Lisa Huff
HIS 270
Dr. Kieran
The Undertaking of Sickle Cell as Black Genocide
One of the most interesting epiphanies for me in reading Dying in the City of the Blues was realizing the timeline in which concerns about Sickle Cell Anemia grew and its relation to the Black Panther Party. At first glance, painting SCA as a “Black Genocide” seemed very extreme to me (presentist bias was probably at play since two of my childhood friends were born with Sickle Cell). Wailoo truly illuminates the cultural context surrounding this condition and how it worked as the perfect social metaphor. In many causes and movements concerning human rights of any sort, we have this moment of “Save the children! They don’t deserve this injustice”. With abortion it is clear that the “children” must literally be saved but in the history of the feminist movement, this argument is brought forward. Mary Wollstonecraft goes into great lengths about the injustices that come with unequal education for young girls and boys. My personal critique of this attitude is that oftentimes the emphasis on children (alive and to come) is exploited. While children do represent the future, this argument can work as a distraction from the very real problems affecting the other people in these struggles. Adding in the trap of compulsory motherhood that our society often forces on women, this argument can be especially harsh on women in a manner less noticeable. The women in these struggles deserve validation of their affairs devoid of their capacity to contribute children to the world. I believe the Black Panther Party did well to not fall into this trap because while they did emphasize the effects lack of care can have on our generations to come, a blind eye wasn’t turned on the other “sicklers”. While it caused early mortality in many cases, the people who had to live with sickle cell into adulthood were also addressed in the genocide. The holistic approach to an issue that truly is multifaceted was a very refreshing page in history to turn.
Good response! Can you say a bit more about how the Panthers had to negotiate between the idea that inattention to SCA was a form of genocide and that counseling people not to have children was equally so?
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