As a physician committed to the health and safety of our community, I can’t help but notice some things that we are learning right now. When I say learning, of course, I don’t mean that these are brand new revelations or that everyone has learned these. I mean we as a community are leaning further into these concepts and growing. Tough times spur on growth, so nothing like two pandemics to make us look at our health. We know that our Whole Health is more than just our body. It also honors the influence of our relationships, resources and physical environment. All of those are being affected right now! Some of what we are learning:
Empathy is a learned skill, not a trait. While you can’t literally step into someone else’s shoes, you can relate to them and find common ground. One of the most powerful things to consider is that you don’t have to have a common experience with someone to relate to them. You have to have a common feeling with them. So if you have ever felt sad, anxious, scared, grief-stricken, ignored, devalued, unheard, disrespected, etc., you can relate to someone who is experiencing those feelings to a certain degree. Here’s the kicker though. In order to know how someone is feeling, you have to talk to them. You have to listen to them. Ask thoughtful questions with a background of compassion and then listen.
We can do more than one thing at a time and care about more than one thing at a time. This is a tough one. Sometimes you can be tempted to think that if you care about COVID19 safety precautions, then you don’t care about financial health for example. There are tough continuums of risks and benefits and complex mechanisms all over this world that require our attention with varying degrees of intensity. We won’t always agree in the grey zone, but if we continue to see things as black and white, we are assured to never agree. When I focus on your chest pain, it doesn’t mean I don’t care about your changing mole on your arm. I can make a plan that honors the urgency and risks of your chest pain AND the urgency and risks of your mole. It requires conversation, exploration of priorities, values, fears. It’s a challenge, but we can do it.
We can focus on one thing at a time, without disparaging another or being distracted by another. This sounds contradictory and the same as number one all at one time. It’s really not. Hear me out. Sometimes when you hear “black lives matter.” you may be tempted to think well “all lives matter.” Sometimes when you hear “COVID19 has killed more than one hundred thousand people in the US.” you may think “Well heart disease is the biggest killer nationwide and in my family. Why aren’t we talking about that?” It’s natural for the brain to drift to what is familiar and comfortable. It again goes back to the point that there are tough continuums of risks and benefits and complex mechanisms all over this world that require our attention with varying degrees of intensity. Imagine your child comes up to you bleeding after having tripped on a toy and you turn your attention to tend to them. The younger child says “Oh I don’t matter to you now?” You would gently explain that their sibling needs your attention right now. When that hurting child says “Mom, I need attention!” your first response wouldn’t be “Well, sweetie, really ALL children need attention now don’t they.” When that bleeding child comes up to you, your first response wouldn’t be, “Well the real issue is, you should’ve been watching what you were doing. Let’s talk about your focus issue.” before stopping the bleeding. Let’s not let uncomfortable feelings distract us from addressing one issue by changing the subject to a different issue.
We evaluate the world based on our own beliefs which are formed by our experiences. If we are not actively seeking different information from a variety of perspectives, we’re getting a very distorted picture. This is a huge topic that deserves more than a little blurb of course, but consider these examples. If you are young and healthy and always recovered from illness quickly, you naturally consider the threat of a new virus differently than someone you know who “always tends to catch whatever is going around.” If you have grown up having had a few positive, respectful interactions with police officers and that is what you’ve seen others experience, you have a sense of comfort and trust with authority and may be quick to defend against anything that changes that belief. If you have grown up having been pulled over an average of 3-4 times a year for minor violations, had a gun pulled on you by one of them when you reached for your wallet after asking permission and knew multiple people with the same experience, you would think differently. Just because we haven’t had a certain experience doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
It’s hard to not be triggered. I am a firm believer that we are in control of our responses. Our circumstances do not have to dictate our responses. If we let the stresses around us throw us off our game, then we are constantly at the mercy of changing external forces. But #HARD! Our brain leads us in the direction of comfort and certainty and, in times that seem uncertain (spoiler alert-all times are uncertain), that reflex is even stronger. Sometimes this happens so quickly, we have little chance to avoid being triggered. Our only hope is how we respond after that trigger. Notice when you feel this way and pause to respond rather than instinctively react. Example for me. There are words that don’t feel good - white fragility, white supremacy, white privilege. I don’t consider myself fragile. I don’t walk around thinking I’m better than everybody. But we can pause and dig into the meaning of these words. They don’t have to trigger guilt, sadness, shame or defensiveness in me when I understand their systemic context. I can actively not take on a position of discomfort talking about race. I can acknowledge that I am more likely to get a quick respectful encounter at a traffic stop or not be pulled over at all as a white female. I can acknowledge that I’ve never thought twice about putting up my hood and scuffling swiftly away from a store in the rain. I can look at that experience and use it for good for others.
