Gone But Not Forgotten
Elie Wiesel once said, “We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with it’s own secrets, with it’s own treasures, with it’s own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph”. In the novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, the Lacks family is viewed as an abstraction both by the scientific community, and the media; however, Rebecca Skloot did not view them as an abstraction, and she made it her duty to discover the truth, and publish it in a way that the public would have access to it wherever they are. The Lacks family is viewed as an abstraction by the science community and the media in a variety of ways. The first of these ways is …show more content…
Talking about Henrietta and Day, Rebecca states that, “Like most young Lackses, Day didn’t finish school: he stopped in the fourth grade because the family needed him to work the fields. But Henrietta stayed until the sixth grade” (Skloot 20). The media and the scientific community were under the impression that because of the Lacks’ lower levels of education they would not be able to understand the information provided to them. Although this may be true, it is not a valid reason to withhold the information from them. If the Lacks family was not able to understand the information, then it could have been provided to them without any negative consequences. Had the information been given to the Lacks family from the start, many of the problems that arose could have been avoided entirely. Another way their level of education was used against them was when the HeLa cells began to be available worldwide. The Lacks family did not understand what was happening, and they believed that Henrietta herself was still alive. Neither the scientific community nor the media chose to inform them of the truth, and they got away with it because the Lacks family lacked the education to fully grasp what was happening with Henrietta’s cells around the world. In the end, their lack of education did not stop Deborah from pursuing, and eventually finding, the information she wanted to find about both her mother and her sister,
Elie Wiesel once said, “We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with it’s own secrets, with it’s own treasures, with it’s own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph”. In the novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, the Lacks family is viewed as an abstraction both by the scientific community, and the media; however, Rebecca Skloot did not view them as an abstraction, and she made it her duty to discover the truth, and publish it in a way that the public would have access to it wherever they are. The Lacks family is viewed as an abstraction by the science community and the media in a variety of ways. The first of these ways is …show more content…
Talking about Henrietta and Day, Rebecca states that, “Like most young Lackses, Day didn’t finish school: he stopped in the fourth grade because the family needed him to work the fields. But Henrietta stayed until the sixth grade” (Skloot 20). The media and the scientific community were under the impression that because of the Lacks’ lower levels of education they would not be able to understand the information provided to them. Although this may be true, it is not a valid reason to withhold the information from them. If the Lacks family was not able to understand the information, then it could have been provided to them without any negative consequences. Had the information been given to the Lacks family from the start, many of the problems that arose could have been avoided entirely. Another way their level of education was used against them was when the HeLa cells began to be available worldwide. The Lacks family did not understand what was happening, and they believed that Henrietta herself was still alive. Neither the scientific community nor the media chose to inform them of the truth, and they got away with it because the Lacks family lacked the education to fully grasp what was happening with Henrietta’s cells around the world. In the end, their lack of education did not stop Deborah from pursuing, and eventually finding, the information she wanted to find about both her mother and her sister,