On Twitter I mentioned my doubts about her. While the Twitterverse cheered her as the next Oprah, I took a more cynical view. I find that most politicians, of either party, are motivated by power, and often don't do the right thing because to get elected they make so many compromises to their backers. They also have to make deals with the "enemy" so that they can get a law passed and look good. They often promise something innocuous and don't even come through. Take Mayor DeBlasio. Please. This hack promised that the FIRST thing he'd do after the election was ban the suffering carriage horses in Central Park. It still hasn't happened. I find that very disappointing, and only confirming that "politics as usual" is more important to a guy like him. He made a promise and had no intention of keeping it?
Now there's this situation with Dr. Sims, where his statue was torn down and he's been convicted...without facts. As far as I've researched it, there's nothing here but "he may be a controversial figure." No smoking gun. If he was alive today, could be be brought to trial? On the basis of what evidence? Some hearsay? Where's his diary? Where are documents from contemporaries pointing out how much of a racist he was? When he came up North, was he spouting complaints about how much he missed slavery? What's his deal, factually, not based on spin doctoring, or perhaps somebody bad-mouthing the guy because it makes good copy.
DeLousio was a hack politician who got into office because the other Democrats in the primary imploded with scandals and bizarre behavior. He was the lesser of the perverts, loudmouths and weasels. All anyone knew about him was, in David Letterman's words, "that he's freakishly tall." Dave would never have Bill on his show, and often say, "I liked the little mayor." (Bloomberg). DeLousio was nothing but the "public advocate," a useless job that most people want to eliminate as a waste of taxpayer dollars.
DeLousio became mayor and “Tish” James became public advocate. What did she do while in that office? ANYTHING? Why be suspicious of Dr. Sims and not the motivations of DeBlasio or James, who wanted to get into positions FAR more powerful than his? Before riding cronyism and hack politics into a nomination for Attorney General, she declared that a statue in Central Park should be removed. Yeah. A statue in Central Park. Take on a dead man. Champion the homeless? Crime? Bad subways? Help minorities who need better housing? Nah. She made headlines for getting a statue removed...after several others had muttered about it before her. Fact: the white public advocate DeLousio and the black public advocate "Tish" James were both hacks. It's not about color it's about hackery and not being effective. DeLousio STAYED a hack. What has he ever done? There's a hope that James may, unlike DeLousio, use the position to create change. She may actually become effective (and going after Trump is an excellent start).
So far, nobody (including The Guardian and other reputable newspapers) has come up with a racist diary entry from Dr. Sims, an eye-witness account that shows he did something to black women he didn't do to white women, or anything to counter his reputation (which led to the statue) of being a devoted physician.
The Dr. Sims "controversy" seemed to simmer when “POLITICALLY CORRECT” witch hunts were at a fever pitch. Several statues of Confederate soldiers were being removed, so why not go after more statues? That's safe. Go after Stephen Foster. Go after Dr. Sims. Who'll dare object?
Here's The Guardian stating oNLY that Dr. Sims might be a “controversial” figure:
"Controversial" means what? That nobody knows for sure? Why is that? A conspiracy? What's the truth? So far, and I'm not being paid to do research and I have limited time for it, I've found no credible evidence against Dr. Sims.
How can somebody be the “Father of Gynecology,” known ALL OVER THE WORLD, and actually be nothing more than a vile monster loaded up with hatred? Another Dr. Mengele? It's easy if you spin it. Spin it, and they will come. The Twitterverse is loaded with angry people who want any excuse to write "HE A RACIST" or to scream out whatever their agenda might be. "Force Al Franken to Resign!" "Leave Britney Alone!" Whatever.
