Simran’s Reviews > Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection > Status Update

“Tuberculosis is so often, and in so many ways, a disease of vicious cycles: It’s an illness of poverty that worsens poverty. It’s an illness that worsens other illnesses…It’s an illness of weak healthcare systems that weakens healthcare systems. It’s an illness of malnutrition that worsens malnutrition. And it’s an illness of the stigmatized that worsens stigmatization.”

“Black people were not more susceptible to TB because of factors inherent to race; they were more susceptible to tuberculosis because of racism.”

“TB’s parallel journey with capital.”

“After all, the entire premise of colonialism relied on white supremacy, and the entire premise of spes phthisica maintained that only superior and civilized (read: white) people could become consumptive. Acknowledging that consumption was common among enslaved, colonized, and marginalized people would have undermined not just the theory of the disease, but also the project of colonialism itself.”

“In a place where the formal healthcare system is not particularly effective at treating an illness, it is easy to imagine how more trusted spaces and people— like churches and faith healers—can be a better bet than doctors and hospitals.”

“Nothing is so privileged as thinking history belongs to the past.”