African American Disparity

There is a disparity and unequal treatment of blacks compared to whites in American medicine. During the slavery times African Americans had several diseases that were said to be for blacks, such as Struma Africana and drapetomania (152). For example, Struma Africana was a type of tuberculosis that was just for blacks. These diseases were made because the cures for whites were not meant for blacks since they were believed to harm and kill them. The reason why blacks developed more diseases than whites were because they were malnourished and in serious poverty, which lead to infections by pathogens from going shoeless all the time. This poverty level of African Americans lead to a health disparity of having a higher risk of cancer and diseases …show more content…
Many medical schools would rob African American’s cemeteries in order to obtain their bodies for anatomical dissection. For example, “the structure that once housed the Medical College of Georgia…its concrete floor lay a chaos of desiccated body parts and nearly ten thousand human bones and skulls…” that were identified as stolen (120). As a result, these stolen bodies indicate how the subject of anatomy was once figured out through abusing mainly African Americans and dissecting their bodies. In comparison, African American prisoners were also used for anatomical dissection after being executed (123). These anatomical dissections show that the research done on the human body came about from a dark history that had multiple illegal actions in order to obtain information on subjects. The subject anatomy came about from the murder of many African American bodies. People do not realize the pain and suffering people had to go through in order for others to learn about science and …show more content…
For example, Washington represents a lot of experimental stories, such as with black children. However, in some incidences the children are bribed with toys and they take that incentive in order to perform experimental research. Washington implied that the boy took the toy because of the incentive; however, there could be other sides to the stories, such as wanting to take the drugs that the researcher had or wanting to help out the doctor. The rest of the story was implied because she had no evidence of the entire story. Washington had to imply certain parts of the story in order to go along with her point of view of representing the abusive history of African