The Roots of Black ANtipathy Towards the US Medical Establishment
The Roots of Black Antipathy Towards the US Medical Establishment
Junious Ricardo
Stanton
The current global coronavirus
situation and the roll out of SARS-CoV-2 injections has refocused attention on
the reasons Blacks remain skeptical of the motives of the government, the
health care system in general, Big Pharma in particular and why so many
African-Americans are reluctant to take the COVID injections. The history and
reasons for this skepticism date back hundreds of years to enslavement, through
the “Jim Crow” apartheid era to the present.
During enslavement Black bodies
were used without their consent for pleasure, experimentation and sterilization
while they were alive and for study, autopsy, amputation and dissection (which
all too often included mutilation) after they died. In addition to
“experimenting” and surgery on live Blacks without use of anesthesia, whites frequently
stole Black bodies from graves to autopsy and dissect (mutilate).
“The 19th century saw a boom
in medical education, with the number of American med schools increasing from 4
to 160. This meant the legal supply of cadavers was suddenly insufficient and
created demand for ‘resurrected’ bodies in both Britain
(think: Burke and Hare) and the U.S.
A group of free blacks in 1787
petitioned the city of New York
to stop people from robbing bodies from their graves in the Negro Burying
Ground but were unsuccessful. When the body of a white woman was discovered stolen
a year later, New Yorkers took action and rioted.” How Grave Robbers and Medical Students
Helped Dehumanize 19th Century Blacks and the Poor by Kristina
Killgrove https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/07/13/dissected-bodies-and-grave-robbing-evidence-of-unequal-treatment-of-19th-century-blacks-and-poor/
Black grave robbing goes back centuries; robbing Black
cemeteries was so popular they called the grave robbers “resurrectors”. Whites paid Blacks to pilfer the graves of
newly deceased Blacks so they could be used for their experiments. They figured
Blacks in a Black cemetery would be less suspicious. For hundreds of years
individual “doctors” and later medical schools used Black bodies without consent
or paying compensation to the families! “New York,
Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Maine, and Ohio all passed anti-grave robbing laws in
the first half of the 19th century. They didn’t work. Even
worse, the laws were particularly ineffective ‘for those groups generally
targeted for such activity: African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants,
and the poor.’” Ibid
During the early 20th century Rockefeller
and Carnegie schemed to monopolize medical education, petrochemicals and pharmaceutical
drugs. Using Pasteur’s “germ theory” Rockefeller pushed drugs made from oil and
petrochemicals as the solution. Medical schools many supported by Rockefeller
money embraced this notion of treatment.
Use of dead bodies (cadavers)
became an integral part of 20th century medical education and
research, hence the increasing need for free cadavers. Over the years, live
Blacks were also used for experimentation and study often unbeknownst to the
subjects or their families. While the establishment of medical schools and
hospitals increased often funded by oligarchs like Rockefeller, most of these
facilities were closed to Blacks. Or they limited Black patients due to
government sanctioned racial apartheid.
The Flexner Report published in 1910 paid for
by Carnegie (at the behest of Rockefeller) supposedly to evaluate and standardize
US
medical education was used by Rockefeller and Carnegie to eliminate competing
disciplines and therapies such as: naturopathy, osteopathic medicine and
homeopathy but the report also led to the closure of several pioneering Black
medical schools. https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/medicaleducation/87171
In an attempt to remedy these
conditions Blacks founded their own hospitals, medical colleges and nursing
schools. Black morticians used their carriages and hearses as ambulances
because white ambulances would not transport Blacks and there were very few
places to transport them that would treat Blacks! The sting of this legacy lingers
today despite the passage of civil rights and social welfare funding
legislation that has mitigated many of these policies.
