Dying in the City of Blues final chapters

Wailoo finishes Dying in the City of Blues by discussing not only how awareness of sickle cell anemia grew, but also how the condition was put in the spotlight by society as it “...became a national cultural symbol” (165). The use of the symbol of sickle cell anemia had different agendas. When Richard Nixon made sickle cell anemia part of his health message to congress in 1971, the condition gained importance in politics. It was a symbol for the suffering that African Americans had experienced throughout history. The media also used sickle cell anemia for their own purposes The media embracing the condition as a “...fashionable cause” demonstrates another agenda for the symbol of sickle cell (182). Although the film draws attention to health and raises awareness for a condition that was socially invisible for many years, the films “...perpetuated false beliefs about the inability of sickle cell patients to ‘hold down jobs’” and magnified misunderstandings about their fragility and ability to carry on a normal life the best they can (182). The idea of raising awareness for sickle cell anemia was only a prerogative of the media when the cause became more popular, and the portrayal of patients with the disorder was not extremely helpful to the cause in the end anyway. It seems as if the cultural symbol of sickle cell anemia was being used at the convenience of different groups to keep up with what was trending during the early seventies. Wailoo describes the early 1970s as “...a time of grudging recognition of the black experience…” (196). The awareness of the disease and the suffering that was experienced by the patients was also the cause for “...enormous new stigmatizing burdens for black Americans…” (196). The timeline of sickle cell anemia in America began with disbelief and misunderstanding toward what the condition was and why it impacted mainly African Americans, and ended with the use of the suffering caused by the condition to fulfill different agendas. I find it interesting that in the media only accepted the condition of sickle cell anemia when it was finally considered an important topic by society, and it was then used as a convenient topic for production.