Jim Crow and American medicine
I grew up in the American South as the end of apartheid. I remember the first Black kid who showed up in my 3rd grade and how the teacher prepared us for his arrival the day before. I remember the race riots of the ‘60s and I remember where I was when I learned MLK had been assassinated at the other end of the state.
Yes, we’ve now had a two-term Black president (although his legitimacy was questioned by many, including the current GOP candidate for President), and segregated water fountains, lunch counters and public schools are a thing of the past. But racist anachronisms still prevailed in medicine, and their consequences are seldom remediated:
“Jazmin Evans had been waiting for a new kidney for four years when her hospital revealed shocking news: She should have been put on the transplant list in 2015 instead of 2019 — and a racially biased organ test was to blame.
“As upsetting as that notification was, it also was part of an unprecedented move to mitigate the racial inequity. Evans is among more than 14,000 Black kidney transplant candidates so far given credit for lost waiting time, moving them up the priority list for their transplant.
“I remember just reading that letter over and over again,” said Evans, 29, of Philadelphia, who shared the notice in a TikTok video to educate other patients. “How could this happen?”
*snip*
“Pavlakis calls what happened next an attempt at restorative justice: The transplant network gave hospitals a year to uncover which Black kidney candidates could have qualified for a new kidney sooner if not for the race-based test — and adjust their waiting time to make up for it. That lookback continues for each newly listed Black patient to see if they, too, should have been referred sooner.
“Between January 2023 and mid-March, more than 14,300 Black kidney transplant candidates have had their wait times modified, by an average of two years, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which runs the transplant system. So far more than 2,800 of them, including Evans, have received a transplant.”
*snip*
“Change is beginning, slowly. No longer are obstetricians supposed to include race in determining the risk of a pregnant woman attempting vaginal birth after a prior C-section. The American Heart Association just removed race from a commonly used calculator of people’s heart disease risk. The American Thoracic Society has urged replacing race-based lung function evaluation.
“The kidney saga is unique because of the effort to remedy a past wrong.”
Restorative justice in medicine
Joel
thanks for the information. it helps me balance my picture of racism in America. I grew up in an honestly non-racist family, and I believed after the Civil Rights Act that racism had mostly disappeared in America,,,not because of the Act, but because Americans had been shown how ugly and stupid racism was…or at least how their neighbors thought of it. Since then I have continued to believe that the people yelling racism at every corner were wrong as to the facts and wrong as to the politics and wrong as to their own mental health. I still believe that, but I was surprised at the reappeareance of malignant racism after Trump gave them permission to show themselves.
and deeply surprised to learn that hospitals had race-tainted policies.
I grew up in a deeply racist law enforcement family in the Chicago area in the 1960’s. They were not outliers. When as a teenager I expressed admiration for MLK my father shared with me some of the garbage the FBI was sending to local law enforcement all over the country. Well after the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
SW
yes, racism is not a product of the deep south or electoral college only. i first became aware of it in upper peninsula Michigan. and later in Chicago suburb.
frankly, racism has been a part of all human societies since we lived in trees. it has been a long fight to overcome it. as far as i know the fight against it began with the parable of the Good Samaritan, and as pressed in America and England by certain religious groups, and finally brought to a legal end, at least, by Martin Luther King with help from Lyndon Johnson and others. I mention this to try to temper the anti-religious bigotry of some on the Left. We certainly had anti-religious bigotry in Chicago, but there we hated everything that was “not like us.” [FWIW, my family was not only anti-racist, it had no interest in religion one way or the other. My anti anti-religious-bigotry is my own invention, a general recognition that anti-religion and even anti-racism are just other forms of bigotry. Humans have hardest time ridding themselves of that.]
Surprised to learn that pernicious racism was lying undead waiting to be resurrected, legitimized, and led by a new American President.
Funny how different life experiences can lead to wildly different expectations. I completely expected what is happening today as soon as I became aware of the demographic projections for the coming decades. I just assumed that they would have rallied around a standard bearer significantly less buffoonish.
Growing up Metis` in LA in the sixties was kind of like a pot of water just coming to boil. In school, as I recall, it was a fairly even mix: white, black and Mexican; I probably learned as much Spanish from my best friend Jesus’ family as I was required to in middle school. Everybody pretty much got along, but just beneath the surface there were shotguns and ballbats next to the door. The trouble-makers were the Okies and Arkies and Alabamies
Good place to learn how to slip through the cracks …
I lived in Hollywood at that time. Never saw a trace of racism. or sexism or homophobia for that matter.
I did suspect that the Left crowing about America becoming a “minority majority” nation was going to provoke some pre-emptive action by the Right.
A few years later i cold have said the same thing about the people I knew at UF. can’t speak for the frat boys though.
By the mid eighties we had a black guy on our survey crew in Portland, “best tech he had ever had, said the crew chief. no evidence of racism in the crew.
It’s one reason I get very tired of hearing that American is a racist country. This is just giving the bad guys an excuse to play on the fears of the still unenlightened.
Were you white in Hollywood while I was slipping through cracks in Far-East LA as Metis`: Red, White and Black? Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re right, if it were a level playing field, everyone on-par, doing the same job we’d probably come close to ending such nonsense. That was the union experience of a hundred years ago.
But we’re not, we all see things different. I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing racism from all three species, though I can’t really know the racism experienced by any one: the descendants of slaves no more than having been raised in the city can I know the racism out on The Rez. And I really don’t see where my caucazoid features have done me favors
It’s like that southern ‘bless your heart; bullshit, Minnesota nice: not out in the open: just beneath the surface, behind closed doors …
Ten Bears
you may be right about some people, especially the local power structure. But i am talking about people I knew.
and if you look at my reply to SW above youcan see that I say racism has been a human trait since we lived in trees, But it has been recognized as “wrong” for at least a couple of hundred years in this country and we have been making progress.
It does not surprise me that some white people are clumsy in trying to overcome their own “racism” just as some black people are clumsy in the prsense of white people, but “not out in the open” is the starting point of “not.” we are getting there.
Calling each other names does not help.
@Ten,
Calling out racism is always and everywhere right. So is calling out racists. I remember a time when it was considered genteel [PC] among white folk to overlook the N-word and the racist sneers and insinuations, or pretend they didn’t exist because they were out of ear shot or it never happened among people they personally knew. Yes, they existed and were common among white folk, solipsism nonwithstanding.
C.S. Lewis observed that one must have common interests with another to form a friendship.
One can go through life without forming friendships.
The proof of common interest is evident when one asks “who are my friends”– and what common interest do we share.
Jackson
i have been suggsting for years that the only way to end racism in America is for blacks and whites to be working on the same jobs (projects) together. at first job discipline would promote tolerance. eventually familiarity would erase the stranger-fear that fuels racism. and seeing real contributions and real “not caring about race” would seal the deal.
but that would still need to be encouraged at leat by the government if not required.
if not here means but not.