Blog # 3

           What does it mean to be an author, to tell a story? Is the author the authority, or should the subjects have a say in their own lives? In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Henrietta Lacks writing about experiences in detail that she could neither have known about nor experienced. In the past, particularly in writings from the Anti-Slavery movement, this was a common practice, and was seen as a necessary tactic to combat the evil of slavery. However, we live in a very different world today, so, is this still fair? Or does this kind of book allow privileged outsiders to reap the benefits (this is a highly successful work) of another’s suffering?  Explain whether or not you think this kind authorship is appropriate. If yes, why? What “gives them the right”? If no, why not? Aren't these stories important? If we didn't hear them from these White women, would we hear them at all? 

           Rebecca Skloot's life experience is drastically different than that of Henrietta Lacks. As a writer, however, Rebecca must overcome that barrier and attempt to enter a different world to tell Henrietta's story. This is necessary to make an earnest effort to accurately tell a story that needs to be told. The voice of an author, thus, must be without color, race, or background so as to not distract the reader from the point of the message. The writer can be of any background since it is only the message that matters. In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, although it is Rebecca Skloot, a white woman, that leads readers on a trip through a remorseful past of segregation in America, her background is of no concern since the Skloot attempts to portray the story through the eyes of Henrietta as true as possible. 

           When Skloot began her endeavor to discover the person behind HeLa, her sincere fascination with the subject motivated her to piece together the story through interviews, historical records, and some creative freedom. Despite the cultural and socioeconomic divide, from the day she first heard about the HeLa cells, it was a subject she was interested in pursuing. Much of the information regarding the origins of these cells was not reliable, thus she took it upon herself to investigate. The question about whether or not she is qualified to write about Henrietta Lacks is irrelevant simply because of her interest. If only a black woman with a background similar to that of Henrietta's would be allowed to write about these issues, and not a white woman (or man), then it is no different to say that race and class must be separated once again. Stories as powerful as that of Henrietta's life and death (and life of her cells) deserve to be disseminated without blanket restrictions based on the source.

           It is the readers that must decide whether or not a story is worthy of praise, not wide-ranging statements about race or socioeconomic background. There is no “right” to be earned, in the sense that factors beyond one's control determine one's eligibility to care, to be able to speak about human plight. Skloot may have committed a few faux pas by taking liberties of filling holes in the story for things that are unknowable about henrietta, but the message does not change. It may even seem condescending to some that Skloot explains in the preface that she will quote conversations and interviews as genuinely as possible; grammatical inconsistencies would be included as if preserving something akin to an anthropologist preserving the natural state of his subjects, another argument can be made that she is simply trying to remove herself from the narrative by allowing the authenticity of the world Henrietta Lacks lived in to become the focal point. Although some detractors may argue that Skloot's perspective cannot be legitimate because she is not like Henrietta, the plight of others should not be determined by superficial factors. The human condition is universal – empathy is universal - and so is the change that touched the world because of Henrietta, thus the right to tell the story belongs to anyone that understands its significance.