"But Gladys always insisted Day would be a no-good husband" (pg. Over the course of her life, she will probably have a lot more kids. At the delicate age of eighteen, Henrietta has already given birth to two children. Fortunately, Henrietta and David's first child Lawrence was healthy. It is because of the mix-up in Elsie's genetics that caused these problems. 23).Īs present-day readers know, Elsie's conditions were not due to the fact that she hit her head coming out of the womb. Everyone would say maybe that was what left her mind like an infant's" (pg. She came into the world so fast, Day hadn't even gotten back with the midwife when Elsie shot right out and hit her head on the floor. To the folks in Lacks Town, she was just simple. "People wouldn't use words like epilepsy, mental retardation, or neurosyphilis to describe Elsie's condition until years later. This implies two things: the children learn independence and responsibility for themselves, and that some of them will grow up to be like these reckless farmers. Sounds like there aren't many good adult influences for the children on the farm. "Night at the warehouse was a time of booze, gambling, prostitution, and occasional murders as farmers burned through their season's earnings" (pg. Of course Henrietta and her family had no choice but to farm and perform other laborious tasks for a living because of the Jim Crow era, but the constant presence of tobacco may have imposed a lasting health issue for Henrietta, especially since she was exposed to the tobacco at an early age, making her more vulnerable to harmful effects. "They spent much of their young lives stooped in those fields, planting tobacco behind mule-drawn plows" (pg. Incest? This would obviously affect the health of their children. The destruction of Deborah’s generation of Lackses is proof that racism, classism, and sexism are still alive and well in America, and by the end of the narrative, the writer has clearly joined in the fight against all three."No one could have guessed she'd spend the rest of her life with Day-first as a cousin growing up in their grandfather's home, then as his wife" ( pg. Soon after this, Deborah dies, her health essentially destroyed by conditions that would have been completely preventable in a more privileged member of society. Rebecca should seek instead to help their children, bettering their socioeconomic status using the profits she will make with her book about Henrietta. Towards the end of the book, Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, tells the author-a white journalist named Rebecca Skloot-that it’s too late for the generation of her and her brothers. In fact, immoral reporters and swindlers even tried to take advantage of the Lackses, believing them to be stupid and gullible because of their lack of education. Despite sharing the genes that helped researchers study everything from polio to cancer to chromosomes to radiation, Henrietta Lacks’ descendants didn’t even have health insurance. The scientific community still felt no need to include this largely poor, black family in their discoveries. As a result, the Lacks children grew up not to be proud of their mother’s “immortality,” but instead to be traumatized by it. Even worse, the researchers in question completely failed to keep her family informed of the work that they were doing, or to compensate them in any way. The scientists who used her tissues in their research and innovations rarely had any idea of who Henrietta was while they received awards and recognitions, she stayed completely unnoticed for her contribution to the scientific community. Of course, these views grew even worse after Henrietta died, when her cells became known only as HeLa. Their arrogant attitude towards her stemmed largely from Henrietta’s low social and economic status as a black woman, which made her white, well-educated doctors believe that she didn’t even have the capacity to understand their decisions. Her doctors, in return, failed at every turn to keep her informed of their decisions and methods, even neglecting to tell her that her cancer treatment would make her infertile. She simply did what her doctors told her and had faith that she would be healed, even when her cancer treatments put her through tremendous physical and psychological pain. A poor and under-educated black woman, Henrietta had essentially no say in her medical care during her life. The problems of racism, classism, and sexism in America are crucial to understanding the narrative of Henrietta Lacks.
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