Month: December 2019

For as long as I can remember, my family has always struggled with dentists.  Staying with one practice for more than three to four years was a struggle for us and it always boiled down to insurance coverage and costs rising.  I believe I have been to at least four different dentists throughout my life and left each one due to the lack of insurance coverage. Once I turned thirteen, I was told by my *former* dentist that I was most likely going to need braces and he urged me to get them as soon as I could.  My parents tried to put it off for as long as possible due to the overall cost and how expensive it would really be; about a year later I ended up having to start the process of getting braces.  

Many people, like myself, have had the dreadful “opportunity” to go through the process of braces.  Some last as long as four years or as little as one; I had to go through the experience for about two years.  I grew up with decently straight teeth but as I aged, due to my family’s horrible dental genetics, my teeth became more crooked every year as well as causing an overbite.  I was lucky I only had to deal with the metal mouth for two years; I can say it was not a pleasant experience, nor inexpensive. It was practically the complete opposite. The braces process was quite painful before the braces themselves were even put on. I started out the experience with spacers for a week and eventually got the braces put on afterwards. Then began the monthly checks and wire tightening due to my family’s insurance not covering the expenses unless I visited every single month… it was tragic, but it sped up the process in the long run.

Some people throughout the United States aren’t as fortunate as I was to even have a thought of getting braces or any sort of dental care.  This idea was evident throughout an article I read quite recently. One of the class assignments was to read an article titled “The Painful Truth About Teeth”, by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, which turned into much more than another article to read, but an eye opening opportunity that I was given to realize the lives of other people aren’t always that easy either.  One early morning in Salisbury, Maryland, 1,000 people lined up outside of an arena in hopes to receive free dental care from one of the many dentists who arrived from across five states in the US. Free dental care is unheard of nowadays as someone may spend over $1 billion a year in high-end cosmetic dentistry to make their teeth a few shades whiter, so for 1,000 to have the opportunity to get whatever dental work they may need for no cost was a once in a lifetime deal.  The people who attended the civic center weren’t all necessarily poor or unemployed, they just didn’t have much money to spend on things other than daily necessities such as food or other household needs; the majority of the people just didn’t have dental insurance which made the idea of dental work nearly impossible to fathom.  “The country is way too divided between well-off people and people struggling for everything — even to see the dentist,” says Dee Matello, one of the lucky individuals to receive free dental care that cold morning. A simple dentist visit to some may be the difference between a pain in the mouth for another year or food for the family to others, but why? Why must such a simplistic ideal be so painstakingly hard to achieve?

In today’s society, bright white, perfectly straight teeth automatically signals to wealth in the family, whether it be the person themselves or even their parents.  If someone were to have just a slight yellow tint to their teeth or one ever so improperly placed tooth, one may assume that they’re not as better off or don’t choose to take care of them; no one thinks of the genetics behind it and how it may not be their fault or choice to have “imperfect” teeth.  It just goes to show that the most simple things in someone’s life may be the hardest decision in someone else’s and it may not ever be their choice, but just a way of life.  

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of consent is: compliance in or approval of what is done or proposed by another. Consent is a very important concept, and we all know that one cannot give consent when under the influence, or when they are unresponsive, but at what age is a person able to give consent?

