Livers Go to Sickest, Access for Blacks Improves
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Carla K. Johnson, AP, November 25, 2008
Blacks waiting for a liver transplant used to be more likely to die compared to whites. Now they have the same chance of getting a life-saving organ under a nationwide system that puts the sickest patients first, a new study found.
Racial differences disappeared when the old system was scrapped in 2002, according to the federally funded study, the first assessment of how blacks fared after the change.
“By design, we tried to make it race blind. It looks like we did,” said Dr. Richard Freeman, a transplant surgeon at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, who helped create the new system and was not involved in the study.
{snip}
Under the old system, which relied heavily on how long a patient spent on an official waiting list, sicker patients were passed over in favor of those waiting longer.
The system favored whites because blacks join waiting lists when they are sicker. Why isn’t clear, but blacks may get treatment later or have poor access to liver specialists.
Compared to whites, blacks on the waiting list had a 50 percent greater chance of dying or becoming too sick for transplant within three years, according to an analysis of five years of transplant records before the change. After the new system, called Model for End-Stage Liver Disease, or MELD, that difference disappeared.
{snip}
Prior research has also found racial disparities in the allocation of kidneys. UNOS is currently evaluating its system for kidneys, which is now based on waiting time, blood type and tissue type.
{snip}
Before the change, 810 blacks, or 49 percent of those on the waiting list, got transplants. Meanwhile, 10,202 whites, or 52 percent of those on the list, got transplants.
In the years after the change, 849 blacks, or 47 percent, got transplants compared to 8,492 whites, or 42 percent.
{snip}
[Editor’s Note: “Disparities in Liver Transplantation Before and After Introduction of the MELD Score,” by Cynthia A. Moylan, MD, et al. can be read in full here.]
(Posted on November 25, 2008)
Comments
One of the criterion for transplants is your personal behavior. If you’re derelict in any way, someone who is relatively upright is going to get the organ before you because a precious organ isn’t going to be wasted on someone who takes so poor care of himself that he would die that much sooner.
My theory on why blacks did not used to get transplants as soon as whites is because whites tend to be better behaved, and therefore were not assessed by transplant committees to be risks.
Posted by Question Diversity at 6:32 PM on November 25
What about the criteria related to the substance abuse profile (both past and current) of a potential recipient?? Has that been nullified under the rubric of “disparate impact” on racial minorities?? What about illegal aliens getting organ transplants and dialysis services that they can’t/don’t pay for?
Posted by at 6:33 PM on November 25
After reading this I’m going to the driver’s license office and cancel the organ donor status on it.
Posted by at 6:44 PM on November 25
“The system favored whites because blacks join waiting lists when they are sicker. Why isn’t clear, but blacks may get treatment later or have poor access to liver specialists.”
Or maybe, blacks are just plain stupid and lazy!
So once again, whites must have a system that works for them well enough, subjected to affirmative action so as to cater to the alien and ignorant behaviors of blacks. It is an outrage, an absolute and unmitigated outrage, that whites have fallen from a rate of 52% to 42% of all transplants while blacks now make up 47%, down from their original 49%.
In the ever growing madness that is “equality” seeking, it appears that even if blacks are mildly hurt in the process, it only matters that whitey is hurt even more so, for “justice” to be served.
As always, God help us all!
Posted by John PM at 6:48 PM on November 25
Everyday it is another story about something that whites have done to blacks or something they get that blacks don’t. I swear, to hear them tell it they probably get less sun than we do, less cloud cover, more toxins in the air and so on and so on. Has ANYTHING in the whole not been used against the whites by the black people.
Posted by Ron at 7:56 PM on November 25
Yknow..
I think the idea of putting the sickest first is dumb. Dont the sickest have the least chance of survival either during the operation, and from the benefits of the organ?
Given that we do not have unlimited organs - thats just a waste - and other less sick people who had a chance die because of it.
Concept of triage and all that.