I’ve studied writing technique since high school (summa cum laude) and college (magna cum laude in English, my major) and I went on to witness the publishing world and tabloid journalism first hand. I know how the game is played. It applies to all forms of publishing, too. For example, when I was with international agencies as a working photographer, I was told to hand in all the unflattering celeb pictures I took. Why? So that innocent people could be victimized. Like so: publish a photo of a celeb with his eyes closed and caption it: “Celeb drunk! Couldn’t keep his eyes open!” That kind of thing. I know exactly how spin-doctoring is done, and how innuendo can pass for truth.
The Guardian: “The 19th-century doctor performed experimental surgeries on enslaved black women throughout his career, and chose not to use anesthesia.” That sounds pretty damning, doesn’t it?
The truth is more like this: slave owners, knowing Dr. Sims’ reputation, went to him and asked for help. They asked him to save these women. Would it not have been just as easy to shoot these women in the head and bury them in a ditch? Many slave women were raped. Do we doubt many were murdered? There is NO evidence that Dr. Sims took out ads saying, "Black women needed for experiments." No. The slave owners came to HIM, and they would've come to him with their own wives and daughters, too.
Dr. Sims wasn’t the one who “enslaved black women." He treated them. He treated them just as he treated white women. The spin is suggesting he carved up black women but used anesthesia on white women and...got that wording, he “chose not to use anesthesia" on the blacks.
Wrong. He “chose not to use anesthesia” on white women too. Guess why. Anesthesia was not invented yet.
Can we agree to call this spin doctoring?
What’s the most famous anesthetic used 100 years ago? Chloroform? Go back further than 100 years. Records show that it was first used in Scotland in 1847, so it was not available to Dr. Sims when he began his operations.
Ether was also very new. The best evidence is that Dr. Sims either did not know it existed (it dates from 1842), or didn't know where to get it, or didn't trust it.
Here's the truth about what Dr. Sims did. Not guess work. Not spin doctoring. We know that back then, he was considered just about the BEST doctor in Montgomery, Alabama, especially for “woman troubles.” Did anyone in 1845 ever year of a gynecologist? The general practitioner did it all. It just so happened that Dr. Sims had a special interest in helping women.
Do you want to spin doctor this and say he was a pervert who had a thing about exploring vaginas, white or black? You want to portray him as some madman who invented torture devices for vaginas? The man created THIS:
You can spin doctor that and call it a torture device. It isn't.
The current speculum is quite different. I know that for a fact, because for a while I helped my father, a general practitioner in the Bronx, and among the chores, I boiled speculums and sterilized them for the next usage. (Yes, primitive times when metal speculums were common). I helped perform EKG's and other nurse-type chores.
Do we spin doctor and say that Dr. Sims was a cruel misogynist who subjected women to hideous and intrusive exams? No, I think women appreciated that Dr. Sims created, from a pewter spoon, a less intrusive and more professional way of examination.
One of the big problems back then was childbirth. Women had a lot of babies. Five, ten...not uncommon. The survival rate was not great. Quantity meant...SOME would survive.
At what damage to the mother?
Dr. Sims had to deal with women who had vesicovaginal fistulas.
What? Huh?
Wikipedia will tell you:
"Vesicovaginal fistulas occur when the woman's bladder, cervix and vagina become trapped between the fetal skull and the woman's pelvis, cutting off blood flow and leading to tissue death. The necrotic tissue later sloughs off, leaving a hole. Following this injury, as urine forms, it leaks out of the vaginal opening, leading to a form of incontinence. Because a continuous stream of urine leaks from the vagina, it is difficult to care for, creating personal hygiene issues that may lead to marginalization from society for the woman, and vaginal irritation, scarring, and loss of vaginal function."
Giving a lecture at the New York Academy of Medicine on November 18, 1857, Dr. Sims said he was still not using anesthesia for fistula surgery, even though it was now available, “because they are not painful enough to justify the trouble and risk attending their administration."
Dr. Sims was a compassionate and dedicated man. He was living in ignorant times, when there was hardly much scientific evidence that all races were equal, and had the same blood types and brain cells, and that superficial differences in facial structure or skin color didn't matter. He was living in a time of superstition, sexual repression and utter confusion over what or who was in the clouds overhead.