Here is a list of the historic
Black hospitals: Freedman’s Hospital (now Howard University Hospital)
was founded in 1862 as part of the Freedman’s Bureau and it was established to
address the needs of the newly freed Blacks. It was and still is a federally
funded facility. Provident Hospital founded in 1891 in Chicago Illinois
by a Black Doctor Daniel Hale Williams to train Black nurses and interns. Other
pioneering Black hospitals were: the Frederick Douglass
Memorial Hospital
and Training School founded in 1895 in Philadelphia
by Dr. Nathan F. Mossell and Lincoln Hospital in Durham, North Carolina founded in 1901 by Aaron Moore and staffed
by Black doctors from the Leonard Medical School
at Shaw University
the first four year medical school for Blacks in the US. Lincoln
was also assisted by the influential Washington Duke a white tobacco magnate
and industrialist (Duke
University is named after
him and his family). These ground-breaking facilities were all part of the
Black hospital movement.
In
addition to this sordid history, there is also a long tradition of disrespect,
maltreatment and callousness towards Blacks by “medical professionals”,
hospital staffs, pharmacists and other health care agents. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32032-8/fulltext
Until these issues are addressed and rectified don’t expect Blacks to fully
trust or embrace the health care system or their programs.
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Free Afro-American Activism
Free Afro-American Activism
Junious Ricardo
Stanton
“The impetus behind the national black
convention movement was growing concern over the status of blacks in the United States,
with Hezekiah Grice initiating the movement. Grice was a young black abolitionist
who had actively participated in antislavery activities with white
abolitionists Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison, in Baltimore, Maryland
during the 1820s, and whose sentiments came to a head after the Cincinnati Riot
in 1829, which resulted in anti-black violence.” National Black Conventions
and the Quest for African-American Freedom and Progress 1847-1867 Shawn C.
Comminey International Social Science Review https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1107&context=issr
When we think of
our sojourn here during the British colonial period and following the creation
of the United States,
all too often we only think of enslavement. We tend to forget or never knew
there was a significant population of free Blacks both in the north and the
south.
Free Blacks despite their “freedom” were not
integrated within the larger society. While many were successful farmers and
entrepreneurs, their lot was not guaranteed because their status was dependent
upon the largess of the dominate society.
In fact many whites viewed them with suspicion and fear because they
felt free Blacks gave enslaved Blacks ideas and hope about freedom. There was
also the issue of competition for work, living spaces and land use, as well as
the notion that America
was a white man’s nation. This resulted in free Blacks being targeted with
recurring violence and organized riots by whites. Free Blacks were not only
concerned about their own precarious status but also that of their enslaved
brethren.
In the midst of
this tension Blacks came together to discuss what they perceived as their own
best options and what they could do to better the lot of enslaved
Afro-Americans. These gatherings were called Negro Conventions. “The National Convention met a
dozen times before the Civil War in Pennsylvania, Ohio,
and New York State. The catalyst for the first
meeting in Philadelphia centered upon a proposal
by city leaders to oust Cincinnati’s
black population as a response to conflict that had emerged over job
competition between black and white men. The Cincinnati Riot of
1829 led black leaders to organize throughout the Midwest
and Northeast in protest against anti-black violence, discrimination, and slavery.” National Negro Convention Movement 1831-1864 https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/national-negro-convention-movement-1831-1864/
The discussions
during these conventions reflected the social, political and economic tenor of
the day. The violence endured by enslaved Afro-Americans and the tensions and
conflict experienced by free Blacks prompted free Blacks to meet to discuss
their situation. These were not merely meetings to “blow off steam” and vent.
They featured serious discussions and often included plans to immigrate back to
Africa (either on their own or as part of the American Colonization Society’s
plan to establish a colony of free Blacks in Africa), to Canada or form their
own independent settlements beyond the confines of the territorial United
States (which I’ll share in another article). They often pooled their resources
to help the campaign to abolish slavery by supporting Blacks who printed
newspapers, pamphlets and books. Others spoke out ardently attempting to
persuade free Blacks to leave the US because they did not feel whites
would ever open society and allow Blacks to thrive in a completely free
atmosphere.
Our ancestors did
not see themselves as powerless victims. They fully understood the reality of
their quasi free status and they wanted better for themselves and their
enslaved people. Coming together to meet was merely one of the ways they
attempted to alter their condition and make things better for themselves and
their enslaved brethren. They also took action by petitioning the government
and by starting their own communities. We’ll discuss this in another article.
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