Posted by A Brainwashed Canadian at 8:23 PM on November 25
Blacks mismanage most things, including their own health.
What’s the big surprise there?
Here in New Orleans, the now-infamous row between white City Councilwoman Stacy Head and the black head of the Sanitation Department, Veronica White, makes it very clear (when you read the transcripts, listen to the audio tape, or watch the video of the proceedings) that putting low-iq individuals in decision-making positions is very dangerous for the organism they are making decisions for.
So what’s so surprising about the fact that blacks have poorer health as a result of poor decision making as a result of low iq?
Blacks should be pitied and given a leg up like in the old days.
Posted by at 8:27 PM on November 25
Well the transplant recipient list might be color-blind, but the donors are not. Most donor organs are from whites, while blacks are the least likely to donate their organs.
Posted by at 9:08 PM on November 25
Rather than being “fairer,” the system is now obviously biased against whites.
The system favored whites because blacks join waiting lists when they are sicker. Why isn’t clear
Obviously whites are being penalized for having greater foresight than blacks. Because this puts blacks at a disadvantage, whites must be punished for it.
Also when you consider that blacks are less likely to donate their organs in the first place, this puts whites at a double disadvantage. Of course in today’s society, penalizing whites is the new “fairness.”
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 9:54 PM on November 25
How many blacks are donors or is this another part of the system where they get more than they give!
Posted by GetBackJack at 10:25 PM on November 25
How many of the donor livers come from blacks?
Harvesting organs from whites to give to blacks.
The redistribution system now extends to body parts. Take from those who care and give to those who only take.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 10:39 PM on November 25
Let’s face it, blacks are a ball and chain on the healthcare of America because of their ill behaviour.
Posted by James at 10:41 PM on November 25
“2005 National Survey of Organ and Tissue Donation Attitudes and Behaviors” contains some interesting figures, including the following:
… Whites (60.5%) are much more likely than Blacks (31.2%), Latinos (39.3%), or Asians (38.6%) to have granted permission to donate on their driver’s licenses.
http://www.organdonor.gov/survey2005/organ_behavior.htm
Posted by Sarge at 11:17 PM on November 25
“… Most donor organs are from whites, while blacks are the least likely to donate their organs….”
Posted by at 9:08 PM on November 25
Jared Taylor reports in ‘Paved With Good Intentions’ that blacks will not agree to donate their organs because they’re afraid Whites will receive them.
When I picked up my step-grandson today (age 13) from his government school, he told me there had been an assembly that day put on by an organ donation advocacy group—including a speaker who was a heart transplant recipient. Said group was encouraging kids to tell their parents that they should donate the kid’s organs if the situation presented itself (school is majority White, wonder if they’d do this in a black school?)
I know the government schools are brain washing our kids but I didn’t know it has gone as far as indoctrinating our kids about becoming organ donors.
I was infuriated when I heard this but didn’t want to start a huge family argument with his parents, especially so close to Thanksgiving.
Yes, get your name off the organ donor list NOW. I did last year when I became aware of AA being used to allocate organs. I also made my wishes clear, in writing, to my loved ones that my organs are NOT to be donated to non-Whites, illegal aliens or prisoners.
Bon
Posted by BonBon at 11:43 PM on November 25
A white man cannot use a black man’s kidneys and visa versa. I did not know this until about 12 years ago when a man who works in the U of Minnesota’s transplant department told me so—it was his job to get more black donors. I do not know about livers, but I suspect they are the same as well.
It was quite a revelation for me—race is far more than just skin color.
http://www.amren.com/news/news04/03/30/organdonation.html
Using white organs on blacks or asians results in a much higher failure rate than if the organs are matched racially. Problem is, apparently, that denying minorities for this reason is now “racist” rather than common sense and the making of the most with whats available.
