Dying in the City?

Hi, all. I agree with Lauren's earlier post about the parallels to other stories we've read in this class: in many ways, the story of African Americans and sickle cell anemia reflects many of the same issues as we encountered in our discussion of Filipinos. I think that these types of stories (that tie together public health/disease/hygiene/marginalized community) are great test cases for showing the very complicated way that disease works in America. As we see in Dying in the City of the Blues, the 'story' of sickle cell anemia is about much, much more than an illness. We can see the ways that this disease provided a center for the already existing discourses of race, gender, class, and region. At a certain point, though, it seems that a discussion that is based on sickness or disease should deal perhaps more with the actual disease. As one reviewer that I read pointed out, the book is called "Dying in the City of the Blues," but the book is more about living with or dealing with or talking about disease than it was about dying. Additionally, the book is more about the discourse surrounding sickle cell anemia than it really is about the experience of the disease. However, I appreciated the diversity of sources - particularly his interesting addition of blues lyrics - and I felt that they really helped to give a feeling of the pervasiveness of the issue of sickle cell.