Medical Lynching and Institutional Racism Against an 80-Year-Old African American Scholar in Michigan Healthcare

Introduction: The Modern Slave Act Playbook

The infrastructure of Northville Township and this country is operating from a hidden 1793 Slave Act Playbook [INDEX]. The 1964 Civil Rights Act was a compromise [INDEX]. The civil rights agencies when established were run by whites [INDEX]. African Americans were forced to return to the white abusers of their civil rights on an uneven playing field [INDEX].

They say you must compromise [INDEX]. I say when you compromise make sure you don’t lose more than you can afford to give away, because even in compromise there are winners and losers [INDEX]. As a Ph.D. scholar, researcher, scientist, and educator, because I am African American I am expendable in this country [INDEX]. I am a non-person in this white racist America [INDEX]. This represents the spoils of slavery and I am the victim of a medical lynching [INDEX].

Part 1: Medical Abandonment at University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center

I have cancer and have been kicked out and denied service by two cancer treatment centers [INDEX]. One because I question why my doctor’s orders for treatment were being delayed [INDEX]. My doctor ordered essential cancer treatments, but the facility delayed administering them [INDEX]. When I questioned the staff about these dangerous delays, the hospital presented me with a contract [INDEX]. This contract required me to agree “not to disagree” with the facility or staff [INDEX].

I refused to sign a contract agreeing not to disagree as a prerequisite to receive cancer treatment [INDEX]. Because I refused to sign away my right to advocate for my own health and timeline, the facility denied me service and terminated my care [INDEX].

Following this, I picketed the U of M Rogel Cancer Center for five weeks after being kicked out for discrimination in healthcare of African Americans [INDEX]. I was initially told to get out by administrative staff and then stormed down on by an all-white, five-car police force and told the same — that this was federal property and I could not picket [INDEX]. I informed them I was a federal taxpayer and I was on a public walkway [INDEX]. But if they wanted to arrest an 80-year-old, lone African American woman with cancer for picketing against discrimination of African Americans seeking cancer treatment, I would go with them quietly [INDEX]. During that five weeks that I picketed, I was never approached by the visual nor printed news media as to why I was picketing [INDEX].

Part 2: Weaponized Records and Retaliation at Trinity Health

I strongly suspect my medical records have been altered or compromised out of retaliation by the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center [INDEX]. This accounts for the abrupt dismissal of service and cancellation of an appointment by my oncologist at Trinity Health on the day I was to meet with her [INDEX].

I was told by her medical clerk that Dr. Tara Breslin would no longer be providing cancer treatment [INDEX]. When I asked to speak to Dr. Breslin, she would not come to the phone [INDEX]. When I asked the medical clerk why this was happening, she then said, “We were told you were rude to members of staff a week ago [INDEX].” This was not true [INDEX].

White women and some white males often falsely accuse me of yelling and then weaponize a trope to racially stereotype me as the “Angry Black Woman” and use that to hang up and deny me service [INDEX]. This is used even after I have told them that I naturally speak loud, and that now, because I was physically assaulted with an air horn by one of the white male property managers and accounting supervisors for the all-white HOA where I live, I can no longer hear or regulate my pitch [INDEX]. My priest, Father Bob, told me to see this additional change in my voice as a blessing although it came about under violent circumstances [INDEX]. He told me, “It is now a Voice of Thunder for Justice [INDEX].”

Part 3: Physical Assault at Corewell Health Medical Group

Corewell Health is the second place I was physically assaulted by one of their white male doctors with anger management issues for disagreeing when he said there was no difference between a Physician Assistant and a Medical Doctor [INDEX]. He became angry and began to toss me about in my hospital room [INDEX]. Other staff had to restrain him [INDEX]. I had to flee for my life without medical care [INDEX].

Corewell Medical Group did not acknowledge the physical assault [INDEX]. Furthermore, the police department in both incidents would not allow me, an African American woman, to file a physical assault complaint against a white male [INDEX]. Just as it was not possible for my enslaved great-grandmothers brought to this country and sold as property, I, as a descendant of slavery, have no more rights than my great-grandmothers 160-plus years after slavery [INDEX].

Part 4: Abandonment by Insurance Support

Blue Cross Blue Shield is asking for an explanation as to why I was abandoned by the hospitals that were supposed to treat me for cancer [INDEX]. However, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Case Manager “Kelly” also abruptly dropped me from her case without notification near the same time [INDEX].

I am requesting a BCBS Expedited Review based on the urgency of my medical condition and the need for cancer treatment of an invasive cancer [INDEX]. I cannot survive without cancer treatment [INDEX]. Get real [INDEX]. I have been sentenced to death by a barbaric, racist healthcare system [INDEX]. This is a murder and a medical lynching [INDEX].

Part 5: The Failure of State and Federal Institutions

I am without government protection from housing and healthcare discrimination, physical assaults, and abuse [INDEX]. You cannot name an organization, state or federal, I have not written to pleading for help, nor state or federal political leaders that I have not sought out for help, nor civil rights agencies, state or federal, that I have not sought out for help — and they all have ignored an elderly African American woman’s plea for help [INDEX].

The Michigan Department of Civil Rights is corrupt [INDEX]. The Department of Fair Housing has done nothing [INDEX]. The Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF) assigned someone in my area that has already proven unuseful [INDEX].

Money in the amount of $10,000.00 has been extorted from me, an elderly African American woman, by the HOA where I live [INDEX]. This required the forced transfer of Black wealth to white coffers [INDEX]. Along with physical threats, I have faced wrongful housing foreclosure, illegal fines, and an attempt to auction off my home for HOA profit and as a financial “fix” at the expense of its only African American resident due to HOA deficits [INDEX]. I am required to send the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and/or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) a detailed fact sheet along with attachments related to violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) by this HOA [INDEX]. This is what this country expects: to wear you out if you are elderly and hope you will go away [INDEX].

I have already contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ); in fact, I sent them a 100-page formal complaint which they did not respond to nor return [INDEX]. I also sent the Congressional Committee on Accountability my Statement of Facts in March of this year, but still have not received a reply [INDEX].

The Attorney General Dana Nessel ignored my pleas for help, and the Governor Gretchen Whitmer had the nerve to tell me there was nothing she could do about discrimination while campaigning against discrimination in the LGBTQ community [INDEX]. As a part of redistricting out into a community that is largely white and racist where I live, Debbie Dingell has ignored my pleas for help; her politics have shifted to cater to the white power structure [INDEX].

I was told by a white journalist that what I say he believes is true, but he cannot print it or he will lose his readers [INDEX]. When I asked, “What about my First Amendment Rights?” he did not reply [INDEX]. Black newspapers have sold out African Americans just as Judas betrayed Christ for 30 pieces of silver [INDEX]. They are the plantation overseers and white bootlickers that the white corporations have bought on the auction block [INDEX]. The NAACP and Urban League do not answer their phones for ordinary citizens, although they seek their membership funds; they are beholding to the white power structure [INDEX].

This is the greatest country in the world for whites, but not for African Americans, even though it was built on my enslaved ancestors’ Black backs [INDEX].

Written by: A Voice of Thunder for Justice Delener McCamey, Ph.D.