TOW #8 IRB The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Implicitly it seems Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks shows how scientific research has a background to it and that it an important point to note is that HeLa cells were once a person, the entire book culminates to explain another message. Skloot uses juxtaposition to develop a second purpose showing the treatment of black citizens over time to attempt in eliminating racial discrimination.

Through the book Skloot tells a narrative of how she learned about the HeLa cells. She delves into stories of Henrietta Lacks and the people she has met in the process of writing this book. In juxtaposing paragraphs Skloot writes about different relatives of Henrietta Lacks, the black Lacks and the white Lacks. In the area where these family members live discrimination against African Americans remains very deep rooted even to this day. While explaining the interviews that Skloot had with these people, it becomes obvious that these racial problems that have dissipated in many places in America have not in Lacks town. Even though these issues seem resolved to the public eye because the black Lacks are no longer slaves, the interviews with the while Lacks show the problems that still exist. By brining attention to this tension between these groups of family, Skloot spreads awareness of the intolerance that persists into the 21^st century.

More black discrimination becomes visible through Juxtaposition of the idea of consent in medical experimentation. Skloot provides the reader with many examples of how white people are treated compared to black. The HeLa cells were extracted from Henrietta’s cervix not only without her consent but also without her or her family’s knowledge about it. After this more laws were created that make consent needed for a person to be used in research, however doctors and scientist continued to ignore them when it came to African American patients. Skloot’s detail about this trouble attempts to eliminate this in the future.

Skloot’s additional purpose about racial issues in the book use juxtaposition to highlight the problems to bring public attention to fixing them.