Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Seeking Questions for Sonny Lacks Lecture

I’m really excited to meet Sonny Lacks when he visits campus on October 26. I’m curious about what he thinks of the whole focus on his mother. He must have been only four years old when she died.

If you’ve read the book you know that Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, has a significant part in the story. She was only two years old and to some extent, when the story was told to her, she became its keeper.

Deborah is the one who wanted to know more about her mother, and longed to understand what immortality meant.

When Rebecca Skloot first contacted Dr. Roland Pattillo, a professor at Morehouse and one of George Gey’s only African American students, Dr. Pattillo warned her that she would have to get past Deborah.

But Deborah died before the book went to print. Sonny is now the keeper of the story.

Last year Morgan State University posthumously awarded Henrietta Lacks an honorary degree. Sonny accepted it on behalf of the family. It is my understanding that he wants to help get the word out about his mother’s contribution. He’s waiting for me to send him questions that students want answered.

So, what do you want to know?

I want to know what he remembers about his mother.

I want to know how it felt to have Hopkins follow his family for so many years without knowing why. What was his father’s reaction?

I want to know how it feels to have a mother whose contribution was not known for many, many years, only to have a bestselling book about it written and receive so much praise.

I want to know how it feels to have a white woman tell a story about Henrietta.

I want to know what it’s like to have the details of his family’s life on the pages of a book.

I want to know if he thinks health care for African Americans is better now than it was in 1951.

I want to know what he wants us to know and remember about the legacy of his mother.

But more than anything else, I want to know, reader, what questions you have for Sonny.

---Dr. Lisa Kiely, Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Studies.

1 comment:

  1. I asked my Honors100 class to prepare questions for the lecture on Wednesday and I wanted to share some in advance!

    After seeing the medical accomplishments achieved by using your mom’s cells for research purposes, did you still feel angry that her cells were taken without her permission or your family’s permission?

    Do you think that if your mother was alive, and knew of the importance of her cells to the medical research, that she would oppose to the doctors using her cells?

    If you were one of the doctors with Henrietta Lacks when she was at John Hopkins hospital, would you have taken her cancerous cells to be used for research and the good of science? Why?

    Are you satisfied with the ethical improvements made today in regards to minorities and medical research? Do you think more can be done?

    What, if any, are some of the most important things you have learned about your mother from this book, and how have they affected relationships within your family?

    The book’s epigraph quotes from Elie Wiesel, saying “We must not see any person as an abstraction.” What aspects of present-day society make it a challenge to see people’s humanity?

    What would be the correct way to receive consent from patients to use them as research subjects? Under what conditions should patients and family agree to the research?

    How did George Gey’s, Henrietta Lack’s doctor at Johns Hopkins, views on racism and poverty play a role in his taking of her cells without her knowledge or permission?

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