Plog Number 140
“Coerced or free translocation…”
'Vicissitudes' by Jason DeCaires Taylor, an artists' representation of slave trade deaths
Hello Ploggers and Happy Sunday. I am writing this on a Sunday but it will be published on Wednesday. The reason I mention this is because today is the 58th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday on the Edmond Pettis 🌉 Bridge in Selma, Alabama. It was March 7, 1965. The late John Lewis at age 25, led over 600 marchers across the bridge and was attacked by State Troopers. The attacks brought national attention to the cause of racial injustice. Our President, Smoking Joe Biden made it down there to acknowledge and commemorate the occasion. He walked the bridge as a homage to the suffering and the struggle that is still ongoing. Our Black American history is so significant and valid, it would be shameful to pretend like it never happened. Joe knows that, why don’t more people with power know that?
Lately we have heard a lot about history being white washed and I found an instance of that today. It was in an unexpected place, but there it was indeed. I have been studying about Sickle Cell Anemia recently and did so again today. My good friend Logan and I sat with our big books at Kent State University Library. A book called Harrisons Principles of Internal Medicine was my major source of information. This book was the Second Edition and it was published in 2022. All the information in it was current, thorough and well presented. But as I was finishing up I ran across a section on the Etiology and history of Sickle Cell Anemia. It said that the disease started in Africa. It mentioned Nigeria and Camaroon and gave the prevalence of the condition over in Africa. It went on to say that the “coerced or free translocation of people helped to spread the disease to the United States." What…??? I did a triple take. Did they say the coerced or free translocation? Yes they did. Let’s look at this.
They could have said that the migratory ⛵️ patterns of slavery caused the spread. They could have said that the forced enslavement of 13% of the current population caused the spread. They could have just said that the disease had its origin in Africa. But instead they chose to down play the way that people came from Africa to the United States. This was really unexpected by me because I was not reading with a “Political” eye 👀 at all. I was simply after medical information. So it is clear to me that even nonpolitical medical journals are not adverse to toning down the nature and brutality of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. I find this to be biased and soft pedaling a harsh fact of American History. I also find it to be abhorrent. It breeds ignorance and feigns innocence. For crying out loud, I have coerced people to do things I wanted them to do. I used persuasion. But forcing my will with violence, torture and death is a completely different thing. We all know that right? Anyways RECLAIM!