Throughout our readings this semester, we ran into multiple occasions where the person giving consent was very young, so how do we know that they can make a decision that has a huge impact on their life? In Home, by Toni Morrison, Cee made a very big decision to marry Prince. When Cee agreed to get married, she was only fourteen years old. “Besides, Prince loved himself so deeply, so completely, it was impossible to doubt his conviction. So if Prince said she was pretty, she believed him. If he said at fourteen she was a woman, she believed that too(Morrison, 48).” This quote proves that Cee was taken advantage of by Prince. Perhaps if Cee was older and more mature, she wouldn’t have felt the need to rush into something with Prince and feel she had to marry him so soon. “But he never warned her about rats(Morrison, 52).” This quote is telling the readers about Frank, Cee’s brother and although he did his best to protect her, he never warned her about rats, Prince, in fact was the rat she was not warned about. At age fourteen, Cee was nowhere near being mature enough to make such a big decision, especially because Prince was the first man who gave Cee attention, so this probably had a big impact on her decision as well. Cee’s family was disappointed in her and upset that she did not have her car anymore since Prince took it and left Cee alone. When Cee returned home without the car, her family threatened to have her arrested, after this, Cee promised herself she would never return home. This is all a domino effect because Cee decided to leave her hometown and move in and marry Prince. Cee marries Prince, then he takes her car and leaves her, and because of this, Cee’s family is angry at her and basically disowns her. Although this domino effect does not stop with Cee’s family disowning her, it leads Cee to get a job with Dr. Beau. Cee does not have any money because she relied on Prince to take care of her, but when he leaves she knows she needs to make money. Cee hears about Dr. Beau and decides to go apply for the job, even though she does not know what the job is. When Cee goes to Dr. Beau’s house to apply for the job, there are some red flags Cee should have caught to keep herself out of a dangerous situation. Some of these red flags included, the books on Dr. Beau’s bookshelf, the titles were, Out of the Night, The Passing of the Great Race, and lastly, Heredity, Race, and Society. Another red flag included the word eugenics was brought up multiple times, Cee said she would have to look up this word but if she did she would have found out that it is: the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations (as by sterilization) to improve the population’s genetic composition(Marriam-Webster Dictionary). When Frank rescued Cee from Dr., Beau, she was unconscious and had little to no pulse. “But when she noticed Cee’s loss of weight, her fatigue, and how long her periods were lasting, she became frightened enough to write to the only relative Cee had an address for(Morrison,113).” This quote is from Sarah, she was also the help at Dr. Beau’s household. Sarah did not know what Dr. Beau was doing to Cee, but she knew it was affecting Cee’s health tremendously. Dr. Beau was experimenting on Cee and trying dangerous procedures on her without concern about what it was doing to Cee. Cee making one decision at such a young age and with little thought and not thinking about the consequences had such a huge impact on Cee’s life. This one decision caused her to almost lose her life. Cee agreeing to marry Prince had a domino effect on Cee’s life and had a negative impact on Cee’s life. Cee needed money because Prince left her and she was all alone, so she turned to a job that she had little knowledge about and caused her so much physical and emotional pain just so she could make money. In Cee’s case, the age of consent needed to be older than fourteen, Cee had no past experience to make such a big life decision, because she was sheltered for most of her life from men because of Frank, her older brother.

Another big controversy involved in the age of consent is in Clay’s Ark. The big question is whether Jacob and the other infected children can make decisions for themselves, or if they are too young to make them. The children were not even allowed to make decisions about their own lives, the adults of the community made all of the decisions for them. The kids did not get a choice whether or not they got to be infected with the disease, they were born with it. The children were not born fully human and had many cat-like abilities. A new species was born when these children were born but they did not get to decide if this was a life they wanted to live, they were forced to live a life where they looked different than other people and acted different. While reading Clay’s Ark, I started to question if I would be upset that I did not get a choice that made such a huge impact on my life. What is Jacob and the other children did not want to be infected with the organism, they didn’t even get a choice because they were born with it. “Disease-induced mutation. Every child born to them after they get the disease is mutated that way(Butler, 512).” This quote proves that none of the children get to make that decision for themselves, the parents made the choice for the kids, even if that’s not what they wanted. Blake described the children as, “not human” and had even questions, “Jesus, what are you breeding back there(Butler,512)?” This reminded me of another blog post I wrote about society judging people who look and act differently than what is considered “normal.” Here is a perfect example of it, Jacob and the other children do not look like Blake so Blake thinks they are “freaks” or “animals” as Rane had referred to Jacob. This could be another reason the children would want to decide whether or not they were infected with the disease. Although the adults infected do look different than other non-infected people, the children look completely different than either of them. “He stopped in front of her-beautiful child head, sleek catlike body. A miniature sphinx. What would it be when it grew up? Not a man, certainly(Butler, 524).” While reading this I was shocked that they did not even consider Jacob a boy, rather an it. Blake and Rane were not used to seeing children look like Jacob, so what would the rest of the world think when more “Jacobs” are made? The children infected such as Jacob, walk on their four legs instead of two. When Rane asked Lupe if Jacob could walk on his two feet alone, Lupe answered, “Not so well… He tries sometimes because we all do, but it’s not natural to him. He gets tired, even sore if he keeps at it. And it’s too slow for him(Butler, 523).” These children do not function like humans and other infected adults within the community. The children look more like animals than humans, which eliminates the children’s choice of living a life by normal standards. Do the parents have the right to make this decision for the children? Jacob was only four years old but was so much more mature for his age. “…but he was less clumsy with them than a normal child would have been. He was certainly much faster than a normal child, probably faster than most adults. All his movements were smooth and graceful(Butler, 524).” Since Jacob is so much more mature than a normal four year old, does this give him the right to make decisions by himself involving his own life?

