Note: I wrote this on October 9 just because I was feeling the need to express myself in writing. Some friends suggested I send it on to a newspaper as an op-ed or something like that, but it was written for me, not necessarily for the public. However, as I continue reading news bits about the Ebola outbreak (though I guess we aren't yet calling it an outbreak in the US) I began to rethink making this public. You'll notice this is my first blog post in years. Perhaps...perhaps...I will write more regularly.
Here we are,
living in “post-racial America.” This is
a phrase, which thankfully, people have not been using as much as it was being
used in the years immediately following the election of Barack Obama as
president of the United States of America.
There was a belief, I guess, that since a black man can now be president
of arguably the greatest country in the “free world” we have moved well beyond
the racial segregation that has divided this country for a long time. This couldn’t be farther from the truth!
Look no
further than Ferguson, Missouri, where an unarmed black teenager was shot and
killed by a white police officer, to see an example of continued racial
injustice. This incident, unfortunately,
is not atypical of what happens in many cities across the country. One has only to pick up the newspaper or
watch the news in almost any American city to hear or read reports of violence
against black people – black men especially.
Michelle Alexander, in a speech at Ohio Dominican University in
September 2014, quotes from Isabel Wilkerson’s book The Warmth of Other Suns, that “the rate of police killings of
Black Americans is nearly the same as the rate of lynchings in the early
Twentieth Century.”[1] This is certainly chilling information. However, rather than focusing on this sort of
overt violence against people of color, I have been thinking a lot about Mr. Thomas
Eric Duncan, a man who traveled from Liberia to Dallas, TX and who died October
8, 2014 as a result of having contracted the Ebola virus.
It is
important to note that the Ebola virus has been widespread in several African
countries for approximately a year. The
virus seemed to be contained in those countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone, and
Guinea) and so it seemed that we – Americans – didn’t need to pay attention. Sure there may have been an occasional news
story about the death toll that is in the thousands,
but those were not Americans who were
dying. There were a few Americans (and
people of other nationalities) who have been in Africa trying to help those
with the virus and to help prevent its spread.
But the situation hardly gained the type of national – or worldwide –
attention until the summer of 2014.
Mr. Duncan,
a Liberian national, arrived in Dallas, TX on September 20. Showing symptoms of what might have been
Ebola, he visited a hospital in Dallas.
He was examined and released. He
later returned to the hospital where it was confirmed he had contracted Ebola;
he was admitted, and later died.
I’ve been
asking myself, why did Mr. Duncan die?
Since the news broke of his hospitalization and the fact that he had the
Ebola virus, I was praying that he wouldn’t die, even though I had a sneaking
suspicion that he would. And I had every
reason to be suspicious. From a CNN news
report, “Unlike
the American patients, who were quickly tested and quarantined at the first
sign of Ebola, Duncan wasn't.”[2] That same report continues:
Duncan received experimental medicine on October 4
-- six days after admission to the hospital. It was a far longer wait than four other Ebola
patients treated in the United States. Those patients -- two each at Atlanta's
Emory University Hospital and the University of Nebraska Medical Center -- got
experimental medicine immediately. They're all U.S. citizens; Duncan was a
Liberian.
Did his
citizenship have anything to do with his treatment – or lack thereof? When discussing Mr. Duncan’s condition,
Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, noted that the use of experimental drugs "can
be quite difficult for patients to take and may transiently worsen their
condition."[3]
I was left wondering why these experimental treatments wouldn’t “transiently
worsen” the condition of the others who have been flown to the U.S. specifically to be treated in this manner. Why would the treatment have any more, or
less, adverse effect on Mr. Duncan than it would have had on these other people? I, of course, am no doctor and therefore
cannot make a statement as to why this might be the case. But on the face of things, it would appear
that the only difference in the ways in which the patients have all been
treated is one of skin color. They were
in Western Africa. They contracted the
Ebola virus. They came to the US. They were hospitalized. All but one survived. The only patient who was not immediately
diagnosed, and the only patient who has, so far, died in the U.S., happens to
be the only patient who a) is not American and b) who happens to be a black
man.
So who are
the Americans that have contracted the Ebola virus and what is their status? A
report from CNN[4]
identifies the Americans with Ebola as:
- Patrick Sawyer died in Liberia as a result of contracting the Ebola virus. July 2014.
- Kent Brantley, treated at Emory University Hospital in August 2014. Received experimental drug. Survived.
- Nancy Writebol, treated at Emory University Hospital in August 2014 with experimental drug. Survived
- Rick Sacra, treated at Nebraska Medical Center in September 2014. Received blood transfusion. Weakened immune system, but survived.
- Ashoka Mukpo arrived in Nebraska on Monday, October 6 and has already received a blood transfusion as of October 8. As of this writing it is too soon to determine his prognosis, but it is likely that he will survive.
Patrick
Sawyer, who died in Liberia, happens to be of African descent. He was in Liberia caring for a relative. But he is also American. Was it not worth it to fly this American back
to the U.S. for appropriate treatment? I
can’t say. I can’t say because I don’t
know at what point he discovered his infection and with whom he was in contact
to disclose his illness and if there was enough time to get him to the US to
possibly save his life. But I can’t help
but notice the difference between those who survive and those who die and what
the commonalities are in those groups – or at least what one, perhaps
significant, commonality is.
[1] “Ohio Dominican University - Michelle
Alexander - "The New Jim Crow.” YouTube (minute 16:00 - ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezhKlD1gx5k.
Accessed October 9, 2014.
[2] ”Thomas Eric Duncan: 6 ways his case differs
from other U.S. Ebola cases.” CNN http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/09/health/ebola-duncan-death-cause/index.html. Accessed October 9, 2014.
[3] “Dallas Ebola patient ‘fighting for his
life’ CDC head says” Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/10/05/dallas-ebola-patient-fighting-for-his-life-cdc-head-says/. Accessed October 9, 2014.
[4] “Who are the American Ebola patients?” CNN http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/health/american-ebola-patients/.
Accessed October 9, 2014.
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