Repentance for Racism

I have worked in healthcare for most of my adult life. I have witnessed countless examples of racism* and in some instances, participated, believing my non-racist intentions to exempt me from culpability. In moments of witnessed racism, I have sat in silence, almost without fail. It is clear to me now that silence in the face of racism is more than “just a sin of omission”; it is ultimately an act of violence against my neighbor. For these and all my sins I repent, and in doing so resolve to do right by my neighbors of color and all those who are oppressed and seeking justice.

*We know that racism in healthcare has devastating effects on communities of color. We only need to look at the maternal death rates for African American women for a concrete example of this. I have heard from several of my patients, particularly black women, that healthcare workers tend to not believe their medical complaints. I had one patient of color who, in order for her medical complaints to be believed by healthcare workers, she had a prepared folder with all of her healthcare records, notes from past doctors attesting that she was educated enough about her condition to make educated requests for treatment, and statistics showing the rate at which people of color are treated effectively for the same conditions as white people to show that she had done her homework and wasn’t going to be dismissed easily. I have heard coworkers describe patients and patient’s family members as “acting ghetto” in defense of their talking badly about that patient/family and blatant rudeness to the patient and their family. I have heard (a lot of) nurses talk about how wrong it is that some people (usually in reference to a patient of color) keep reproducing when there are so many others out there (usually the white friends of said nurses) who would make such good parents aren’t able to conceive. I have seen, and participated in, games of “guess the race” where you try to identify the race of a soon-to-be patient before seeing them based on their name. I have heard countless complaints of abuse of the system when people without insurance (an issue which disproportionately affects POC) use the ER as a primary source of healthcare, without a thought given to how it’s more likely that these patients are the victims of a system of abuse. These are only a few specific examples of racism I have seen in my workplace. It is easy enough for us to say we treat all of our patients with the same level of care, but when we acknowledge that so much racially influenced disrespect and judgment is happening behind the scenes, it becomes easy to see why we our success rates in treating POC for the same conditions as white people tend to be so much lower and we cannot dissociate our own prejudices and judgements with the physical harm of poor outcomes of persons of color. We are not innocent. We have failed as advocates.

Source: Peggy S. - Posted on FB 3 June 2020