Posted by Epublius at 11:52 PM on November 25
The first post by Question Diversity is right. Why should alcoholics and addicts get medical care, until every last person who got sick through no fault of their own has been treated first? A prominent cardiologist told my father to quit smoking if he expected any further treatment, and rightly so. I have no doubt that medical professionals all over the country who are familiar with the ways of Blacks and Mexicans have been withholding their best efforts from them. Why should doctors do what the best teachers are loathe to do, waste their efforts on dullards and fools?
Posted by Schoolteacher at 1:26 AM on November 26
For once I’d like to see a study on the disparity in INPUT!
They always study how the OUTPUT of the social system is
distributed. Blacks will consume far more than they produce
if they live among whites who produce more than they consume.
But, as in Africa or Haiti, they must depend upon themselves
and the result is abject misery. Blacks are the most selfish
in donating organs or blood. But you’ll never see such a study.
The party line is: Blacks are always victims. When, in fact,
they create more victims than they suffer. The truth doesn’t
seem to matter any more - just propaganda.
ACE2X
Posted by at 2:10 AM on November 26
Blacks live high risk lifestyles . Drugs , alcohol , promiscuity . All bad news for your liver . If the system were truly color-blind , it have to take that into account to be fair to those groups that are not as prone to those pitfalls . Over thirty years ago they grew a human ear on the back of a mouse . We need to get busy and perfect organs grown in a lab . Synthetic meat , a steak grown in a petri dish is a good idea too .
Posted by at 3:33 AM on November 26
interracial transplants carry a higher risk of rejection. but very few blacks donate organs. therefore, the proper solution would have been to encourage MORE organ donation, not perform a bunch of high risk interracial transplants. note that they didnt mention the increased rates of organ transplant rejection due to their policy change. thats because they want everyone to “feel good” about it and not think of all the people who are going to die as a result of their new affirmitive action transplant policy.
Posted by fred at 4:14 AM on November 26
Before the change, 810 blacks, or 49 percent of those on the waiting list, got transplants. Meanwhile, 10,202 whites, or 52 percent of those on the list, got transplants.
In the years after the change, 849 blacks, or 47 percent, got transplants compared to 8,492 whites, or 42 percent.
If I can still count, then before the change the 3% less blacks got transplants (52-49). Which was perceived as disparity. After the change, 5% less whites gets the transplants (47-42). Do I see racial disparity again? And a greater one?
Posted by EW at 4:43 AM on November 26
They don’t let me specify who my organs would be used for - so I don’t donate them. It’s as simple as that.
Posted by jewamongyou at 5:14 AM on November 26
There are more whites in the population so of course they’re going to get more. Why should blacks, if they only account for 1/4 of the population, get 50% of the transplants? Geez.
Posted by at 6:40 AM on November 26
Another way for whites to sacrifice their race and interests in the name of “multiculturalism”
Posted by at 6:57 AM on November 26
This is yet one more area in which blacks contribute a very large net minus to the system. While they make up very few of the donors, they are disproportionally found among the recipients, as in so many other areas not only of organ transplantation but in our society as a whole. If receiving a liver transplant required any intelligence or knowledge, blacks would be at the “back of the bus” as transplant recipients. However, our system works in such a way as to remove the element of patient intelligence/knowledge completely from the equation.
Once admitted to hospital with liver failure, all patients are placed on a list according to severity of condition. The only criterion used, aside from tissue compatibility, is severity of illness, an area in which blacks tend to rank the highest of any group because they tend to refuse medical treatment until disease progression is well advanced. The list and treatments are all managed by physicians and administrators, leaving nothing for the patient to do.
You may be surprised to learn that there is no “patient contribution to the disease/lifestyle” criterion in use any longer. Thus, many patients who receive liver transplants in particular are alcoholics who have no intention of changing their life style after receiving a new liver.
