Race, Medicine, & Society Notes - May 1, 2018
Diseases are more than just sickness, involved politics
- Biopolitics
- Individual health, who gets treatment and who doesn’t
- Cultural and political questions, not medical
Different diseases get different amounts of attention (cultural and political)
President Nixon meeting with Ray Charles to discuss the singer’s activism regarding Sickle Cell Anemia
- Social: Who was interested
- Economic: Ray Charles music consumers
- Political: Nixon supporting Sickle Cell Anemia would give the radicals less verbal firepower
- P200-201
Floating Signifier- a signifier that lacks a reference
Signifier - a reference
Sickle Cell becomes useful in political discussions
Sickle Cell represented larger suffering of African American people
Liberal Civil Rights Movement - inclusion, equality
Pain Legitimacy: Sufferers of Sickle Cell Anemia - can’t describe (chronic) pain
- Little trust for African American individuals, so physicians were skeptical when giving analgesics for patient could be a drug addict
Liberalism -> The rise of the New Right movement
Nixon legitimizes black radicalism by supporting research for Sickle Cell Anemia
Sickle Cell as a Floating Signifier
Afro centric - African Americans are unified through shared African heritage
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