Dying in the City of the Blues - Part 3

Something that has interested me throughout the reading of Dying in the City of the Blues is the progression of the sickle cell disease from two different standpoints and how those two different ways of advancement can be intertwined. Firstly, there has been huge advances medically with the sickle cell disease. Originally, there was no form of treatment for sickle cell, victims were forced to live in pain. Also, in the beginning, the only symptom of sickle cell happened to be the pain, which, as we discussed in class, is not able to be seen. During this time frame, it was common to assume that African Americans were heavy drug users, leading doctors to assume that victims of sickle cell anemia were simply lying about their pain in order to receive painkillers. However, now that the problem has been addressed in a much less racist way, there are medications that help to ease the pain of sickle cell disease, sometimes these treatments will even cure the disease. In addition to the advancement medically for the disease, there has been a huge advancement culturally. When the disease was first pronounced, like the doctors, everyone else just assumed that these black people were lying about, or exaggerating, their pain as an easy way to receive drugs. Now, America is much more educated on the disease and there is a much larger awareness of this issue and the horrid symptoms that come with it. There is also, on average, a lot more respect for African Americans. With that being said, the medical advancement of the disease likely stemmed from the growing respect for those who are black. Once doctors began to trust in their black patient's claims over the pain that they had been experiencing, it was finally acknowledged that there was a much deeper problem than someone making up that they are in pain.