The entire process of liver transplantation is extremely costly and the cost is borne primarily by taxpayers. There are relatively few livers available, compared to other organs such as kidneys and corneas, and liver transplantation requires a specialized liver team with liver transplant surgeons and anesthesiologist on constant standby call. The surgery itself is extremely resource intensive, with the norm involving the use of multiple blood products including platelets, fresh frozen plasma, cryoprecipitate, and packed red blood cells in large quantities (quantities which can easily empty a normal blood bank’s supply and make such products unavailable for other more routine surgical patients who need them critically). It usually lasts from 4-8 hours of operating room time, another scarce commodity with a high price tag.
Remember, when considering this topic, that any liver recipient must remain on life long immune-suppression therapy, which adds to the total costs and requires patient compliance (something not common among blacks). In addition, there is no guarantee that the transplanted liver will not be destroyed in the same way that the original liver was destroyed, e.g. by heavy drinking and the associated cirrhosis of the liver, be it the original or the transplant. I am not certain if figures for liver re-transplants are available by race, but would assume if available, they would show a very high rate of re-transplant among blacks. This is primarily for two reasons: failure to comply with the post-transplant drug therapy to prevent rejection and continued destructive lifestyles (alcoholism and multi-drug abuse).
Thus, if you or someone you know suffers from liver failure and it is picked up early in its course, such a person has a very low probability of receiving a life-saving liver transplant. To put a personal face on this process and its abuse by blacks and illegal aliens (who also are placed on the transplant lists according the exact same criteria as are blacks), I will relate a true story of several years ago. It involved an early middle-aged white male who was married and had several very young daughters. He was employed at a steady mid-high level job with the government in Washington and, of course, had regular physical examination annually. On one of these exams he was found to have abnormal liver function tests and referred to a hepatologist for further work up. He was subsequently diagnosed with primary liver cancer that had not spread to other organs and thus made him a transplant candidate. He was placed on the transplant list, but died before ever receiving an organ.
Why did this happen? It happened because he was placed so low on the transplant list and this was a result of the presence on that list of numerous other patients, primarily minority and black, who had more serious disease at the time of diagnosis. They had more serious disease at the time of diagnosis because many of them were hopeless alcoholics from the ghettos who only entered the system in fulminate liver failure. They had, of course, no insurance of any kind (my friend had excellent medical insurance for which he paid monthly for years) but every one of them was placed at the head of the line because of their condition at the time of initial diagnosis of liver failure. Many of them are alive today, busily destroying their transplanted organs through self-abuse with alcohol and other drugs, not taking their immunosuppressive medications that they receive for free. All of this, while my friend, a fine father of several beautiful little white girls, a husband and a definite social asset with numerous qualifications, a fine intellect, community spirit, and very strong work ethic, was allowed to die by the system for lack of availability of one liver for transplantation.
Such a system is not only horribly inefficient because it tends to supply liver transplants to precisely those individuals who are least likely to do anything to preserve them, but fundamentally unethical. It is so because its incentives are completely inverted and wasteful of a very limited resource. It rewards those who contribute nothing to society but crime and welfare costs (and who do not plan for the future in any way), while punishing—with a death sentence—those primarily whites, and their families, who contribute to society in numerous, significant ways and are the most likely to benefit from transplantation and to support the its continued survival in an era of health care cost reduction by paying for their care through their health care insurance (i.e., those who plan).
It is, of course, not just the liver or the organ transplant system which is badly broken and which favors blacks and other groups, which abuse the system and are clearly freeloaders. It is, unfortunately, the entire social system, which reproduces all that is wrong with the organ transplant programs, which is systematically biased against whites, either explicitly or in the form of various perverse incentives and the “social safety net” welfarism.
Posted by at 7:48 AM on November 26
I believe that the allocation of organs for transplant was formerly done on strictly rationalist terms.
Yes, clinical need was part of the equation, but this was coupled with the fact (probably denied by some) of histocompatibilty.The fact is that individuals of differing races vary in the extent that an organ will be rejected (ie the transplant will fail wasting not only a good organ someone else could have better used, but time and money and making the patient even sicker).
