Untitled
by Israel Zarate
The thought of equality is nice. Generally, in theory, and only and in theory, equality is a concept most people would agree on. At least on the surface it seems like it is something everyone would agree on. In reality, practices of equality, true equality, that is, equality without restrictions, look very different. There seems to be an issue with the way the Western World thinks about the issue of equality; in a World highlighted by its ‘development’ , the issue of equality still seems to root itself in archaic conceptions of race, gender, and class. Meaning, there is no true equality. What we have in the Western World is pseudo-equality. It is the sort of equality that seems nice on the surface but when the fine print is magnified it becomes clear who equality is truly for.
Looking at the history of the medical field, it is easy to see how polluted utilitarian ideals can become. How intentions rooted in good can quickly pivot into something more sinister. It seems odd that something as objective as say science, something as serviceable as medicine, can still be seduced by the allure of White Supremacy—the allure to escape commodification. In light of recent changes in our shrinking list of human rights as American citizens, the right to a safe and protected abortion has been unsurprisingly lost. Historically, a country that considers women second class citizens, was never truly going to compromise on something as impractical as basic human autonomy. No — basic human safety for women.
When thinking of the fuel for our Country’s success, the catalyst for our up-by-our-bootstraps narrative, the allure of Capitalism cannot be ignored. Its grandiose promises of power are relentless in its conquest—quickly contaminating everything it comes into contact with—especially impressionable monarchs with large egos and an even smaller sense of empathy. Marred by riches and lands as foreign as the people they conquered, the Western world soon became enamored with the idea of being the gold standard of humanity; meaning, anything that strays from whiteness is somehow a less deserving sort of being. The issue that then faces black women is their hyper-(in)visibility. Black women are seen as mere—property. This state of limbo in which black women exist, a place that puts black women at a crossroad which makes them choose between black and woman. This strips them of their femininity, womanhood, and more importantly, their humanity. Through the historical construction of not just women, but black women as well, society in turn labeled black women as immoral beings void of humanity.
To date, the issue of black women’s hyper-(in)visibility continues to plague our society through its manifestation in our treatment of black women. While seemingly unfathomable, spoken words have meaning, and in turn—consequences. Not just the gender divide that current medical practices foster, but also racial divides that manifest in how patients are treated. Black women, who historically have been portrayed as stronger and as somehow having a higher capacity for pain, making their pain and discomforts somehow seem less valid. Let’s imagine a black woman who is giving birth to her child and is asking for an epidural block for pain, but due to society’s social construction of black women as more tolerant to pain, she is not given the injection and as a result dies. Her capacity as a knower of her own body is disregarded because historically, black women have been presented to be more resistant to pain than white women. Whether wanting to confront it or not, there are engrained practices in the medical field that promote the welfare of certain kinds of bodies for the benefit, not of society, but white men who continue to enact, control, and terrorize the body in the name of self- interest.
While no one is pointing out fingers at the individual doctors, at least I am not, they are mere cogs of a much larger machine that serves one single purpose—to control. The problem of doctors not being able to perform abortions is not a mere medical problem, but a historical problem. It is not the first time society flexes its muscles in the name of control, this is just another occurrence of it. Human lives are not commodities to be played with, they are that, human lives worthy of the same care privileged bodies in this country are afforded. The problem of abortion is not a medical one, but a human one.
Education at its roots does not attempt to be evil, but through its inception in a eurocentric society, it ends up centering whiteness. This results in education being part of a much larger machine that serves one single purpose—to control the ‘Other’. Fixing western education is not just a matter of administrators amending curriculums, but rather an epistemic problem; a historical problem. Human lives are not commodities to be played with, they are that, human lives worthy of the same care privileged bodies in this country are afforded. The problem of education is a human one.