Reflection on Henrietta Lacks

Despite understanding the suffering of Henrietta Lacks, Deborah lacks, and essentially the Lacks family, I believe that it is hard to even start the discussion of the unethical practices in science and medicine in relation to disadvantage and oppressed communities before even discussing the ontological issues that present themselves.  I say this because if society, whether mainstream or in general, cannot recognize various ethnic groups, and in this case blacks, as being human and essentially capable of suffering, capable of reasoning, having similar social and moral values, such as work ethic and valuing family, then I feel it is hard to acknowledge their suffering and the injustices that the Lacks family has suffered.

In the beginning of Henrietta Lacks, the author Skloot voices that she had tried her best to preserve the language, because if altered,  as highlighted by a family member, this would be taking away their life, their experiences, and themselves. Unfortunately, as can be observed through Skloot’s writing I feel despite this effort she still has to go through the extra effort to accomplish just that. For example describing the upbringing of Deborah lacks, Skloot juxtaposes her upbringing with that of Deborah. In essence, the safe, secure, pleasant upbringing versus an environment described as the most dangerous and poorest neighborhood. It’s as if the reader would not be able to understand the challenges Deborah faced without this contrast.

Reminding me of this action in which the suffering of a black person must be juxtaposed by a white person to be understood was when I watched the film A Time to Kill. This was a film entailing a father, who is black, being prosecuted for killing the men, who are white, that raped, beat, and urinated on his child. I remember how the lawyer had avoided the father from being found guilty by describing the story of what this little black girl had gone through, but in the end of doing so had told the jury to picture the girl as being white.

Though not directly, explaining the reasoning as to why the lawyer said to picture the girl suffering to be white and why black suffering is not understood is the author of Red, White, and Black, which is a book that analyzes the portrayal of whites, blacks, and Native Americans in cinema and its implications. The author, Frank Wilderson III writes, “The Middle Passage, “wiped out [his or her] metaphysics… his [or her] customs and sources on which they are based.” Jews went into Auschwitz and came out as Jews. Africans went into the ships and came out as Blacks. The former is a Human holocaust; the latter is a Human and a metaphysical holocaust… “The black has no ontological resistance in the eyes of the white man” or, more precisely, in the eyes of Humanity. He goes onto say referring to the film Antwone Fisher, “Before Antwone Fisher can deliver the slave into relational presence it must clear the hurdles… slave has no resistance in the eyes of the Other, which is not to say that the slave does not suffer but like a tree that falls in the woods where no person is present, Black suffering has no auditor”. Here the slave is the term referring to blacks in the film. In essence these quotes describe why society cannot understand, or comprehend, the sufferings of blacks who are seen as non-human.

Nevertheless, I feel as if Deborah Lacks, whether consciously or not, understands this.  Skloot described how Deborah Lacks began to speak in a confusing manic manner for forty-five minutes. I thought this because she talks about her great grandfather being a slave owner, the family being mixed, and a cousin being Puerto Rican. Every topic Deborah voiced are sometimes taught in black communities as being better than black such as one being mixed and therefore being a step closer to being understood because one is a step closer to being white; hence, why I also felt that this was a result of Deborah really wanting someone to listen to her story as well as her pain.

In conclusion, Henrietta Lacks was not able exercise agency over the smallest component of her body, I feel, is a result of ontological challenges that blacks along with other minorities face daily. Consequently, I feel the discussion of unethical practices in medicine and science is not only challenging, but can be misguided when not understanding what society defines as human and the rights they’re entitled to and those not seen as human and whether they have any rights at all.