An open letter of love to Black and Brown folks working in healthcare,
You are loved. You are cherished. You are valued. Your Blackness and Brownness is wonderful; it is a world-lifting asset. And, you are valued beyond your Blackness and Brownness. You are more; all that and more.
I am a Black physician and there is a part of this healthcare journey that we share. You are you, in all your individual brilliance, and we also share something. Something wonderful, despite the daily and constant ways racism seeks to undo us.
You are loved. You should not have to be reminded of this; it should not have to be said. Or maybe it should be said, loudly, louder than the din that echoes in your ears, telling you your Blackness, your Brownness is quietly despised.
You are cherished. And, you are on my mind. I see you. Getting up every day, going to that place, that place in healthcare, where your essentialness is stipulated and yet those other messages pervade too.
You know what I mean. We know. We have eyes and ears. We witness. The Black patient’s pain being doubted. The Brown person’s diagnosis delayed. The extra scrutiny of that Black or Brown family’s behavior within our healthcare walls. Are they threatening? Do they care too much or too little? Are they worthy of healthcare or health scrutiny?
You know, you live it. Even as you are twice as good, subtle messages tell you that you are not good enough. Even as you try to call out injustice, unsubtle conveyances that you are the problem. Even as you are expected to do your job and do the extra job of fixing healthcare racism, you are told you are not doing enough.
I just want you to know how much you are loved, wherever you are in healthcare. Your journey is your own, your intersecting and interfacing identities are yours, not mine or anyone else’s. Yet I do see you; and I think you are magnificent.
I want someone you work with to pause, as you are doing the healing things, and tell you how valued you are, how much you matter to them. I want someone who has treated you with disregard or disdain, because of your melanin, to take stock, take a moment, reach out to you and apologize. Yes, apologize.
Being Black and working in healthcare is hard; harder than many others can imagine. I’m not talking about hard fifty years ago, not twenty five years ago; it’s hard today. So you deserve to hear that you are loved. You’re not alone, you’re not just surviving in isolation. You are loved, you are brilliant, you are not alone.
Just wanted you to know I am thinking about you, Ben Danielson MD
