Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

by John Green

But as a friend once told me, “Nothing is so privileged as thinking history belongs to the past.”

In general, colonial infrastructure was not built to strengthen communities; it was built to deplete them.

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.

And so TB revealed itself to be not a disease of civilization, but a disease of industrialization; of crowding and intermingling in huge cities with packed tenements and factories where coughed-up particles could linger in the stale air.

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

Framing illness as even involving morality seems to me a mistake, because of course cancer does not give a shit whether you are a good person. Biology has no moral compass. It does not punish the evil and reward the good. It doesn’t even know about evil and good.

Racism continues to distort our policies and practices.

Health inequities are caused by poverty, racism, lack of medical care, and other social forces.”

In a world where everyone can eat, and access healthcare, and be treated humanely, tuberculosis has no chance.