Vitiligo was read as evidence that Blackness itself was curable

Evidence

In 1814, Moss resurfaced again in the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery, where he is described as a Black man “whose skin has nearly lost its native colour and become perfectly white.” … The parts that were covered and sweated advanced most rapidly in whiteness, his face slowest,” Rush jotted down in his notes. “His skin was exactly like a white man. No rubbing accelerated it. The black skin did not come off, but changed.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 336