While Dr. Sims had concerns about anesthesia during an operation, he had no qualms about using available pain relief after the operation. If he didn't think those black women were human, and suffering, he wouldn't have given them opium. Opium was well known and accepted at the time as a pain reliever, and he gave it to these women. He trusted it would help them, and it did.
In hunting around for a FACTUAL piece on Dr. Sims, I came across a Wordpress blog from Dr. Jen Gunter. I have no idea who she is, or what her credentials are, but her aim was to declare that the doctor was a creep who should not have any statues honoring him. She apparently read his autobiography, and was pissed off that the guy seemed "egotistical" and motivated by money. Gosh, doctors motivated by MONEY and wanting to have a well paying job? How surprising.
The article is just a lot of slants. She finds every reason to criticize the man as not to competent, not well liked by his peers, not compassionate, etc. etc. But nowhere does she PROVE that he was RACIST. In fact, just the opposite. At one point she describes how he treated a white Irish woman. Guess what. This woman was given the SAME treatment (or lack of it...no anesthesia) as the slaves:
Dr. Sims built an area where he could house the slaves. This is slanted to be some kind of torture chamber. The man did the best he could in finding these woman someplace to stay. You can read the article for yourself, and if you feel like it, you could easily spin all of her remarks the other way, and find reasons to praise Dr. Sims, and to excuse any flaws as the same ones doctors today have: not giving patients enough time, not being perceived as empathetic, and actually running a BUSINESS and wanting to be paid.
Where are the reports that would convince a jury that this man was a racist, or that he did anything that any other doctor at that time would have done? Answer: there ARE NO REPORTS.
The Journal of Medical Ethics, 1993, documented the case of Dr. Sims. There is nothing in the report to indicate he was some kind of Dr. Mengele or that he was acting like the fictional Dr. Moreau and conducting fiendish experiments out of sadistic racism. Aged 27, he had created his speculum after CORRECTLY diagnosing a way to correct fistula. That he conducted some operations on slaves was, according to the Journal, the result of simply having been asked by slave owners. Would any other doctor at that time and place have acted differently? Can any juror turn in a verdict of guilty? No. There is no record of whether the slave women did or didn't want to be helped. Being slaves, they probably knew that their wants were not even worth voicing, but that's not the fault of Dr. Sims.
According to the journal: "...all of the slave-women who had been the subjects of his experiments were cured and sent home." Does that sound like a racist monster to you?
The Journal quotes a defender of Sims as writing: "he was a man of his time and should not be judged by present-day standards. It is easy to derogate Sims by applying 1975 social standards to 1850 decisions and conduct..." The Journal also notes that "significant medical breakthroughs were accomplished without the use of slaves..." But whose decision was it to bring slaves to Sims, how do you hold him responsible for acting recklessly, and what do you make of his success rate? Again, would any jury convict this man for malpractice or charge him with racism? Is it not clear that aside from creating the speculum, and discovering new treatments, the statue for him was also built because of his many decades of other achievements? Isn't it easy to slant any list of facts to portray the person involved as vainglorious, opportunistic, cold or devious? Have you not had someone spread a lie about you or engage in character assassination? Is not quite possible that revisionist historians looking for an easy target found one in Dr. Sims, and twisted facts just to bring down a statue and get glory from it at the expense of his reputation?
You can read the Journal for yourself. There is speculation but there is nothing to suggest Dr. Sims was evil or a racist, or that he treated white women differently from the slaves. These were very tough times for ANY operation on ANY person, and Dr. Sims didn't choose to give anesthetic to SOME women and not others. It is way too easy for people to twist and slant and spin doctor for their own agenda, and to engage in blame and scapegoating. When Lucy, for example, experienced problems after her operation, Dr. Sims did everything he could to save her life. Why is that? Wouldn't a racist simply let her die because there were plenty more slaves? Do you want to theorize that he kept her alive just to torture her some more? That's your conjecture, that's not fact.