So, this is a problem of mathematical optimization ie clinical need versus histocompatibility - and no dioubt various graphs and algorithms can be used to obtain the ‘best’ result for any particular organ, based on the crucial parameters at any one time.
Now, however it seems that race-mongering and hysteria are acting to the detriment of rational sciennce - a familiar theme in modern America.
Posted by Kenelm Digby at 7:51 AM on November 26
I think ANY potential organ donor should have the legal and moral right to put conditions on post-death organ harvest! That if you’re White, you have the right to stipulate your parts go to only White people who are otherwise healthy, productive citizens.
As to myself wanting an organ implant from a non-White… THANKS BUT NO THANKS! I have my princples on this and will live or die by them! Which is WHY I will not donate blood or if anticipating surgery, would opt to have my own blood frozen well ahead.
Posted by Fed Up at 7:55 AM on November 26
The answer is simple. People doing life or even on death row still get on the organ transplant list..even if they are going to be put to sleep a month later. This is what has got to change but as long as the masses have their bread and circuses, nothing will.
Posted by Alucard at 8:51 AM on November 26
One of the many reasons why multiculturalism doesn’t work, no matter what ethnic groups are involved: it’s always easier to blame the other group than to look into the hard realities of group behavior.
In other words, if there was an easy solution to the problem of black liver transplant deaths, we’d have it already — so it’s the path of least resistance to blame the Other ethnic group, which in this case is whites.
In the end, as others noted, patients suffer. The sickest get the livers; the sickest are more likely to die; those who might have survived now have less of a change. Triage was invented for a reason.
Posted by Brett Stevens at 9:19 AM on November 26
Posted by Ron at 7:56 PM on November 25
I swear, to hear them tell it they probably get less sun than we do, less cloud cover, more toxins in the air and so on and so on.
I hate to tell you this, but I have read a new story that all that is true, because so many of them live up north. It’s all due to racism, of course. If they moved to Africa they could get all the sun they wanted, but of course we’re never supposed to point that out.
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 12:00 PM on November 26
An organization called “LifeSharers” is an alternative regarding organ donation. It’s free to join, too - it’s about “organs for organ donors.”
From their website: http://www.lifesharers.com
“LifeSharers is a non-profit national network of organ donors. LifeSharers members promise to donate upon their death, and they give fellow members first access to their organs. As a LifeSharers member, you will have access to organs that otherwise may not be available to you. As the LifeSharers network grows, more and more organs may become available to you — if you are a member.
Posted by Jane T. at 12:11 PM on November 26
In addition to “Black Organ Donors Are Hard to Find” (http://www.amren.com/news/news04/03/30/organdonation.html), there’s this:
“Hispanic Organ Donors Are Hard to Find”
MANSFIELD, Texas — Maureena Nunez is grateful to the family who gave her their daughter’s kidney and pancreas — and a chance for life, but the donor was not an ideal match.
Nunez, like many Hispanics desperate for a transplant, got her organs from an Anglo. Physicians prefer kidney transplants within ethnic groups to ensure the tissue is as similar to the recipient’s as possible, but fewer Hispanics donate organs than need them.
A new national organ donation campaign is aimed at balancing the ratio by reaching Hispanics through radio advertisements, television commercials and a Spanish-language Web site.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-86252356.html
T
Posted by Sarge at 2:52 PM on November 26
I suggest that if a person is going to be an organ donor that those whites that choose to be one, get an attorney and an organization which would get the deceased donors family the best price from the highest bidder. I have personal knowledge that the families of the donor get NOTHING. I had a friend killed in a car crash due to head injuries, his body was stripped of everything useful and his wife was still left with an expensive medical bill AND!!!! an $8000.00 dollar burial bill. So if my wife chooses to, my stuff goes to the highest bidder. Any attorneys out here that wish to investigate that possibility??
Posted by Skip at 3:11 PM on November 26
They don’t let me specify who my organs would be used for - so I don’t donate them. It’s as simple as that.