While reading Home, and Clay’s Ark I found it very intriguing to compare Cee’s situation and how she was too young to make such big decisions, as opposed to Jacob and the rest of the children who were more mature and in my opinion, deserve to have a say in whether or not they would be infected with the disease or not. The age of consent is a very controversial topic in both of these pieces of literature so I really enjoyed unpacking both of these in regards to whether or not I agreed or disagreed with Cee making her decisions, and Jacob and the other children making their decisions about their lives.

Throughout history there has been an ongoing conflict in societal views about the medical field. Doctors are well loved and recognized in communities, but they’re also feared. Why is this so? How can there be two so very opposing views? Throughout history the workers of medical field have researched, studied, and discovered lots of diseases and many cures to them, but the processes by which they were able to do so was not always morally acceptable.

Informed consent: “subjects must be aware that they are participating, must be informed, must consent, and must be allowed to weigh the possible risks and benefits.” (Washington, 7). Informed consent must be properly given when an experiment takes place for it to be considered morally correct. Without consent, many problems arise; documentation lacks patient information in respect to their identity, cover ups/lies are used, patients are mistreated, and conflict arises. When these problems arise, a tension is created between a doctor and their patients.

There has been evidence of doctor’s using different wording in order to make a treatment sound more appealing to their patients. One example of this can be found in Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington where doctors injected their patients with a so called “product,” which was a plethora of radioactive elements. The side effects of this treatment were harsh and harmful. Additionally, there was a lack of consent since doctors deceived patients by letting them believe that they were being helped rather than harmed, “in the syphilis study of Tuskegee, the victims thought their doctors were caring for them,” (Washington, 219). In this study, doctors cared for healthy patients by treating them as though they had syphilis while neglecting to properly treat the patients that were infected with syphilis. Furthermore, they were exposing the healthy patients to the disease by placing them in similar quarters where they could encounter those who were carriers of Syphilis. Home by Toni Morrison includes yet another example of doctors harming patients. One of the characters named Cee was working for a doctor without knowing what he actually did to his patients and then she was drugged and became the victim herself.

