Through my recent health crises I have been approached by too many people with too many theories and too much time on their hands to decry and avoid what is loosely termed as "western medicine." I am starting to believe that this is the term applied to any kind of pill, treatment or practitioner found in a hospital. That's the only thing I can believe as of yet. Those who are quick to place our healthcare purveyors in the same landfill really do not do their cause any justice.
I've been told that there are people who have "cured cancer and HIV with sea moss" and I've been told that I no longer need chemotherapy as I have the power, within, to "shrink your (my) tumours with your (my) mind." I've also heard from people who were so adamant in their need to decide against western healthcare that they were legally forced, with threats of loss of children and incarceration, to have their child's cancer treated. The child, I'm happy to report, is still alive. The mother, on the other hand, states, "I will never thank western medicine for saving my son." I actually saved that email because the woman's words were so very unbelievable that I had to keep the evidence of an almost-crime.
I've been introduced to healers who have never set foot into any medical academy as well as those who claim to only be able to operate if the gods have been obliged to listen in on the conversation (translation: pay before you play). Since my diagnosis of complex cancer I have not been able to make sense of this thing I'm going to call non-western medication. It isn't as ancient as Eastern healthcare and has none of its traditions. What it seems to be, more than anything, is just another hustle playing on the ignorance of desperate people who have had a history of betrayal via events such as the Tuskegee experiment (for over three decades Black American men were allowed to suffer syphilis and had the progression of the disease charted while the men infected loved ones and families) and medical experimentation for profit entities on places such as Parchmon farm in Mississippi (cosmetic , food, and pharmaceutical companies) to the use of deception in the sterilization of Black women in southern states (Fannie Lou Hamer is perhaps one of the most famous cases of a rural Black woman who went to a clinic, was told she needed minor surgery, and did not find out until many years later that she had been sterilized against her will). The fertility of the ground for disbelief by Blacks of White practitioners is as rich as the soil which surrounds the Mississippi River.
Yes. There are indeed vast territories of lies and frankly speaking crimes against the humanity of Black American citizens in the ocean of medical care and concern we have received at the hands of persons known. And that personage, in most cases, was the White medical community which had to be convinced that the health of Black America was worth the trouble it took to save and secure. Those battles for healthcare were fought with Black hands firmly placed in learned Black hands in the early days of historically Black colleges and universities such as Howard University and Meharry (naming two of the most prolific). The Black university became the training grounds for nurses and doctors until state universities would allow entrance of Blacks and city programs would allow young Black women a seat in classrooms where nurses were trained. A stellar example of this program can be found in the history of nursing education in the city of St. Louis. Nursing was an option one could select after completion of elementary school. The program was administered by St. Louis Public Schools. There was an additional program available through what was then known as Jewish Hospital (later changed to Barnes-Jewish and presently known as Barnes – Jewish – Christian Hospitals or BJC). In each example given this training was either the result for a need for Black ("coloured") nurses during and after World War II and the advances brought about by Civil Rights Era legislation during the early years of the decades which spanned the Korean War until the conclusion of the armed conflicts of which comprise Vietnam. Black Americans became trained in the medical professions as a continuation of family history and status or as the need arose due to international engagement in military conflicts. In either case, socio-economic strata who received training were never from the lowest classes of Blacks; they were either elite or from the top of blue-collar, working class families.
With this foundational information firmly in hand one must surmise that those most likely to be effected by the misdeeds of White and Western medicine are those who are now, most likely to be misled by a coterie of entrepreneurs who use racism as their primary basis for leading Black Americans away from faith in established medical avenues such as hospitals and clinics and towards products which do not list ingredients, do not have results of testing, and moreover may not ever address the health concerns or claims which seem to have no shame or cessation. It's a "pimper's paradise (Bob Marley)" for those who can spin a tale with the most flourish and showmanship reminiscent of the country, itinerant Baptist minister. Please allow me my anger as it cannot be contained when lives are in the balance.
Over and over I have asked what I felt were cogent questions of the persons who either touted or sold these products or who believed in the people who loosely call themselves doctors. It seems that asking, "Where did you attend and graduate medical training" somehow translates into rudeness. It also seems that asking for a product list is proof that I am somehow against a Black man trying to make a living. And finally, my inability to travel to a clinic in the Honduras signals that I am somehow a discredit to my 'race.'
Finally I was forced to consider the role of religion in the morass of arguments against this mythical evil creature western medicine. In my diagnosis, cancer, I was told that without treatment I would probably live no more than six months. With chemotherapy the probability added 30 more precious months to my life span. Calling the distance of someone's life is a taboo in Black American Protestantism (Baptist Church). It is the express power of God and only God to know when a human will be born or die. It is also the sole property of God to say when an injury or illness has placed a sufferer beyond medical attention. In this religion paradigm, God can breathe life into "dry bones," call the dead back from the grave (Lazarus), and cure those who had diseases which did not immediately end life but nevertheless made life very problematic to say the least (i. e. leprosy). There is no acceptance of mathematical or scientifically compiled statistics based upon averages of outcomes in certain situations. My prognosis, does not take into an account anything which cannot be scientifically predicted such as remission or an event that is best couched in the realm of the supernatural, such as a miracle. Remissions and miracles occur every day but they are not apropos to the scientific method. Therefore, the numbers are chosen and in the interest of full disclosure and medical transparency they are related to people like me who choose to allow them to be weights or simply just another factotum in the long list of data which eventually becomes part of the background music of a life spent in pursuit of life. This is not blasphemy, its science. Nothing more and nothing less. Thought processes of those who have yet to benefit from either higher education or secondary education which included more than the generic biology class may have a harder time incorporating and delineating what is the property of science and what is the property of God and what are the areas the two entities share.
