By Isaac Bailey, Center for Health Journalism, October 5, 2020
I’m only now coming to grips with what it has meant to my soul – and my body – to have been born Black in the Deep South in the shadow of Jim Crow and raise my kids during the era of Donald Trump. I’m one of the fortunate ones because I’ve survived to tell my own story and lived long enough to see science begin to answer questions that have long lingered in my brain. In this excerpt from “Why We Didn’t Riot: A Black Man in Trumpland,” I try to capture that truth.
Our bodies, our scars — psychic, emotional, physical — are evidence of a sickness that has been with us since before this country’s founding and, like a virus, morphs and transforms, constantly seeking new hosts to remain alive no matter whom it maims or kills. As a black man from the South, my body bears proof of white supremacy’s persistence and limitations. I’m a carrier of white supremacy in the way I’m a carrier of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, or CIDP, the autoimmune disease I was diagnosed with in 2013.
My white blood cells began attacking my nerves and shutting down major muscle groups, my body turning against itself for reasons science still can’t fully explain.
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