Summary: Racial Discrimination In Health Care
Initially when I began reading the first article written by Esposito (2016), I immediately noticed a theme which resonated throughout the entire article. The health care industry has been presented with a difficult conundrum where people are recognizing the lack of diversity in the industry. According to Esposito (2016), “Boosting the diversity of providers in the U.S. health care industry could be a tool for bridging the gap” (n.p.) There seems to be a lack of African-America health professionals spanning across the health industry, which concerns one of the board members of the Association of Black Health Professionals. Discrimination in the health care system is prevalent, whether or not people realize the reality of the situation. This
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discrimination is “causing some people to avoid it altogether outside of dire emergencies” (n.p.) Having patients willing to come in to receive preventative treatment instead of waiting until there is an emergency is where the health care industry should be focusing their attention.
The mental health arena is also proving to have a lack of diversity with barriers being placed against the service providers. A person’s willingness to provide personal experiences and nonbiased observations of how they are feeling may only be divulged to those who are relatable to the patient. Esposito (2016) suggests that “practitioners from any background can improve their cultural competence” (n.p.) If practitioners are able to broaden their cultural awareness by gaining their knowledge base from other diverse practitioners, their competence will be strengthened and their ability to communicate with other cultures will be enriched. The health care industry should implement “cross-cultural training” which would allow the practitioners “to become familiar with other cultural norms and to improve their interactions with people of different domestic and international cultures” (Martin & Nakayama, 2013, p. 47). This training would diversify the staff and allow the patients to feel a sense of security when entering a health care facility.
The second article written by Brody (2015), talks about a woman who portrayed herself as being ethnically black, even though her family stated that she was white. Brody indicated that “the Associated Press also reported that some are planning a protest Monday evening to call on Dolezal to step down altogether” (n.p.) Rachel Dolezal had been working as a member of the Washington state NAACP chapter member until she resigned after an instigated questioning session about her lack of integrity and credibility. Dolezal suggested that she was mistreated as a child, and the reason why she portrayed herself as black is “due to the color of her skin. Not every black person has grown up poor, witnessed a cross burning, or actively joined (much less headed) a civil rights organization” according to law professor Osamudia James (n.p.).
This racial struggle is addressed in Martin & Nakayama (2013) where “racial categories vary widely throughout the world.
In general, distinctions between white and black are fairly rigid in the United States, and many people become uneasy when they are unable to categorize individuals” (p. 191). Dolezal is met with mutinous outrages by the media since she was not able to understand where she fit into the community, whether she had a long lost hereditary connection to the African community or not. There is a similar story in Martin & Nakayama where a young girl had been categorized as black on her passport, but when she arrived in Louisiana, the officials did not recognize her as black but as white. Unfortunately when society uses stereotyping, there can be a lot of ramification which lead to mass hysteria directed towards the individual. According to Martin & Nakayama, society attempts to “make sense out of the overwhelming amount of information” received where society attempts to “categorize and generalize” a person by the color of their skin (p. 210). Dolezal should have quickly taken a genetic test done to prove that she had a small percent of African in her gene pool. Diversity in the NAACP should be more readily accepted, even if it means that an individual like Dolezal had to get a genomic test completed to verify the validity of her privilege. Every organization should be willing to have a diversified team of individuals, so they are able to recognize the realities of each culture, which in turn endorses cultural
awareness.
discrimination is “causing some people to avoid it altogether outside of dire emergencies” (n.p.) Having patients willing to come in to receive preventative treatment instead of waiting until there is an emergency is where the health care industry should be focusing their attention.
The mental health arena is also proving to have a lack of diversity with barriers being placed against the service providers. A person’s willingness to provide personal experiences and nonbiased observations of how they are feeling may only be divulged to those who are relatable to the patient. Esposito (2016) suggests that “practitioners from any background can improve their cultural competence” (n.p.) If practitioners are able to broaden their cultural awareness by gaining their knowledge base from other diverse practitioners, their competence will be strengthened and their ability to communicate with other cultures will be enriched. The health care industry should implement “cross-cultural training” which would allow the practitioners “to become familiar with other cultural norms and to improve their interactions with people of different domestic and international cultures” (Martin & Nakayama, 2013, p. 47). This training would diversify the staff and allow the patients to feel a sense of security when entering a health care facility.
The second article written by Brody (2015), talks about a woman who portrayed herself as being ethnically black, even though her family stated that she was white. Brody indicated that “the Associated Press also reported that some are planning a protest Monday evening to call on Dolezal to step down altogether” (n.p.) Rachel Dolezal had been working as a member of the Washington state NAACP chapter member until she resigned after an instigated questioning session about her lack of integrity and credibility. Dolezal suggested that she was mistreated as a child, and the reason why she portrayed herself as black is “due to the color of her skin. Not every black person has grown up poor, witnessed a cross burning, or actively joined (much less headed) a civil rights organization” according to law professor Osamudia James (n.p.).
This racial struggle is addressed in Martin & Nakayama (2013) where “racial categories vary widely throughout the world.
In general, distinctions between white and black are fairly rigid in the United States, and many people become uneasy when they are unable to categorize individuals” (p. 191). Dolezal is met with mutinous outrages by the media since she was not able to understand where she fit into the community, whether she had a long lost hereditary connection to the African community or not. There is a similar story in Martin & Nakayama where a young girl had been categorized as black on her passport, but when she arrived in Louisiana, the officials did not recognize her as black but as white. Unfortunately when society uses stereotyping, there can be a lot of ramification which lead to mass hysteria directed towards the individual. According to Martin & Nakayama, society attempts to “make sense out of the overwhelming amount of information” received where society attempts to “categorize and generalize” a person by the color of their skin (p. 210). Dolezal should have quickly taken a genetic test done to prove that she had a small percent of African in her gene pool. Diversity in the NAACP should be more readily accepted, even if it means that an individual like Dolezal had to get a genomic test completed to verify the validity of her privilege. Every organization should be willing to have a diversified team of individuals, so they are able to recognize the realities of each culture, which in turn endorses cultural
awareness.