See my previous comment about setting up a program with attorneys auctioning off organs of white donors to the highest bidder for the family. That would at least get some money for the family and of course for the attorney in question. It would also eliminate a lot of the minorities from the program. This should be checked for legality since this is a reason I am not a donor against my wife’s wishes I think. I suspect that these organs are usually DONATED!! but the hospitals do not DONATE them to the recipients I bet, anyone know a ball park figure that insurance companies get for organs?? I once heard a heart went for better than $100,000 and that was years ago!!
Posted by Skip at 3:28 PM on November 26
As to myself wanting an organ implant from a non-White… THANKS BUT NO THANKS! I have my princples on this and will live or die by them! Which is WHY I will not donate blood or if anticipating surgery, would opt to have my own blood frozen well ahead.
Years ago a friend and member of a respected (feared?) motorcycle club was badly in need of blood after an accident. This was during the A.I.D.S. revelation in the S.F. area. He said he would only accept blood from members, repeatedly told the blood would be ok he said (in the operating room E.R.) that if he contracted AIDS he would kill everyone in the operating room at the time of the surgery. THE HOSPITAL WAITED until sufficient donors could be rounded up. TRUE STORY!!
Posted by Skip at 3:36 PM on November 26
I think the whole story is made up to cover a system that intentionally favors blacks and other non-whites over whites.
Posted by MSM is full of liars at 9:16 PM on November 26
Posted by Ron:
I swear, to hear them tell it they probably get less sun than we do, less cloud cover, more toxins in the air and so on and so on.
Oh, yes, by all means. That isn’t new. The claim was made in the newspapers just a few years ago that blacks in Harlem have a higher incidence of asthma, allegedly because the air is more polluted (as if it’s different from the rest of New York!).
Posted by at 7:44 PM on November 27
Transplants are extremely expensive. It would appear by this article that no thought is given to the patients ability to pay, meaning who is insured and who is a freebie to the hospital. I wonder what the percentage of blacks and hispanics vs white who are insured. If this is the case why should I and you pay for health insureance if we get it for free anyway??? It does not seem right that we who struggle to pay for ins have the same or lower chance to get a transplant as some homeless dopehead off the street regardless of race. Just one more thing that is not right!!! KF
Posted by kingfish at 12:35 PM on November 28
I suggest that if a person is going to be an organ donor that those whites that choose to be one, get an attorney and an organization which would get the deceased donors family the best price from the highest bidder.
posted by Skip
— — — — — —
Good grief, what a horrible idea! Think twice! That would amount to the selling of organs to whatever person could afford to pay the highest price. Selling body parts would almost certainly be illegal, and it surely would be considered unethical.
Meantime, while you languish, the richest billionaire would get the organ and you would be left to die.
Also, consider the incentive there would be for criminals to kill you in order to sell your organs! Children would be getting kidnapped for their body parts (as in Africa now).
Or consider even the temptation for unethical physicians to simply let you die, then harvest your organs. Certainly there would be less incentive for a doctor to try to keep you alive. There would grow up a black market in organs, available to the highest bidder. (Do you totally trust that Pakistani doctor at your local medical office?)
Uh, uh. Not a good idea!
Posted by browser at 1:17 PM on November 28
Blacks don’t need White man’s Western medical, they have witch doctors and Voodoo medicines; which according to our government and mass media ; all cultures are ” equal “, so why the need to give blacks the benefit of Western medical technology and White people’s organs ?
Posted by Michigan Patriot at 5:24 PM on November 28
Meantime, while you languish, the richest billionaire would get the organ and you would be left to die.
Posted by browser at 1:17 PM on November 28
———————————————————————————————
You have little understanding of economics, and perhaps of liberty. Billionaires tend to healthier than average to start with. Less need for donations. Secondly, there are a lot less billionaires (or millionaires, in the true liquid sense) than normal people.
Ergo
1) normal people have more money collectively.
For eg, A church drive for a member who needed an organ would work - but only for the devout who the church is certain is a good member.
