Final Blog Post

In the beginning of the class in February, I was curious to see exactly how race can shape a disease that affects everyone and the impacts it can have in society. Until this class, I always thought of diseases affecting everyone equally in society and throughout the course I discovered it to be false. The course truly addressed my initial interests and showed me in a way a whole different perspective on medicine that I was completely unaware of. I found all the books very interesting and useful in the course and especially the speakers we were able to listen to in class. It is one thing to read about events such as the Tuskegee Experiments and slavery that happened in the past compared to hearing about events that are still going on in society today such as the opioid crisis. That being said, I did think there were a little shortcomings in the course when it came to my initial thoughts and what I wished to learn. The main shortcoming was I wanted to really get into how these diseases and racializations began in society. We did touch a little bit with slavery how it began with the belief slaves were genetically inferior but I was just expecting a bit more detail into the specific racializations and more on the disease itself. I wished we could have gone just a bit more into the disease itself and the effects it has caused. The most important information I learned was that there was and is still today the racialization of specific diseases such as smallpox and sickle cell anemia. There is also different ways in how people are treated even still today in medicine. I was never aware of the uncomfort some people felt just when going to the doctor and especially the invisible knapsack we discussed in class. The other important subject I felt I learned was there was not always this same pattern of certain races being victimized throughout history. In the beginning of class we saw this same pattern throughout all the books of people being taken advantage of and discriminated against up until we read Alondra Nelson’s book on the black panthers and sickle cell anemia. It was very refreshing to see a group no longer being victims and deciding to do something and change society. This showed me no matter what is happening in life, you do not just have to sit back and accept it. Change can be made in society no matter your position in society or color. At the end of the course I have reached the conclusion that no matter the science backing it, people still believe even today we are not all equal. This is seen in the racialization of the diseases we looked at and some of the stereotypes we also looked at in books and the class in general. However, I also learned and have concluded that change can be made and you can impact society just as the black panthers did with sickle cell anemia. You are not what society says you are, you are what you believe you are. Some questions I still have are what can be done to change these stereotypes in society, are there specific racilizations that people make with whites, and what is the impact if there is one still today of these diseases and beliefs from the past?