My Reflection on the Film “Miss Evers’ Boys” The movie “Miss Evers’ Boys” discusses the experiment of using a clinical trial treatment for syphilis. The film is based on the real-life study called “The Tuskegee Study” that took place in Macon County, Alabama, in which the study selected 412 men infected with syphilis and promised them free medical treatment for what was called "bad blood". After watching the movie, I could observe how race was tied into the statement, "Racism is a pathogen with biological consequences." It means racism is like a disease that spreads everywhere and attaches to innocent human beings and causes physical suffering for years. In addition, in those days especially, black men were considered inferior to white men, …show more content…
so diseases were supposed to affect black men differently. So, in this true story of racism, African Americans distrusted government. American citizens, especially African Americans in this study, mistrust medical professionals, did not trust the professional’s cultural competence, and mistrust the complicity and affirmative harm enacted by medical professionals in the US public health service. First, because of the experiment which targeted African American men, they mistrusted the medical professionals. This study depicts the emotional effects of one of the most amoral instances of governmental experimentation ever carried out which was perpetrated on African American men. It shows how the government was involved in research while simultaneously exploring the depths of human tragedy and suffering that resulted from certain social conditions. This shows the moral journey of Miss Eunice Evers, a nurse at a local Tuskegee hospital how her decisions had ramifications on the life and well-being of her best boyfriends. This movie deals with the ethical considerations present in human experimentation. Because of the immoral experiment on these men, they did not put trust in medical professionals working for the U.S. public health. Next, American citizens, especially African American because of this study did not trust the professional’s cultural competence. This film shows how many automatically took sides they had grown up with in the racial tensions in America. The government wanted to mimic the Oslo experiments on the Caucasian population, instead this study only focused on a population of African Americans infected with syphilis but who had no treatment for it, up to that point. During the era of that study, syphilis was believed to be predominantly a disease infecting the African American race, since scientists believed they were more “at risk” for acquiring the disease. So, in the study, the government wanted to compare the African American’s physical response to the “medication cure” with the Caucasian’s physical response to that same “medication cure” for syphilis. The lengths they went to obtain and confirm their data seemed like the government was operating in an ethically unchecked manner with nothing but blunt statistical inferences. The government had sought to prove that there was a connection between race and syphilis. There was nothing. Moreover, the government did one of the most disastrous instances of human experimentation on black people in United States history. The US government was powerful and thought they could do anything they wanted to do to people of color, in this case to African American people. Because of this study on African American people regarding their presupposed connection to syphilis, it revealed that the professionals failed to perform cultural competence in the public health services. Finally, American citizens, especially the African Americans because of the experiment, mistrusted the complicity and affirmative harm caused by the medical professionals in the US public health service.
The health professionals were supposed to protect and provide care and treatment to those suffering, in this case from syphilis. Those professionals had taken oaths, but instead they did immoral and illegal things. The health professionals were supposed to help to treat the subject’s disease because it was treatable but ended up causing even more suffering for them for years by watching the experiment subjects suffer and die without any treatment. Miss Ever was torn, yet continued to help Dr. Brodus, the physician that supposedly was treating patients in need but ended up killing slowly them without medication. Eunice urged her boy friends to continue the study, in the hope of future treatment, but the treatment never came, even though the antidote, penicillin, had become available. I, the audience, watched Miss Evers struggle throughout the story with the pros and cons of her choices and decisions. On one hand, she wants to support the experiment; yet, on the other, she wants to protect and comfort her friends. At one point, she stole penicillin to help one of her boys, but he ended up killing himself because of his excruciating suffering for decades. So American citizens, because of the experiment, did not put any trust because of the complicity and lack of affirmative care of medical professionals in America’s public health
service. This movie portrays one of the most disastrous instances of African American discrimination and abuse in a human study in United States’ history. The United States Public Health Service’s “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” was really about racism that tied into everything, including medical, financial, and physical features of people of color. Because of this study, American citizens, especially African Americans distrust medical professionals, learned to not trust professional’s cultural competence, and mistrust the complicity and affirmative care of medical professionals in the US public health service. The fact that the government did this immoral experiment on black men, made them not put trust to the medical professionals in the U.S. public health. Then, because of the study, it was revealed that the professionals failed to perform cultural competence in public health. In addition, American citizens did not put any trust in the complicity and affirmative care of medical professionals in America’s public health service. It was an effective way to see this story come to life because by seeing this movie, the pain that the four men and Miss Evers went through is so clearly portrayed and plain to see. The story helped me see how influential race was and is, though it seemed not be strongly emphasized until the end of the story. The interesting part was the fact that to get attention from the U.S. government or Public Health Service, these four black men had to be tortured with, not cured from syphilis for decades until they died one by one. If those had been white men, they would have treated the disease first, not made them subjects for studying only, suffering only. So, this proves that blacks were considered inferior beings that did not deserve to receive proper treatment medically. It is our responsibility as members of a community to be aware of the injustices that went on, and are still going on, especially in the medical field, and hope we can prevent anything like this from happening again. No more repeating of inhumane experimentation.
