Contagions of Empire by Khary Oronde Polk

Author:Khary Oronde Polk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

Young agreed, writing in his autobiography that compulsory prophylaxis had an “instantaneous” effect on the venereal rate, rapidly reducing it “until it was as good as or better than that of the white troops.” He then followed this statement with an anecdote that hinted at the side effects compulsory prophylaxis had upon the genitalia of African American dockworkers, implying that the material gains made by this process of control did not come without pain for those involved:

The colonel commanding one of these camps was approached by his Negro orderly, a regular who had been with him for some years. The orderly calmly announced that he wanted a change of station. Whereupon the colonel said: “Corporal, you’ve never had an easier job. I simply send you on errands, ten or fifteen within the camp, and perhaps fifteen or twenty outside the camp every day. You certainly can’t object to such an easy job as this.” “No, Colonel, the work ain’t hard, and I don’t mind how often you send me on errands inside the camp. It’s them errands outside, because every time I comes back they takes me to the prophylactic station, and I’m getting awful sore.”56

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