I listened to a book on Audible this summer. It was so good I ordered it, so I could add it to my permanent book collection.
I discussed recently, in one of my over 1500 audio and video recordings detailing a five-year real-time documentation of what happens to my body since I awoke from an illegal May 12th, 2015 surgery I had at West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA performed by Dr. Fred Price. I often wondered would my daily audio journals be enough to tell my story either while I am alive or after I die. I thought about Henrietta Lacks and how her story was retold by someone else years after she died.
I read this book, by Dolene Perkins-Valdez, and after reading it, I knew, that she gets it, even without knowing anything about me, my story, or what my body has been through since waking up from an illegal hidden surgical procedure that was done to my body without my consent. Although Roe vs. Wade is about abortion, the premise, of those rights stems from the root, which states women have a right to choose what happens to their bodies. I did not choose. Dr. Fred Price and West Penn Hospital chose for me without my consent.
I am reminded daily of that choice that Dr. Fred Price took away from me by what happens to my body everyday without my consent. Something very scorching happened to my body today October 13th, 2020, even while I type this review, which finally made me want to include Dolen-Perkins Valdez book on my website NikolaReviews. This book was excellently painful to read, I cried a little, feeling the pain, and understanding the mentality that one must possess to want to hurt women this way. The book is historical fiction, that exposes the suppressed nature of how black women are viewed in society. After my surgery, and feeling the deliberate things that happen to my body daily, it was clear our so-called emancipation is more in name rather than actual reality.
There is an insert taken from Chapter 15 page 104 of Dolen-Perkins Valdez book titled Wench, that I would like to quote, as a simile to Dr. Fred Prices surgical procedure.
"The pinches were hard enough to bruise. Fran did it secretly, in the kitchen, on the stairs, in the hallway, in the yard. She searched for new places, beginning with Lizzies cheek. Then an arm. Thigh. Side, Shoulder. She seemed to relish discovering each new point of hurt. Sometimes Lizzie even caught the woman examining her body, as if searching for a new place. Lizzie tried to stay out of her way. Tried to bypass her in the familiar layout of the rooms.
At night. Drayle came to her...........
:Has anyone seen Elisabeth Moss's reaction in Invisible Man!
Exactly what am I saying? Exactly what was just said or quoted.
Are black women still emancipated in 2020?
If it happens to one, it has happened to too many. Read the Poem by Martin Niemoller, "Then They Came For Me". A poem about the Jewish Holocaust.
The book Wench is gripping and painful to read. It is a book where one can learn, what we must never allow again. Unfortunately, scientists and doctors have already lost that battle in their so-called pursuit of advancement that actually is taking us backward. Some may argue the science and technology isn't taking us back, and I will add, but the mentality of who and how it is used, is. Wench is a page-turner.