A sample from the journal, a journal that it's doubtful Letitia James ever bothered to read. It's much easier to sensationalize the story and shout that a doctor operated on slaves without anesthetic. Why bother adding that white women didn't get anesthetic either, and that the doctor did not request slaves to experiment on, or act any differently than any other doctors of that era? What if he turned down the requests to operate? Do you spin that as racism because he refused to touch black women? How easy it is to play with motives. How disgusting it is to revise history without factual basis.
Dr. Sims was not a racist. It's too easy to throw that word around, or to use it out of context. Francis Scott Key was also called "racist," even though he often went to court (he was a lawyer) to help slaves. If anything, he was just a product of his times, and what is FAR more troubling, is that with all the evidence that people of any race or color are equal, we STILL have racism. We STILL have genocide. We STILL have people in all countries who will kill others who have even slight differences.
Can we always tell a Palestinian from an Israeli? One Muslim sect from another? They can and they kill about it. We still have "the Washington Redskins" as a football team. We have Orthodox Jews sucker-punched in the streets because of how they look, and the same with transgenders and gays and everyone else. A white guy from Australia, here to learn how to play baseball, was shot in the back by some blacks who had nothing better to do. That's racism too. Puerto Ricans couldn't get their lights on following a hurricane. Boko Haram rapes and kills Nigerian women and children. There is a LOT more going on to be concerned about than a statue of somebody who has been spin-doctored into a symbol of racist evil.
Let's also remember that this is NOT the case of some hick quack in Alabama who did nothing but conduct weird experiments on slaves out of sadism. He was asked, based on his expertise, to help. He used the same techniques on all his patients and gave anesthetic when needed. He rose from nothing to be a versatile, respected physician who helped found hospitals and helped treat people in foreign lands. You can spin that he came to New York because he was after money. You can claim all kinds of motivations. You can twist his honest recollections in his autobiography to prove the sin of a man choosing a profession that could make him financially secure. But where are the facts to insist he is a racist villain, or another Dr. Mengele? Various reputable non-fiction sources find no such evidence.
The statue is down. It is now in the cemetery where Dr. Sims lies. The statue will be what it's always been: a place for pigeons to crap. The important thing now is for "Tish" James to use the press wisely and well, and that ALL politicians do the same, and stop fomenting hate and whipping up the loonies with the pitchforks and the self-entitled sulkers and the sad haters who gotta hate.
"Gimme some truth," Mr. Lennon sang. When Edgar A. Poe died, Rufus Griswold offered an obit declaring Poe a disgusting drunk whom nobody liked. Poe had enough defenders to declare that this was unfair, but that's because the attack came right after he died. When did these attacks on Dr. Sims start? Long after any defender had died? Prove the charges. Prove them so that any jury would agree and that nobody could shrug and say that there are "controversial" allegations. Let's clear the muddy waters if we can. That's what journalism is about. That's what makes journalism a little cleaner than politics. Most of the time. Spin doctor journalists, like hack politicians, are low and they bring down the good writers and the good people in office.
I took the time to write this to defend a doctor AND to warn about the dangers of spin doctoring. I wrote it to supply some facts to counter the people who can only say "Sims was bad" and not be able to back it up with facts OR persuasive speculation. You want to tell me this was a bad man, then tell me how he differed in his treatment of white and black women, or how he used anesthetic selectively, or how he wrote ignorantly OR with malice about any race. One thing that we sometimes forget in discussions of Black and White. There are shades of gray.
We have seen the downfall of a gray statue of a man whose good work benefitted all women, and whose good work benefitted cancer patients, and whose good work saved lives in distant parts of the world where he was called for his service. We have seen too many people maligned, hounded, railroaded and defamed, and unlike Dr. Sims, they are still alive and suffering because of ignorant witch-hunts and unsubstantiated accusations.
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