Equality In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

According to Riegelman and Kirkwood (2015) there are many social determinants that influence our health. These may include, but are not limited to; income, educational level, culture, and professional status. All of these things can contribute to our health, because they are the things we are surrounded with: a way of life. Most of these determinants are structurally unequal. This means that a person doesn’t have a choice, but to be part of that determinant. We do not have the choice of being born into a rich or poor family, what culture we are raised in, and so on. These inequalities lead to heath disparities. Health disparities are the differences between groups’ health that are/ can be caused by structural inequalities (Disparities 2017). For example, Henrietta Lacks came from a poor family and her health was negatively affected by the social determinants that come along with that lifestyle. On the other hand, we could look at a rich family during that time and their health could have been positively affected. We will look at how different social determinants caused Henrietta Lacks to experience both structural inequalities and heath disparities.

Henrietta Lacks is not a common household name, yet in the scientific and medical world it has become one of the most important and talked names of the century. Up until the time that this book was written, very few people knew of Henrietta Lacks and how her cells contributed to modern science, but Rebecca Skloot aimed to change this. Eventually Skloot was able to reach Henrietta’s remaining family and through them she was able to tell the story of not only the importance of the HeLa cells but also Henrietta’s life.

The novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, tells the journey between the author Rebecca and Deborah Lacks as they discover more about Deborah’s mother, Henrietta. As Rebecca is telling the story she includes herself as a character, and to me that aspect of the novel makes it easier to be able to connect with the other characters and the novel as a whole. Overall, Rebecca telling what she experienced throughout her time researching with Deborah gives much more depth to this novel. In this novel, you can truly relate to what Rebecca is feeling, see how the two bond together towards the end, and feel the impact that Deborah and even Henrietta had on Rebecca’s life.

After her death in 1951, for six decades, Henrietta Lacks did not exist in the eyes of the society, but her cells did. How? Well, the answer is quite simple. HeLa Cells are the first immortal human cells. These cells never die and multiply every twenty-four hours. After spending 10 years to perfect her first book, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot essentially captured the life, the death, and aftermath of Henrietta Lacks’ life. With controversial issues regarding science, ethics, race, and class Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey. From the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover,

1. What enticed me the most and caught my interest from the beginning was how the work in this class was not hesitant to address real-world issues. Throughout the periods of time in my former English classes, the problems we discussed and subsequently wrote about were not ones that were applicable to my life, or any ordinary life in general; they were issues that coincided with the lives of outliers, making them difficult to write about and relate to. This class, however, has thoroughly analyzed a vast array of topics that are incessantly debated about in our world today, from how poverty impacts people, how informed consent is of utmost importance in the medical industry, how abortion is viewed by many, and scores of other subjects

Many of today’s major vaccines would not have been possible without the ever so famous HeLa cells. These cells have a very unique trait that makes them immortality. Although they sound like something straight out of science fiction, they come from an actual woman named Henrietta Lacks who was diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer. Although her cells went on to be world famous, Henrietta lived a life of inequality because of her race, gender, and socio-economic class throughout her short lifespan.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, and Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines all revolve around colloquial affairs in humanity. Bringing forth the dilemmas caused by medical facilities concerning privacy and consent is the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Also, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates reveals effects of social problems. In addition to the two, Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines expresses environmental matters. Altogether, the following books illustrate mediocre issues occurring in the world today.

Henrietta Lacks was the woman who has provided the world with HeLa cells. They were taken from her cervical cancer. Information on Henrietta was not released for a very long time, so the question is, how would things have been different if information on this woman would have been released immediately after the discovery of her cells had been made? I think HeLa cells would have been interpreted COMPLETELY differently. I think this because of not only Alexis Carell, but also because of the Tuskegee syphilis study.

What springs to mind when someone talks about equality is usually the Civil Rights Movement. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Freedom Riders all fought for equality of African-Americans. In this movement, civil disobedience happened in so many of the scattered protests. It began with Rosa Parks refusing to abide by the Jim Crow laws by not giving up her bus seat to a white man. She disobeyed what was the law at that time, a law she believed was unfair, without a violent protest or unforgiving rage. Other protests were mostly that of civil disobedience since it was a widely accepted way of protest at the time. Sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and marches were the most used

If there is a favorable circumstance under which one can achieve equality, wouldn’t one pursue it? Humans are created to be unbiased, however intense circumstances ignite the reinforced barrier that fortifies the human race and instead, thrusts the other, more marginalized members of humankind over to the other side of this barricade, who are later bombarded and harassed amplifying the hatred amongst individuals. This concept distinctly accentuates the comprehensive impression of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, where a modest and trustworthy black man, Tom Robinson who represents the black community, is used as an excuse to support the white privilege, and is condemned for a scandal he does not perpetrate. Therefore,

Equality is important to be able to advance as a society, like in the story The Graduation by Maya Angelou. The speaker of the story, a little girl, lives during times of segregation between people of color and whites. As the story goes on, she realizes that she should have pride in who she is and that equality should be fought for. During the speech on the day of the graduation, the white man who is speaking makes the girl think that it would have been better if nobody was alive because then there would be no more discrimination against others (Angelou 46). As the story goes on, the speaker goes through the conflict of the lack of equality throughout the world during the time period. During the graduation, a man named Edward Donleavy, who

Despite the many differences we all have, there’s one major thing we have in common, the desire for equality. Everyone wants to feel treasured and loved, especially if the person next to you is getting this. Equality is something everyone wants but no one can seem to accomplish. In Barack Obama’s Speech on Race, it says, “We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine. In minor ways we’re different, in major we’re the same.” This quote explains why equality is so desired. Our differences can set us apart and sometimes determine what kind of treatment we get. Another example of this is from Human Family. It states, “...we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes.” This shows

Our family and friends stick by our sides, the same way we stick by them no matter what happens. Not only are they by our side during our times of joy and happiness but they are also with us during our times of sadness and grief. During our dark times, our family and friends serves as a shoulder to cry on and people we can lean on and cry with. This beatitude teaches us to be there for others and to feel empathy towards other people as well. That is what our true friends and family are for - to be there for us and be able to understand our situation and share the same feelings as we do, happy or sad.

Inequality makes an appearance many times throughout the book. This leads to the question, why do people treat others unfair when they don’t want to be treated that way? There are many different reasons why equality

1: The view of equality is important because we need to remember we are all humans no matter what little variation we contain within us, judging somebody for something as small as liking the same