A man and woman, both soldiers, were killed in a helicopter accident in Fort Bragg, NC. The accident occurred due to an equipment malfunction that happened while the soldiers were doing maintenance work (“2 Soldiers Killed While Working on Helicopter” 7A). Meanwhile, in Texas, Karla Faye Tucker became the first woman to be executed in Texas in over 130 years. Tucker was accused of beating a man and woman to death. Although she pleaded for mercy, she was given no pity, for there was a 16-0 vote for her to be executed (Holmes 7A). In the medical world, there was a tremendous breakthrough in the treatment of AIDS. The number of patients with AIDS in the U.S. lowered 44%. This is largely due to the newest treatment of AIDS, which was benefiting all races and genders. Over 21,000 patients died of AIDS in 1996, but numbers plummeted to 12,000 by 1998 (Haney 7A). One of the most talked about happenings in the U.S. is the affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Monica refused to confess to the famous affair that was brought to federal courts. The judges believed that Clinton had told her to keep quiet, so the 24 year-old ex-White House intern diligently obeyed (Yost
...d that black people were simply afflicted with a form of leprosy of which caused blackening of skin as well as swelling to the lips and nose. Rush also believed the leprosy dulled sensitivity and created a higher threashhold for pain, a trait slaveowners used to legitimize beatings. (183)
The sexual abuse of african-american women, and african women began with slavery, and can be noted as the first shift in inequality and lack of control over one’s own body. The psychological, and physiological construct of control is deeply rooted in history. Slavery, for example, was the physical dehumanization of another human being who was thought to be inferior. Psychologically, the act of physical constraint must have internalized ideas of social dominance. Especially, when slave owners, overseers, and drivers would take advantage of their authority and of their powerful positions to rape enslaved women. After the emancipation of the slaves, white men were no longer in control, and this generated a fear of equality with african-american
Dorothy Roberts makes a compelling argument, at first glance, against race-based medicine. She stated many facts in her lecture which gave her argument legitimacy, but under further investigation it was discovered that many of her statistics were manipulated. The strongest part of her argument was when she incorporated ethos and pathos to convince the reader that race-based medicine was in fact racist. Her overall argument was strong, and was probably enough to convince an unbiased audience member. The major flaw with Roberts’ argument was the manipulation of statistics, and the lack legitimate
First, when we talk about ethics we talk about moral principles, what is good and what is bad. Throughout the book the author starts showing us the unethical things doctors use to do. For example, on Chapter 3 she writes “Like many doctors of his era, Telinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free
The Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in the Negro Male population was studied to improve the health of poor African Americans. Men were recruited for this study and were promised free medical examinations, blood tests, and medicines. Bessie disliked going to the doctor, however, she would really not really seek health care knowing the circumstances of this case. Trusting the health care providers is her biggest issue. Not being able to communicate and understand a patient, as a caregiver, would make me not want to go to the doctor as well.
“Physiognomic” is the word Allport used to explain how being black has a negative connotation. Allport adds that the English language relates black in the English language to “sinister connotations” such as “black death” or “black-hearted” (368). In this chase, the color black is associated with bad and white is associated with good or pure. If white signifies purity and morality, then why did whites own slaves? Why weren’t blacks and whites on an equal playing field? It goes back to Allport’s message that, “The very act of classifying forces us to overlook all other features…” communicates to us that the label “black” only allows us to see just that—black (365). Other words can be associated with black people such as: police officer, author, and doctor, but in the back of our minds, black is still a word with a negative
...nctual as it seems. During the time Ms. Evers and Dr. Brodus were communicating they were sending and receiving each other information to contribute to the Tuskegee Study. Ms. Evers was committed to helping these male to get rid of this disease and informing them that what can happen if it doesn’t clear or they didn’t get check.
