Most curse words don't come from some evil place. They started plain. They were made 'bad' by whoever got to decide what counted as proper. Most elders in the Black village I grew up in cursed. The grandma, the auntie, the same women who cursed like sailors were often the ones making sure the neighborhood kids' bellies stayed full. In Black culture, cursing has never automatically meant disrespect. It's culture. Yes, culture.

Henrietta Lacks never knew that cells taken from her body would change modern medicine forever. Taken without her knowledge or consent in 1951, her cells became HeLa, the first immortal human cell line, contributing to breakthroughs from the polio vaccine to cancer research and even space exploration. Jay Renee honors the Black woman behind one of medicine’s most important legacies and asks us to remember her name.