A trip to the doctor’s office comes with a bit of preparation for most, maybe even an internal pep talk to prepare for being told to get more exercise or calm a simmering fear of needles.
But dressing well in hopes of warding off unfair treatment – or even bracing for being insulted?
A newly released poll by KFF, a health policy research group, found many patients of color — including 3 in 5 Black respondents — take such steps at least some of the time when seeing a doctor.
The poll found that 55% of Black respondents said they feel like they must be very careful about their appearance to be treated fairly at medical visits. That’s similar to the rate for Hispanic and Alaska Native patients – and nearly double the rate for white patients.
Yes, my husband has dark skin, and I’m pasty white, and we’ve noticed this. He used to have frequent seizures, and every trip to the ER involved being grilled repeatedly about “what drugs was he on?” And he’s noticed that doctors are much less likely to prescribe things like painkillers to him than they are to me.
And the worst part? I’m sure none of these healthcare workers think they’re being racist at all. It’s all played out at a subconscious level. Racism is so baked into society that most people who are being racist don’t even realize they’re being racist. It’s a hard problem to tackle because when you try to raise the conversation, people become defensive and think you’re saying they’re bad people.
I mean, I’m not saying this from three feet above the ground – I’m sure I could use some self-reflection, too.
We all can. But that’s the difference between us 'cause many don’t care to look.
It’s more white ppl don’t have to. Societal racism is either a non issue or directly opposes the benefits they get. It’s tiring even reading about all this shit because it’s already common knowledge. The problem is we do fuck all to change it.
It’s like those few months after George Floyd the US collectively wanted to end racism and police brutality and all ppl did to “help” is just watch some Netflix documentaries and bought some stuff with BLM stamped on it to
We do have to … we just don’t want to. Unfortunately too many of us are quite happy to go on living in our genocidal bubble.
You are so 100% correct. This is called implicit racism, and it permeates our society to a systemic level. Healthcare can be a good example, and the U.S. criminal justice system is the best example imo.
One thing that really drives home the systemic implicit racism in this country are studies that have people rate black and white men on how strong/large/muscular and threatening they perceive them to be. The black men were perceived to be more threatening and that use of force was more likely to be viewed as justified. Black and white Americans both perceived the black men to be stronger, taller, and more muscular than their equal-sized white counterparts. Source
Another study found that people view black boys as older than they are, and that they are more responsible for their actions than white boys, whose actions were more likely to be excused by the belief of childhood innocence. So our society essentially strips black boys of their perceived childhood innocence. Same Source