Dying in the City of the Blues

I think it is really interesting how Wailoo uses the visibility of one disease in one city as a case study to reflect the wider social challenges for African Americans in America. I think this book nicely accompanies many of the other books we have been reading this semester. Wailoo writes that “These questions of disease visibility point us toward the wide range of processes by which illness, syndromes, disease, poor health, and symptoms like pain have become the sites of negotiations about power, governance, justice, and social order” (24). In many ways, I think this is similar to Americans views and treatment of Filipinos in the Philippians, or Mexican immigrants crossing the border. Wailoo mentions that the higher infant mortality rate among blacks was perceived as a result of “negro ignorance” (56), and African Americans were in general viewed as unclean, even to the point separating black and white donated blood, this is similar to the way many white Americans viewed other races. I find it interesting and disappointing that white Americans used these views maintain social order. Wailoo makes an interesting point when he states that “pathologies among blacks… have been used similarly to moralize about African American status, sexuality, intelligence, education, or economic condition” (1).