2) If the rich got organs first,they are still such a small percentage of the population, that there would be enough for others.
Also, its a question of freedom. Youre free to ‘donate’ your organ for free (even though the hospital and ‘doctors’ make a hefty 100k or more each time you so altruistically do so). But if I MYSELF want to SELL it, what right do you have to stop me? Also if selling were allowed watch how the number of organs available would skyrocket. Which would you prefer? Saving lives or moral preening?
Posted by A Brainwashed Canadian at 12:34 AM on November 29
Reply to browser:
I see no problem at all with the selling of body organs as long as it is consenual and involves adults. This doesn’t mean people can’t continue to voluntarily donate their organs.
Posted by at 11:27 PM on November 29
Alexi De Toqueville, the French scholar, wrote this during the Civil War (he was an abolitionist):
“If the black were to become free, his independence would be a greater burden then slavery itself. This is because throughout his existence the black has learned to submit to himself to everything but reason. Thus when reason should become his only guide, the black would not have the wherewithal to recognize reason’s voice” (Democracy in America Bk. I, Part II, chap. x).
When one looks at crime statistics, poverty levels and anti-social behavior in every city, nation or region (Africa) where large groups of blacks live — and literally, IT IS EVERY CITY, NATION OR REGION — blacks, as a group, are failures in comparison to all other groups. De Toqueville predicted the future.
Is it not stunning that 97% — 97%! — of blacks voted for Obama? Only 3% of them voted with the 49% of non-blacks who voted for McCain. It’s a tribal thing for them, whether in voting, or rioting or stomping a WalMart worker to death.
How long will these fool liberals force our society to accomodate the absurd proposition that mother nature has esablished races as equal. No other living thing is “equal” in nature but…race? Absurd. We will not progress until we accomodate that reality. As for me, my racial background puts me nowhere near the top, but…so what?
Posted by passivenot at 9:31 AM on November 30
Alexi De Toqueville, the French scholar, wrote this during the Civil War (he was an abolitionist):
“If the black were to become free, his independence would be a greater burden then slavery itself. This is because throughout his existence the black has learned to submit to himself to everything but reason. Thus when reason should become his only guide, the black would not have the wherewithal to recognize reason’s voice”
— — — — — —
Just the other day, I was looking up further material on Sally Hemmings (Jefferson’s slave housekeeper). Wiki has quite an extensive article about her, giving much information and all sides of the ongoing controversy.
It seems that “freedom” was not always such a great or desired thing as people today assume. Nor slavery so bad. When they lived in France, she and her brother were offered their opportunity to remain there (and be free), but they chose instead to return with Jefferson to America. (Incidentally, they were also paid wages and given tutoring while they were in France.)
There is criticism from many critics today that he never freed her when back in Virginia. But as it turns out, there was A REASON FOR IT! Under Virginia law, a freed black had to leave the state with a year. Where would she have gone? How would she have lived? After Jefferson’s death, when she was 55 [and appraised by his creditors as… “an old woman, worth $50.”] , she was informally released by his daughter (who would also have been her half-niece through their mother) so that she could go live in the town with her sons. This allowed her to remain in the state, living nearby, although remaining (technically) still a slave.
Jefferson had already freed at least five other slaves, for whom he pulled strings to obtain a special dispensation from the Virginia legislature so that they could remain near their families and the place where they had grown up - the only place they ever knew.
Furthermore, at least two other slaves were tacitly “allowed” to run away, and were not pursued. One of them was actually put on a stagecoach by Jefferson’s overseer and given $50. (a very large sum of pocket money then, for a slave - probably at least $1,000. today).
Sally was, btw, the half-sister of Jefferson’s dead wife. She was 3/4ths or perhaps 7/8ths white, said to be light-skinned, with long straight hair, good natured, and good looking. There is NO PROOF, despite all the controversy and all attempts to prove otherwise, that Thomas ever had any children by her. DNA evidence has established only that at least one of her children was fathered by some male in the Jefferson family (and there were many possibilities, at least 25). Of her four children, all but one passed as white and married whites. According to the article, the “pre-Civil War attitude towards miscegenation was rather more relaxed than afterwards, when the one-drop rule became the norm.”
