Dying in the City of Blues Part 1

The first topic that caught my attention was how sickle cell anemia sort of appeared out of thin air to the medical world. Today, it is a very well known and easily recognizable disease that can be treated where as in the time of the book it was never even heard of and was thought to be just malaria. It is interesting to see how far we can go with medicine when we really dig into it. Just like malaria although, back then it was another stereotypical radicalized disease toward African Americans. These diseases were a result of the "stereotypical "Negro" who was portrayed in the media and by medical professionals as a social menace whose superstitions, ignorance, and care free demeanor stood as a stubborn affront to modern notions of hygiene" (56). Diseases were still being radicalized by the public and even medical professionals and were simply being blamed because of hygiene. This also went along with segregation at the time and the Jim Crow Laws providing more evidence why segregation is needed to prevent these "Negros" from spreading their diseases to the Whites.
The high disease rate was explained as the "Negro" was nothing more than an "ignorant child" who did what they pleased and never follow directions. They were portrayed as superstitious folk who were. nothing but natural carriers of disease and were responsible for bringing dangerous diseases into the cities and the public (65). No one really believed a disease affecting African Americans could simply just be genetic, there had to be another reason and one that benefited the Whites and segregation and the expense of the the African Americans. They could not even go to hospitals as they were a reflection on the local political economy and only saw the radicalized disease showing the African Americans poor hygiene and natural disease carrying people (29).  Sickle cell disease in the 1960s was an intersection with the national politics of race, inequality, and health care in America (7). The disease really brought out the inequality and radicalized treatments of African Americans in hospitals and in medicine in general in a dark time in civil rights with Jim Crow Laws in full effect.