The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Lesson Plan

On page 276 Deborah says, "Like I'm always telling my brothers, if you gonna go into history, you can’t do it with a hate attitude. You got to remember, times was different.” What does Deborah mean by this? Do you agree?

Deborah is arguing that history is objective--that it is important to consider what happened in the context of the time in which it was happening. Things that are absolutely unacceptable now might not have been that way at some point in history, and she says we should keep that in mind instead of getting too angry. While this is certainly true and probably a healthy way of thinking, some students will point out there are some moral absolutes--slavery...