Hmmm.
What could it be...?
Hey isn't there a town called Tuskegee in Alabama. There was an institute there that gave black men free medical attention for YEARS starting in the 30s. All the participants were told they had 'bad blood'. Thing is the cure for that so called bad blood was widely available after '47. When word got out they were studying these subjects to essentially watch the syphilis kill them, well, you can understand the community's hesitancy to trust 'free' medical care especially with the CDC involved. Their credibility is still not up there even today. Perhaps justifiably so.
Hell, they only stopped this monstrous experiment in 72! Even I remember shit in 1972. I remember moving from Wheaton to Shady Grove the day after my birthday. I got to sit in the front seat of the station wagon because the back was full of stuff. My mom and Mrs. Dant were with me. We stopped at a grocery store on the way. It has snowed so I was wearing my red rubber snow boots. Mom prolly got them on my feet by putting plastic bread bags over my shoes.
So, living memory. CDC, not always a force for good.
WAIT WAIT WAIT! Where in Shady Grove? I grew up in Washington Grove. Over there off Oakmont and over the railroad tracks. Moved into one of the old houses about 1964. My folks moved out in 1990.
ReplyDeleteShady Grove Village. Fields Road Elementary.
ReplyDeleteWhile there may be a small percentage of those folk who eve REMEMBER the whole Tuskegee debacle, few enough people of any race do.
ReplyDeleteMore likely it is laziness, or just the same old plain mistrust of the medical establishment that the rest of us (mostly white and hispanic) folks have. We don't trust what they have told us since the beginning of this idiocy a year and a half ago.
bama residents are brighter than most give them credit for. i have worked/served with several. they all fooled me with that homespun act, they were sharp as a tack. never did learn my lesson. what does that make me. work with one such bama girl now. and she ain't stupid nor lazy. little bitty blond is a champion shooter too.
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