Davis stated that racism draws strength from the ability to encourage sexual coercion. Black women, who were rape victims, receive little sympathy from law enforcement and judges. Not only because of racism that has grown over time against black men, but black women as well. Since black men were categorized as rapist, black women were suggested to be loose and promiscuous. Since black women were suggested to be whores and sexual immoral, their cries of rape went unheard because they lack legitimacy in a society that believed men were provoked to acted in a natural way. Davis believes that the creation of the black rapist was used as a scapegoat in order to veil the true problem of black women being sexually assaulted by white men. A historical feature of racism is that white men, especially those with money and authority, possess an indisputable right to access a Black woman’s body. Davis also stated that the institution of lynching complimented by the rape of Black women became and essential ingredient of postwar strategy of racism. Lynching and the labeling of black men being rapist and raping black women for being promiscuous, both black men and women were able to be kept in check. By following the mainstream population, people fell into the trap of blaming the victim. Unfortunately a consequence was that blacks has to endure the punishment of lynching and black women were blamed for being victims of sexual
Earlier in the semester we watched a video over Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Dr. Joy DeGruy. This video was inspiring for people to look at what has happened in our history and society. This has been a major social injustice to African-Americans for so long, and it is now time that it needs to be confronted. People are often confused about why some people get upset about the way African-Americans react to some things, it is because they never had the opportunity to heal from their pain in history. In the article “Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome,” it is talked about how racism is, “a serious illness that has been allowed to fester for 400 years without proper attention” (Leary, Hammond, and Davis, “Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome”). This is
Does racism still exist today? Although many believe it was a problem in the past, it still exists today. Many People are still not aware that it still exists in our workforces, especially in medical field. Although racism in medicine can be very offense, it can sometimes be beneficial and help reveal differences in diseases based on genetic make up. These differences can be taken in the wrong manner and can lead to social problems especially if these distinctions are thought of as ethnic differences. In Gregg M. Bloche’s article. “Race, Money and Medicine”, he states that we should erase racial categories from medicine but only use them if they are beneficial for the patient’s health. Peter Clark, author of “Prejudice and the Medical Profession: A Five Year Update”, explains that racial categories should be understood because understand these different can be beneficial. Lynne D. Richardson and Marlaina Norris, authors of “Access to Health and Health Care: How Race and Ethnicity Matter”, also believe that these differences can be beneficial but want to improve the health are because they know a majority of minorities do not receive proper health care and treatment. Rebecca Skloot, author of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, pays attention to the fact that her character, Henrietta Lacks, was not given the proper treatment and care she should have. Although Henrietta’s cells were beneficial to cancer research , she never once gave consent to the doctor’s to distribute her cells. She was taken advantage of because of her race and low income. Minorities’ opinions and beliefs should be taken into perspective because they often feel neglected which causes a sense of “distrust”. There has been a vast history of racism in the ...
Miss. Evers Boys is a movie based on the real life study called “The Tuskegee Study” that took place in Macon County, Alabama, where 400 black men who had syphilis and 200 black men without this disease participated on this study without knowing the terrible truth behind it. Also the participants were poor and uneducated sharecropper who fell for Miss. Evers persuasions and rewards that doctors were offering to participants. The main results that doctors were trying to obtain from this experiment was to gain information about how African Americans men’s bodies reacted to syphilis. During the 1930’s, society believed that black men were inferior to white men, so diseases were supposed to affect differently black men. This study in particular, the participants were not informed about the capacity that this disease could damage their human system and they were not viewed as a human being and they were used as lab rat. Furthermore, one of the doctors who were involved in this experiment Dr. Raymond Vonderlehr used the term “necropsy” that is an autopsy performed on animals when speaking about the participants of this experiment (Mananda R-G, 2012).
The medicine men seem to be taking extreme advantage of the people he is supposed to be taking care of. They seem to be out for more selfish pursuits as opposed to really sincerely helping the people. I could not believe that the sick had to give gifts before they could be “helped” and after they were “helped.” The fact that they experienced immense...
The Tuskegee Study, as exampled in the film “Miss Evers’ Boys,” was a horrendous example of the result of racism, a vulnerable population, and the manipulation of people not given the proper dignity they deserved, to benefit the majority class (Woodard). According to the film, in this study a whole community of African Americans went decades with identified cases of syphilis, being given placebo interventions and unjustifiably told that a later recognized intervention of penicillin shots were too risky for their use. Why would they do this? To gain knowledge; and they viewed the study as a “pure” scientific experiment, a human trial that would likely never be acceptable to have been conducted on Whites of the time, and under the full knowledge and aid of the U.S. government (Woodard, “Miss Evers’ Boys”).
One thing that adds to the endangerment of black men is harmful vaccines. Over the past few years, the CDC have allowed doctors to give dangerous vaccines to black babies. These vaccines caused a spike in autism among African American males. To explain, "the CDC had in its possession irrefutable data linking MMR vaccines to autism