At first the diagnosis was a shock. Then it was a weight. Then it became a puzzle I would attempt to unravel. Finally it has become something which I have accepted as part of the disease. This is what cancer does. It takes over. It violates. It divides. It schemes without regard to the amount of suffering incurred. It is not personal and it isn't even a business. It just is. It is not a judgment from God. It is not a gift. It is no different from catching a cold but far more detrimental and costly to treat. This gives rise to the next theory which divides people from medicine. Cost. We are told that there is more money in treating cancer than in curing cancer. From where I sit today and with the conversations I've had with others who live with or have survived cancer I do not believe that there are hospitals which gain clear profits from cancer. Additionally, if you cannot tell how or why something begins how can you become assured that it even has a cure? There are virtually thousands of types of cancers. We often say, "cancer cure" as if it is a single battle and that is a huge disservice and lack of respect for an enemy which daily extracts life from young and old, rich and poor, those with the best medical treatment and those who either cannot or do not seek treatment. I have been told that there is a Dr. Sebi who has "cured cancer and HIV" and that there is an herb called, "sour sop" which also has "cured cancer." Yet, I have yet to see any evidence or medical facts which can attest to these claims. The premise is that poor people do not have access to these cures and that the itinerant health care professional who does not use western medicine to heal is really acting as an equalizer on behalf of poor people. If the claims made by those who are devoted to Dr. Sebi (as an example) were true wouldn't he have joined the ranks of the wealthy a very long time ago? If only in sales of books on how he managed this feat? If the claims regarding sour sop or any other organic healer were true wouldn't every household in America with an accessible square foot or two of dirt be the growing place of this tree? Logic would dictate that the responsible person would take to this specific horticultural cultivation if only to preserve future generations. The fact is this: it isn't true. And further, in terms of economic gain, a conspiracy to keep "the cure" out of the hands of poor people would have to involve a pact between pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, teaching hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, and university research institutions world-wide. Added to that would be the ever-present rogue scientist whose measure of greatness has only one goal: earning the Nobel Prize in science. There is no amount of money in this world which would buy this coveted award. There is no amount of money in the next world which would arrest the efforts of students, scholars, and universities in the pursuit of this crowning jewel.
For people who have no idea what any of these institutions are the only measure is that of racism. People who have a fervent belief that racism is an excuse for everything and cause for everything and a rational for all things which keep them in darkness and ignorance cannot touch base with four Chinese scientists who spend every waking moment trying to untangle the mystery of why a certain gene always denotes an incident of cancer. Those who are ignorant of where glory lies for a scientist can be easily misled at every turn with stories of how "big pharma" has gained control of markets all over the world and how governments are gaining kickbacks and how hospitals and research institutions are complicit in this effort to keep the poor dying and the rich living are woefully rapt listeners and purchasers of cures from people who look just like them. These new cures are without the ancient proving grounds of Eastern medicine which can range from 8th century eye surgeries successfully executed by African, Arab and Muslim doctors and scientists to herbology, reflexology, and healing massage and acupuncture carefully protected and studied in China (as well as throughout other eastern nations). No. These new "doctors" do not prescribe eastern or western medicine. All they really sell is a feeling that one is "getting back" at racism, past injustices, and keeping money revolving within the Black community. As I've stated before, these purveyors have had very little success at curing any disease other than those which are cured by the common sense of eating right, sleep, water intake, and stress reduction.
The pioneer for this type of healthcare is undeniably Dick Gregory. During the late 1970's and early 1980's Mr. Gregory became involved in the health of Black America. Not once did he ever claim to cure cancer or any other deadly disease. His work in manufacturing products as well as the establishment of his clinics was two-fold and came in the form of (1) teaching and (2) creation of products which could be used along with but not in place of care given by hospitals. He did not usurp the place of those who had earned medical degrees and neither did he ever represent himself as a doctor. He brought doctors of color, Black doctors, to the attention of those seeking relief from conditions but was never divisive in his approach. It was a lesson in syncretism as opposed to assimilation; natural methods working to make the instances of more stringent pharmaceuticals and surgery less necessary. Furthermore, Mr. Gregory incorporated tenets of African healing arts such as meditation, diets which eschewed sugar as damaging to the body, mind as well as spirit. Mr. Gregory's approach was holistic in a Pan-African sense and gave credence to the fact that African Americans are still very much in possession of an African homeostasis. Two hundred years in one place does not negate the evolutionary characteristics of an organism which has spent 10,000 years in another place.
