Decolonizing in Science and Medicine
The ted talk discusses decoloniality. It addresses feminism in particular. In the beginning,
she introduces the audience to a general idea of the price of black women who were bought and
enslaved in the Caribbean and the Americas. She then presents a story of a doctor named James
Marion Sims. A physician who had been acknowledged in many history books for discovering
gynecology. Many of his practices are being used in modern-medicine gynecology. Next, she
goes on and explains what is not being mentioned in history books which is how he got the
answers and results. Dr. Sims drew his ideas on three enslaved black women. He used their
bodies while they are awake regardless of their pain and screams. The justification of his actions
is that their bodies are simply his. This relates to the lecture notes about the colonization of the
Caribbean. After the establishment of the “encomienda system” which was to control the
Natives. There was mistreatment by the European colonizers. That resulted in a debate called the
“Valladolid debate.” The debate was held in order for the Spanish to decide the moral way of
how to address the Natives. There were two opinions, one states that Natives should be
exterminated because they were primitive and ungodly people or they can be under European
control completely, the opposing opinion asserts that they are people and children of God,
therefore, they cannot be enslaved. The conclusion of this debate met a middle ground between
these two opinions, which is the Native must convert to Christianity to go to heaven, however, a
new level of humanity was established to not break the Christian doctrine that states that
https://www.ted.com/talks/aliyah_hasinah_decoloniality_a_home_for_us_all