“Some scholar’s framed [the allegations] in terms of a culture war, characterizing speculation about the Hemings matter as an “assault” on Jefferson, and those who credit the Hemings story as adherents of political correctness, multiculturalism and postmodernism. One historian [Robert Turner] suggested that evidence for a relationship between Jefferson and Hemings had been “rushed to press” because of the political climate…”
[However] The current consensus among American historians appears to have undergone a sea-change. Once, most scholars dismissed the idea that Jefferson fathered Hemings’s children without examining the evidence closely. Now most historians agree that the story is more likely than not, again without necessarily having read the full record.
Posted by browser at 1:36 PM on November 30
It just seems to me that many blacks lead unhealthy and unsavoury lives. Whites are being punished here for having more foresight then blacks.
Posted by at 1:44 PM on November 30
I suggest that if a person is going to be an organ donor that those whites that choose to be one, get an attorney and an organization which would get the deceased donors family the best price from the highest bidder.
posted by Skip
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Good grief, what a horrible idea! Think twice! That would amount to the selling of organs to whatever person could afford to pay the highest price. Selling body parts would almost certainly be illegal, and it surely would be considered unethical.
I stand by my suggestion. Horrible thing happen in America but consider this, a loved one dies and possibly as an organ donor his usable “parts” are removed during a brief but EXPENSIVE stay in the hospital. I know this because it happened to a close friend. After being harvested (no other word for it) of every usable (read valuable) part (organ) his wife was left with horrendous medical bills and an $8000 dollar burial bill. So, imagine these usable parts went to indigent blacks (or white in fact) and we know these parts were NOT DONATED BY THE HOSPITAL but the family of the deceased got NOTHING but large bills. Hence, if on a list where the highest bidder gets the organ the family gets the biggest part of the price. Perhaps some AR reader has a going price list for these parts (organs) to post as an example. Maybe AR readers even have similar stories as I do about my friend’s death.
Posted by Skip at 8:42 AM on December 2
I stand by my suggestion. Horrible thing happen in America ….
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Jeeez! I don’t. Why make horrible things more horrible? If you’re in favor of selling body parts, how about selling whole bodies? How about selling babies? How about adult people? Where would this stop?
What would prevent a poor family in Haiti or India from selling one of its children’s eye or kidney? (Just one.) I can visualize a whole industry growing up around this in the third world. The profitable business of selling organs would very quickly become a way of life there. Who would protect the young or the sick from having their organs harvested? And with the injured or sick, it would be more profitable to let them just die, and then get ALL the organs - a bonanza for the family! Much preferable to keeping the sick or deformed alive and having to feed them.
Obviously you see yourself as a buyer, not a seller. If you didn’t have the money to buy, you would see things very differently. But hard times are coming as we sink and merge in the third world — something our rulers are very eager to bring about. Americans won’t be buyers forever… all except for a tiny elite. Do you expect to be one of that privileged group? You may be in for a shock. I doubt if they consider you one of their own.
In short: What an idiotic notion!
Posted by Ninguno at 12:45 PM on December 2
Reply to ninguno;(nice name)
The flaw in your argument is you use the knee-jerk example of children. I am talking about consenting adults. Big difference.
Posted by at 6:54 PM on December 3
In support of Ninguno, there is an historic paralell here.
In early nineteenth century Britain, anatomists and medical doctors surreptiously purchased human bodies from some very dodgy people, whilst the government looked the other way.
At first, most bodies were stolen from graves, but later some enterprising individuals realised that easy money could be had by murdering the poor and friendless - hence the famous case of Burke and Hare in 1828 which rocked the Edinbugrh medical establishment.
Posted by Dr. Knox at 7:17 AM on December 5