across in my science courses, all of this information is what I want to believe, as I have trusted it my whole life. Therefore, I do not readily seek the need to find more information regarding why it is accurate; I trust the material instantly.

Now that I am aware of my biased set of cognitive processes, I can actively seek to change it. In the future, I hope to no longer overlook the importance of evidence behind the information presented to me, regardless of its origin. I hope to no longer gloss over the lack of justification behind the material I am shown or that I state myself. With a more active mindset and critical processing of information I come across, I hope to progress in not only my understanding of concepts themselves, but the vindication behind them. I urge my readers to do the same, as we may all benefit from demanding evidence for the facts given to us.

One of the biggest themes in this class is the human body. Men, women, children, African Americans, and even zombies. Obviously one of the biggest themes was racism as I talked about in my last blog post with all the examples from Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington. However, relating to my last blog post I am still interested in talking about discrimination. After reading Zulus, one of the biggest things I kept thinking about was the discrimination towards women and especially towards Alice Achitophel in this book. 

Zulus by Percival Everett is a story about a very large woman living in a post-apocalyptic world. She is judged because of how large she is. In this world all the women are no longer fertile, except for Alice Achitophel. She ends up being raped and becomes pregnant. She decides to go to the rebels, but they only want her because she can reproduce. Next, a very odd thing happens, she just starts rapidly growing and expanding until her body explodes and she is left with a new body. Her new body is a very attractive and skinny woman. Her old body, specifically her head, is still in the hands of the rebels and she can somehow feel and know what is being done around her old head and what the rebels are doing to her. 

The first thing I want to talk about is the discrimination that overweight Alice faces. She is shamed for her weight. On page 22 of Zulus it says, “no one looked at her anymore, except to offer that obligatory shake of the head that meant either pity or disgust.” And later this same page says, “the guards gathered around like always to watch the fat woman clear the gate by the narrowest of margins, laughing as her big legs carried her away from them and across the wide lobby to her division.” Something in life that I believe is so morally wrong is to discriminate someone because of how much they weigh or their looks. Why is it okay to laugh at someone because they are bigger than you? These guards act like she is some kind of animal, mocking and laughing at her. Her neighbors and people around her refuse to talk to her and look at her only because of her size. 

The second thing I want to talk about is Alice being raped and therefore transforming into a woman that fits into social norms. The way I see her rape is that this man, just like the rest of society, sees her as an embarrassment because she doesn’t look exactly like everyone else. To me the rape is this man forcing her body to start the transformation to look like everyone else. Society is forcing itself on this woman and forcing her to change because they want a perfect society and she is the embarrassment of the society. As she transforms into her knew body, the rebels still have part of her old body. She is still connected to her old body and she cannot get away from it. She is still trapped inside of this body that all of society hated. She cannot break the connection to her old flesh. At the end of the book it seems as though she agrees to a mass suicide to try and get away from her body.

On page 242 Kevin says “Alice, our daughter was dead before she was born… where does a child grow in this world?”. To me this relates to our real world so much. There are all these social norms that people are supposed to fit into. And when someone does not fit into these specific guidelines they are shamed and discriminated against. This remind me of racism in our world as well. In Medical Apartheid there are so many examples of doctors discriminating against African Americans only because of the color of their skin. They are stuck in their bodies that they were born into just like Alice and they are being put down because of this just as Alice was in Zulus. Our world is full of people who are discriminated against for things they cannot change. People have laughed and mocked people just because their skin color is different. African Americans were slaves and were treated worse than animals would have even been treated.

In chapter 9 of Medical Apartheid there is a story about an African American man named Cade, who came into a hospital and instead of the doctors fixing this mans’ broken leg, it says on page 217 “they extracted bone chips, and pulled 15 of his teeth to measure Cade’s newly elevated plutonium levels; only then, 5 days later, did they set his broken bones.” The doctors started injecting him with plutonium and on page 217 it says, “the purpose of the injection had not been to treat Cade’s body, but to experimentally calibrate the plutonium’s physiological devastation.” Cade eventually escaped from the hospital before they could do who knows what else to him. 

I think Cade realized what was going on and realized they were treating him like some sort of animal and wanted his life to mean more. Cade just like any other man should not have been treated like this. Why do we discriminate against someone for having a different skin color? And why in Zulus did they discriminate Alice because of her weight? Cade escaped because he didn’t want to live in a world where he was tested on and treated like nothing. Alice tried to escape her world by supporting the mass suicide at the end of the book. Alice realized the world would never change and she would always be connected to her body and she could not escape that discrimination in the world she was in. 

Zulus shows me a representation of our own world. We are trapped in our bodies, in this world full of discrimination. If you are not exactly what society wants, then you will be discriminated against. I think this book is showing us that no matter how much we try to escape that world, there will always be racism, discrimination, and people feeling trapped in their own bodies because of society. We cannot escape from our bodies and we cannot escape from this unchanging world.