When I was doing my training in my medical specialty decades ago, there was a single black resident physician in my program, whom I’ll call “David.”
I had never questioned the lily whiteness of the program. I was just glad that there were a couple of other women I could commiserate with about how we women felt the need to “justify” our presence to our clinical instructors. It had not occurred to me that David, far more than we, felt that his presence was constantly under scrutiny because of the color of his skin.
In my colorblind way, I thought of David as a fellow resident who simply “happened to be black.” He was hardworking, approachable and pleasant to work with.
Honestly, I never gave a thought to what additional hurdles and indignities he faced on a daily basis. But now I regret that I didn’t have more empathy for what he was experiencing, or insight into his struggles.
All of us were dismayed when he told us that he was leaving to go to another program. I concluded, merely, that he had a much bigger chip on his shoulder than I had imagined. I had little idea what motivated his resentment. I had never heard of tokenism, or micro-aggression, or systemic racism.
I now realize that I wasn’t colorblind in a neutral way; I was blind to his race and the unequal footing he experienced because of it.
If David was feeling a level of veiled hostility and marginalization that forced him to leave our program, it’s easy to see in hindsight how destructive and demoralizing systemic racism is for so many people of color.
Looking back, I’m surprised at my own ignorant colorblindness.
Don’t get me wrong. I was focused on being a competent physician. I cared deeply for my patients, black or white, and did all I could for them when they were sick. I didn’t see, however, how hard my black patients had to work to get or stay well. When they were forced to live in substandard housing, to work in thankless low-wage jobs, to fear violence on the street, including from those hired to protect them, I knew about it on some level, but I really didn’t see it.
The pandemic has laid bare the raw facts that black and brown people suffer from all the ramifications of COVID-19 at disproportionately higher rates. They get sick more often, lose their jobs more frequently, go hungrier, are housed far worse, and fall through the cracks of our educational system far more.
And now, once again, we see that they are the victims of police brutality at a much higher rate, too.
It is no wonder, then, that so many of our black brothers and sisters hold such enormous anger and resentment over their treatment in this country, and are saying once again that they have had enough. Like my black colleague David, they see that things need to change, and they don’t simply have a baseless chip on their shoulder.
It is painful to have our eyes peeled open like this, and it is tempting to excuse ourselves and think we are off the hook because we, personally, didn’t make it this way.
Very importantly, we need to call out those leaders whose de facto belief in the supremacy of one race over others perpetuates the injustices toward those they consider less deserving than themselves. We need to work hard to elect leaders who place the rights and vulnerabilities of all our citizens front and center. They need to authorize more assistance, not less, and more resources, not fewer, to those who need them most.
But we need to go even further. We need to open our own eyes to the damaging effects of racism in all its forms. We need to understand that we have a personal stake in making it right. We need to listen to and respect the messages we are hearing from those who experience racism at this moment in time.
This is the time to walk with them in solidarity, and to re-envision a future where black lives matter every single bit as much as any life matters.
(Millie LaFontaine of Concord is a retired neurologist.)