Mr. Gregory's approaches to health care are also decidedly Pan-African as they preceded colonialism as well as Trans-Atlantic Slave trade. This is key to the discussion of assimilation within an existing system versus syncretism of cultural healing practices without which do not allow the concurrent application of western medicine. The new healers' approaches are divergent from the founder (Gregory) as they urge the sick and ailing to choose one over the other. After consultation with a houngan or mambo the Haitian sick will still travel to the hospital (when finances permit) and utilize both. This is the case in Jamaica where Mr. Gregory's clinics were first established. He offered an additional route to healing and not an obliteration of established roads. As has been found in far too many recent instances of independence without an immediately readied transitional phase, the boat is destroyed while the sailors are still stuck at sea. To wit, the new healers have no connection with Pan-African thought, Caribbean cultural practices, or early pioneers in the field of medicine catering specifically to the needs of Black America. The apparent goal which comes to mind is capitalism.
In the goal of creating capital in a free market society, these new practitioners seek profit against all directions of ancient and traditional thought: Eastern, Western and African as well. Yet, for some, they remain a relevant form of treatment in order to obtain a semblance of racial independence and self-determination. And, much to my dismay as I tried to research and decide what was fact and what was fiction, to question the products, methods, or even the level of academic attainment of an individual who sells himself or herself as a doctor or healthcare provider the mere act of positing questions was an indicator of my lack of racial pride.
Questions for Those Who Do Not Practice Established Eastern Medicine or Western Medicine: A Guide to Treatment
1. What is the medical background of the manufacturer?
2. What are the ingredients of the formula and in what amounts?
3. How long has it been in existence?
4. Has there been outside (independent) testing?
5. Under what conditions and where is the product manufactured, packaged and shipped?
6. What is the level of academic attainment of the people who manufacture the drug/treatment?
7. What are the governmental departments which oversee the production of pharmaceuticals (i.e. OSHA, DEA, etc.)?
8. During testing, what was the sample size?
9. How large of a group was used to test the medicine and under what controls?
10. Was the product tested on various age groups?
11. Was the product tested on healthy adults?
12. What time period was used to determine the effectiveness of the medication?
13. Where are the testimonials of those who have been helped and or cured?
14. Is there pre-disease testing available for those who give testimonials?
15. Were the persons who gave testimonials examined by physicians who receive no benefit or are not connected to the product(s)?
16. Were there any fatalities during testing?
17. Were there any fatalities of patients using the drug/treatment?
18. Were there any university trials of this medication?
19. Were there any university trials at top tier research institutions or medical/surgical/research teaching hospitals?
20. Is the person prescribing the drug a physician or a research doctor?
As is often the case with questioning, more questions will arise. I would like to reiterate that my conversation is a niche area without relevance in any place except for the United States and without reference to any other people than Black Americans. There are many instances throughout the African Diasporas of healers who treat bodies and minds in obeisance to religion, class, and cultural inheritance(s). To bring an example from a specific source I have to offer the case of Nigerians in medical professions. Before independence, Nigerians were trained as doctors in universities and hospitals inside of the British Empire. Post-independence, there were concessions made by the University of London to train Nigerian doctors and also to create clinics and health care facilities which did not require travel to London in order to access. None of these concessions were ever created in the medical fields for Black Americans during slavery, Reconstruction, or post-Reconstruction. The closest similarity would be an all-inclusive grant to Howard University from the Freedman's Bureau. Other than those instances, which again, were not specifically for medical training, Black health care was funded by Black American individuals and businesses (please see the history of The Knights of Tabor and self-funding of hospitals and clinics in Mound Bayou, MS). Black healthcare, in Black America, has never been de-mystified and therefore can always be used against those who are most likely to be disenfranchised by the wider, mainstream system(s).
It is perhaps one more unforeseen occurrence of de Tocqueville's observation of the peculiarity of American slavery that a body of injustices would begin to accumulate and consequently occlude even the most rational thinkers. The twin snakes of Aeschylus have multiplied in larger numbers and instead of gracefully twisting around a staff, they are so very entwined that where one begins and the other ends is a conundrum which may only been solvable by artificial intelligence. And while we all wait for treatments and cures more will die without necessity. Some, yes, at the hands of western medicine. And others will die because they listened with their racial hearts and placed their trust in men and women whose only recommendation is an ability to inflame a fatally misguided racial pride.
Bibliography: References Used and Selected Texts for Further Reading
Outlaw Culture; Resisting Representations by bell hooks
Golden Age of the Moor by Ivan van Sertima
Medical Apartheid; The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington
A Country of Strangers; Blacks and Whites in America by David K. Shipler
Buried in the Bitter Waters; The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America by Elliot Jaspin
To Serve My Country, To Serve My Race; The Story of the Only African American WACs Stationed Oversees During World War II by Brenda L. Moore
Slavery by Another Name; The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
A History of Nigeria by Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton
The Politics of Knowledge; Area Studies and the Disciplines by David Seanton (Editor).