Improperly documented patient information was yet another problem that caused concerns about the medical community. In Medical Apartheid, Eileen Welsome attempts to get information of people who fell victim to mistreatment from doctors but struggles to find specific information and identities of the patients. Additionally, In Bones by Marilyn Nelson, the skeleton the book centers around had their identity “changed” multiple times and the person’s story was altered. Overall, there are many examples backing up why people have reason to be skeptical of the medical field and how they personally get treated by those who are supposed to help them. In Zulus by Percival Everett, the main character Alice refuses to follow the procedures of getting sterilized and the procedure to check on her pregnancy. However, she ends up receiving the pregnancy check against her will so her consent was violated. Another example is when in Home by Toni Morrison, African Americans in the community, where the main characters live, have a general fear of doctors and hospitals due to the bad experiences people have had with the medical field and have shared with others they care about as a warning. One of the characters, Cee, ignored the advice that was given to her and went to work for a doctor which seemed fine at first but then the doctor began to take advantage of her and experiment on her without her knowledge. She found other explanations for the side effects but after some time realized what was occurring but was left too weak to escape. Luckily, her brother came to her rescue. She learned the hard way not to trust doctor’s in that time period because they mistreated her due to her race and gender. Once again, in Medical Apartheid by Washington, the families of those who have fallen victim under the eye/hand of a doctor acquire a great mistrust for doctors as they continue throughout their lives.

This morning I was watching a show on Hulu called the Good Doctor and in the first episode there is a scene where the doctors are discussing how one of their patients needs surgery but they unable to proceed with it until he has signed the documents giving his informed consent. One of them wanted to have the man see a psychologist to become mentally prepared before going over the procedure and obtaining the signed documents however, her boss wanted it done right away. He did not care so much for the mental state of that patient even though it has been proven that with a better mindset, patients see better results. The boss just wanted the papers signed and viewed them as being more of a hassle than anything else. This television scene reminded me that even when these things are put into place, the person giving their informed consent should be in a mental position to fully understand what they are consenting to and what they are doing so. Doctor’s should not disrespect this process because at the end of the day, if their job is to help people then they should care about those in which they are trying to help and not just turn consent into another routine procedure. These procedures and paperwork are put in place for a reason, they’re not meant to be some obstacle that impedes a doctor’s ability to properly treat their patients.

In conclusion, the divide between past and present, hero and villain, and victim and victimizer have become complicated overtime and morphed into the views that are now collectively shared within our society. Doctors may be viewed differently by each person, but either way they still play an important role in our communities.

What is Trauma? Karen Onderko, a Director of Research and Education, explains what trauma means in her article “What is Trauma?”. “Trauma is the response to a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, diminishes their sense of self and their ability to feel the full range of emotions and experiences.” Now when looking at trauma, the authors Toni Morrison and Percival Everett have different perspectives but at the same time, have characters that connect. Those characters would have the ability to comfort and confront one another during their hard times.

In Zulus By Percival Everett, has a character by the name of Kevin Peters. Throughout this novel, Kevin Peters shares an uncommon type of relationship with the main character Alice Achitophel. Their relationship to the untrained eye is weird due to both of their traumatizing moments that they encountered during the thermonuclear war. Kevin Peters expresses to Alice about the day when the nuclear bomb went off. “My family, my parents, and sisters were not underwater, were not exposed to biting fish: they were sitting in the kitchen, eating breakfast. There was no sound, no flash, just bloating and peeling of flesh, the melting eyes. I wasn’t affected by the rays or the bomb or whatever it was; my fate was the worse, having to just watch. I was ten years old… I tried to kill myself, tired to cut open my chest, but either I was too stupid to do it proficiently or I really couldn’t do it. I can still remember their screams ringing in my ears as I pulled the knife across my chest, wondering why I was alive and cursing God for not killing me too.” (Everett, 121-122). Looking back at the definition, we can see that Kevin Peters’s response to the trauma was trying to kill himself, to end the misery of seeing his family die right in front of him. We can also see with his relationship with Alice how he cannot feel a full range of emotions and experiences when Alice Achitophel expresses that she is in love with him. “I appreciate your feeling…All of what has happened is very strange and bizarre and I accept it only because this is a sick planet. Disease has its surprises. You take time and collect yourself, come to terms with things, as much as possible, then think about love. Think about if it fits in this world” (Everett,152). With the passage, I see the pain, the pure pain Kevin Peters is holding inside. When you have been with someone as long as Kevin and Alice been especially with traumatic realities, one would think love would be the only thing left, but for Kevin, I see he only thinks he deserves death. Due to his whole family dying, maybe he does not want to get close to love to only lose it again. Maybe Kevin is trying to persuade Alice not to love him, so it does not give him a reason to love her. Everett uses Kevin Peters as an example of how trauma affects the black male in society, he no longer feels as he belongs or deserves life or love, but only to face the traumatic situations and end his life in death.

