Not a New Englander With a Harvard Background
As I was reading the factory hospital scene, one exchange really
caught my attention. During the lobotomy, on page 236, one of the doctors asks
“Suppose it was a New Englander with a Harvard background?” and the other
replies with “Now you’re arguing politics”, insinuating that if the narrator
was a white man, the lobotomy would not be happening. I had heard of doctors
exploiting black people throughout history but I didn’t know much, so I looked
into it and what I found out was horrifying. I think this part of the book is
definitely meant as a subtle critique of those practices, so I decided to share
the research I did. I chose three prominent examples of malpractice to share,
and, although there are probably hundreds more reported and unreported cases, I
hope people can still learn something about this country’s troubling history.
The first prominent case is Henrietta Lacks. Seniors in the class
may remember the assigned reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacksfrom
freshman year, but for everybody’s sake, I’ll give a summary. Essentially, in
1950, a woman named Henrietta Lacks went to Johns Hopkins Hospital to biopsy a
tumor on her cervix. The doctor non-consensually took the cells he biopsied,
and grew them in a lab. These “immortal cells”, called HeLa, have been
priceless in cancer research, as treatments could be tried on human cells
without harming an actual person. Not only did Henrietta never know her cells
were so renown, neither she nor her family were ever compensated for her
contribution. This is one of the most famous cases of racist malpractice, with
the release of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in
addition to a recently released HBO adaptation.
Next is the experiments done by J. Marion Sims on his slaves.
After childbirth, women sometimes develop “vesico-vaginal fistulas”, which is
(to spare you the details), a complication of prolonged labor. In 1845 Sims
took it upon himself to find a way to surgically repair these fistulas. Because
of the limited technology of the time, he needed human subjects to examine and
test his theories on. So, over the course of three years, Sims rented out 10
different slaves from their owners to practice his surgical techniques on. It
took dozens of operations to trial and error a solution, with some women
undergoing the procedure without anesthesia. Because of the price those ten
women were forced to pay to develop the surgery and advances in childbirth
procedure, there are now almost no cases of vesico-vaginal fistulas reported in
developed countries, and the rare instances can be easily repaired.
I’ll mention one more case, for the sake of length, but there are
countless more. My final example of black people used by the medical industry
is the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. In the mid 20s, syphilis was coming more
and more to the attention of doctors around the US. One of the institutions
doing research was Tuskegee Institute, with a study formally called “Tuskegee
Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male”. The study began in 1932, and
followed 600 black men, roughly 400 infected with syphilis and 200 not, and
their reactions to various cures. The men were told they were coming in for
routine tests for “bad blood”, and were paid with hospital physicals and meals.
Although the study was at first meant to follow them for 6 months, it continued
for 40 years. The patients were even denied penicillin when it was proven to
cure syphilis, for the sake of continuing the trials. With this study, there is
a direct connection to Invisible Man: the college that the narrator
is presumed to have attended is Tuskegee.
The book was published in the mid-40s, the first concerns raised
were in 1968, and the study was publicly condemned and ended in 1972, but I
couldn’t find whether Ellison knew about these studies or not. Regardless, he
is clearly making a point about the countless other cases of black people being
exploited by the medical world. In Invisible Man neither the
narrator nor a family member ever gives consent to the lobotomy. This breaches
many medical codes, both today, and at the time. Also, as I was reading, I was
pretty skeptical of the necessity of the surgery at all. All we know the
narrator is hit with a bunch of white paint – why he needs a lobotomy is never
completely explained. The practice of doctors giving patients, especially black
patients, treatments they don’t need has also been recorded throughout history.
Finally, of course, is the racialized context of the situation. This scene
follows the allegorical factory scene; the doctors are all white whereas the
narrator is black; the doctors make jokes about how they’re operating on a
black man as opposed to a white man; and, as the narrator puts it, “Some of it
sounded like a discussion of history”.
I hope this blog post was as informative to you reading it as it
was to me as I was writing it. It gave me context for the book, especially for
the factory hospital scene, and gave me more insight into what Ellison may have
been critiquing throughout the scene.
More information:
This is a really interesting blogpost, because I think that the lobotomy scene is pretty trippy could be read as purely symbolic. But you're right to point out that it may be a serious political commentary on this issue. I wonder how many of these sorts of political commentaries, both obvious and not, Ellison weaved into the narrative. I'll be more on the lookout for them now.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly what I thought while reading this scene!! Stories of racist malpractice abound, and I'm sure Ellison would have known about them if he did as much research on this as on the rest of the book. I think the "operation he doesn't need" aspect comes out really clearly once we realize what they're "treating" him for: a personality change. He was meek and obedient before, and would the hospital really know about his history? When one doctor says "especially with this, uh...background (...) I believe it is a mistake to assume that solutions--cures, that is-- that apply in, uh...primitive instances, are, uh... equally effective when more advanced conditions are in question." Without all the jargon and hesitation: "He's black so we're giving him an experimental, unnecessary treatment to be an 'amiable fellow,' but what's the point if black people are too "primitive" to compare to white brains anyway?" Then mocking him for dancing under the electric shocks... Yeah, these doctors are really disgustingly racist.
ReplyDeleteyeah, horrifying isn't it?? I think it's interesting how Invisible Man was written before any of the cases you discussed, and I find it upsetting thinking about how many black people are still being mistreated by doctors. Just one more example of how our society doesn't care about black people's bodies.
ReplyDeleteThat's horrific. Thank you for sharing. Like Bella said it's horrible stuff like this is still happening. I think its really important also to talk about specific historical examples of the type of oppression the narrator hints at, especially with this book, since so much of the tone is ironic or sarcastic or surreal.
ReplyDeleteThe hospital scene is definitely one of the more direct confrontations of institutionalized racism in the Book. I didn't know about the extent of racist malpractice in America, and I'm very glad to be informed of this issue. While there is a lot of symbolism and allusion in that scene (the identity questions come to mind), I think it very possible that Ellison is specifically referencing a case like that of Tuskegee College in that scene. It doesn't give Ellison enough credit to just brush this scene as mere symbolism in my opinion.
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