[ad_1] Spleens make me think of the Islamic Republic of Iran. That spongy mass tucked beneath your left rib cage keeps you healthy by filtering pathogens and damaged red cells from the blood. As a trauma surgeon, I have removed hundreds of spleens, usually from hemorrhaging patients injured in motor vehicle collisions. Spleens also fall victim to cancer, usually due to metastasis from breast, lung, and skin malignancies. One such cancerous spleen played a role in geopolitics, accelerating the end of a presidency, and drawing a throughline to today's hostilities in the Middle East. It belonged to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. You probably know him best as the former Shah of Iran. After the 1979 Iranian Revolution ended his reign, the exiled shah suffered from advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia that painfully ballooned his spleen to the size of a football. President Jimmy Carter agonized over admitting the shah into the U.S. for treatment. He knew doing so would validate Iranian fears of another 1953-style CIA coup and incite violence. At a tense cabinet meeting where several members lobbied on behalf of the shah, he asked: "What are you guys going to advise me to do when they overrun our embassy now and take our people hostage?" His concerns proved prophetic when, 2 weeks after the shah arrived in the U.S., revolutionaries seized the American Embassy in Tehran and imprisoned 66 hostages. But the captors quickly did something that shocked their international audience. They released all of the Black hostages – except for one. The Iranians' stated rationale was solidarity with oppressed peoples worldwide, declaring that Black Americans had already suffered enough in America. With the world watching, a proclaimed terrorist regime seized the moral high ground by exploiting America's failure to treat its own domestic disease. You may praise the Iranian actions as a gesture of cross-cultural empathy, or deride them as a performative stunt. The latter is valid since they allowed one Black American, Charles Jones, to languish in a Tehran cell, accusing him of being a CIA spy. But considering the legacy of performative racial justice in America, the captors' true motivations are irrelevant. Performative justice, for an individual, organization, or nation risks nothing. In essence, it is justice denied, and when justice is denied, injustice prevails. This is validated by the current administration, which exploits its power to grasp the marginalized by the neck with one hand while emptying their pockets with the other. It has eradicated federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, weaponized the Department of Justice against corporate diversity, tied federal funds to curricula bans, rolled back health disparity tracking, and purged military leadership. It is myopic to assume this only impacts Black Americans. We see it in the weaponization of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) against Hispanic communities; in the slashing of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits that, in reality, deprive more white recipients; in the economic squeezing of our farmers; and in legislative attacks on women and LGBTQ citizens. The money our leaders claim we cannot spare for healthcare, education, and science miraculously appears the moment they choose to drop bombs on a sovereign nation. When empathy is absent from public policy, we all pay the price. Admittedly, being a doctor shields me from the worst effects of our nation's failures, but it also places me squarely on the front lines. I see treatable diseases spiral out of control because my patients cannot access preventive care. I treat illnesses worsened because life-changing medications are unaffordable. And I operate on an endless stream of victims of the endemic violence our society has normalized. We cannot allow systemic neglect to bleed this nation dry any more than I can allow a ruptured spleen to remain inside a bleeding patient. True healing demands empathy. True healing demands courage. True healing demands action. We make it possible only when we collectively commit to justice and honor our shared humanity. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. [ad_2] Source link : https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/121041 Author : Publish date : 2026-04-30 16:04:00 Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.