In the novel Home by Toni Morrison, Morrison takes a different route of explaining trauma with her character Frank Money. Frank joined the army to escape his lifestyle down south, leaving behind his loved younger sister Cee. By joining the army came disturbing experiences and actions that he portrayed in. During the novel, Frank has theses moments of flashbacks. One flashback was what he saw during the war with a relief guard and a young Korean girl. “She smiles, reaches for the soldier’s crotch, touches it. It surprises him. Yum-yum? As soon as I look away from her hand to her face, see the two teeth missing teeth, the fall of her black hair above eager eyes, he blows her away… Still, I knew there were a few corrupt ones who were not content with the usual girls for sale and took to marketing children. Thinking back on it now. I think the guard felt more than disgust. I think he felt tempted and that is what he had to kill.” (Morrison, 95-96) Morrison gives a clear view of what Frank experienced during the war. That there was no remorse for even a hungry child, who knew no better, but then Frank tells another story. “I have to say something right now, I have to tell the whole truth. I lied to you and I lied to me. I hid it from you because I hid it from me. I felt so proud grieving over my dead friends… My mourning was so thick it completely covered my shame… I shot the Korean girl in her face, I am the one she touched. I am the one who saw her smile. I am the one she said “Yum-yum” to. I am the one she aroused. A child. A wee little girl. I didn’t think. I didn’t have to. Better she should die. How could I let her live after she took me down to a place I didn’t know was in me? How could I like myself, even be myself if I surrendered to that place where I unzip my fly and let her taste me right then and there?” (Morrison, 133-134) Morrison made it clear that sometimes trauma is not from the outside world but from within ourselves, our world. Frank’s past explains why he cannot cope; he lied, and he was so caught up in other unknown emotions he allowed himself to stoop down low, even for him. Morrison made me, as a reader, realize that trauma is not just solely from actions from the outside world or other people, but from the lies we tell ourselves, and by the actions, we partake in.

Overall, both Kevin and Frank have commonalities between them. Kevin and Frank have experienced traumatic events that have led them to the inability to feel or experience emotions. They both partake in a relationship with women, with no intention of being serious. Also, both Kevin and Frank cannot bear the truth of what has happened to them. Lastly, both Kevin and Frank are black men living in a white society. With that being said, as a reader, I think if Kevin and Frank met, Kevin would see himself in Frank, and Frank would see himself in Kevin. I say this because of the background of the African American community. African Americans have experienced so much torture, pain, and humiliation that no other race can relate. African Americans have an extra sense when it comes to our culture and community, as black people, we are the only one who knows how one another feels. If Kevin and Frank met, I think, they would not share words only glares like the slaves on ships who knew what lifestyle lay ahead.

In the movie Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele, the racist history of medical experimentation in the United States is transformed into an iatrophobic individual’s nightmare. The horror film is about an African American man named Chris who visits his white girlfriend’s family for the weekend. Chris eventually notices that the other African Americans around him at this family residence are disturbed and he concludes that they have been brainwashed by Rose’s mother, who is a psychotherapist. The situation ends up being much worse than he imagined. The father of Rose is a neurosurgeon and he has completed successful surgeries that made the grandparents immortal by transferring their brains into healthy African American bodies. The foundational racism that created the horrors of medical experimentation on African Americans to be exacted is shown through racist myths about the African American body, of which is made obvious in the film. The racism within this film is obvious, but how racism is examined in Octavia Butler’s novel Clay’s Ark was not as obvious to me until I compared two important scenes in both mediums.