IDKMYDE: Medical Apartheid and Mommy

Todays episode of IDKMYDE is special because Today, February 13, 2025 would have been the 67th birthday of B Daht’s Mother, Irene Palm, had we not lost her May 5, 2024. B Daht can’t help but vulnerably admit his PTSD and possible sources in this transparent episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On today's episode. If I didn't know, maybe you didn't either.
I'm gonna start with something personal. On May fifth, twenty
twenty four, I lost my mom. She was complaining about
her stomach hurtain, so we took her to the er.
Hours later, she was still in pain and they finally
moved her upstairs to the ICU. Forty five minutes later,
she was on a breathing two. Her organs were shutting

(00:22):
down because of sepsis, and just like that, she was gone.
I didn't know. Maybe you didn't know. I didn't know.
Maybe I didn't know. I didn't know. Maybe you didn't
I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I
didn't know. Well, let me tell y'all, losing your mom
is hard enough, but when you're black, you have this

(00:44):
extra layer of PTSD. Why because you know, Black women
are often dismissed in the medical field. They're overlooked, ignored.
And it's not just a feeling, it's facts. There's a
book Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington, and it lays out
the long dark history of how black folks, especially black women,

(01:06):
have been used, abused, and experimented on in the name
of science. From slavery to right now, let me break
it down for you. Did you know there's still this
misconception that black women have a higher threshold for pain.
And I know Mama made miracles every Thanksgiving, every Christmas
and every birthday, but their white doctors were thinking black

(01:27):
women were superheroes for real, or she's black, she can
take it. What And if you want to know how
deep this rabbit hole goes, let's talk about Henrietta Lax.
Since went to the doctor in nineteen fifty one for
cervical cancer and without her knowledge, they took her sales
then named them healer seals h e LA And those

(01:47):
sales turned out to be immortal, like they could survive
and multiply in labs which had never been done before.
They helped develop vaccines, cancer treatments IVF. Heeler sales have
saved millions of lives. But here's the part that'll make
your blood boil. Henrietta Lax never gave consents and her

(02:10):
family never saw a dime. Pharmaceutical companies made billions off
those seals while her kids and grandkids were struggling to
pay for health care. It made a bunch of dollars,
but a damn sure don't make no sense. So when
we talk about black folks in the medical field, we're
not just talking about distrust. We're talking about a system,

(02:30):
a system that has dismissed us, stolen from us, and
experimented on us without shame. And for me, every time
I think about my mom's last hours, it's hard not
to wonder if she wasn't black. Wol They have taken
her pain a little more seriously, but they have moved faster.
These questions hunt me, and I know I'm not alone.
That's why it's so important for us to know our

(02:51):
history and advocate for ourselves, because if we don't speak up,
who will. Medical Apartheid a book by Harriet Washington. It
was something that I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either,