I am in no way an expert on race relations specifically, so why am I talking about all this to you? I am charged with helping people in my community be healthy and happy. Anything that affects your health and happiness is in my purview. Racism is a public health issue. Racism is a pandemic. Just as I am willing to step forward to share how COVID19 affects you and the community, I am willing to share how racism affects you and the community. I could share statistics about the increased incidence of infant death, hypertension, diabetes and heart disease in the black population. I could share statistics about the decreased rate of breastfed babies, vaccination, preventive healthcare and opportunities for healthy behaviors. I could also tell you unfortunate data regarding patients lack of comfort and trust in the medical system due to historical breaches of that trust and, unfortunately, continued poor patient experiences with non-Black healthcare professionals. But the most powerful is a physiologic connection that is more at the root cause of many of these phenomena and more directly related to racism itself. If one is not afforded a baseline sense of comfort and safety in this world and consistently feel unaccepted, your sympathetic nervous system will be on overdrive way more than it is designed to be. That fight or flight response is not meant to be activated to the degree that the stress of systemic racism causes. When we consider our Whole Health...remember our biochemistry, structure, mindset is affected by our environment (our relationships, resources and physical environment). Racism influences Our Whole entire Health.
So while I do not come to you as an expert, I am a huge fan of learning to be better. I try to know what I know and what I don’t know. And I know how to find and distill good information. And of course when I have good information, I am committed to sharing it with you! I humbly offer you this information that may be helpful without judgement, assumptions of where you are or where you need to go. Consider it, sit with it. Take what you see fit and leave what you do not. While I write this from the perspective or a white woman whose community is majority white, I also offer this information to my friends of color: I honor you and stand with you. Thank you for the grace that you continue to show in sharing your stories.
And I must say that this process is not specific to race relations. You can fill in the blank with just about any topic or area of life. Humans are put on this Earth to learn, grow and serve in all areas!
How can you actively diversify your environment, learn more and be anti-racist?
-If you feel yourself not wanting to talk about racial injustices, but you feel comfortable speaking out against other issues (climate change, metoo movement, animal cruelty, etc.), stop and ask yourself why.
-Reflect on your childhood and your experience with racist remarks, situations, opinions around you and consider how that may have affected how you relate to the world currently. Do they still apply to the current environment? Is there new data to take into account?
-Learn about the history of systemic oppression and privilege with an adult lens rather than our learned lens and consider how that plays a role in today’s society. Racism can be overt or covert, intentional or unintentional as it is baked into many passive systems we often don’t stop to consider.
-Notice if you feel triggered by words like white privilege or white supremacy. Most people do and it takes some time to realize that these are not personal attacks or even conscious biases. There are simply historic and enduring systems that confer advantages, big and small. When we stop taking them personally, we can move into understanding others’ perspectives.
-Stay aware. Follow a variety of resources that are as level-headed as possible. Reconciliation and justice doesn’t have to be inflammatory.
-Listen and learn about the experiences and perspectives of people of color, recognizing that it’s not up to them to teach you about racism. Recognize that this is an especially traumatizing time for everyone and these conversations need to happen on their time and interest.
-Don’t be shy about calling out colleagues, friends and family when they say something racist. Coming from a posture of curiosity can help keep resistance down. Why do they think what they think/ say what they say?
-As respectful as you may be, don’t be surprised when your call-outs meet resistance. People may become defensive or try to shift focus from the issue. Forge on. You are only responsible for you.
-Learn, learn, learn. You don’t have to agree with everything you learn, but if you feel like you may have room to expand your knowledge related to others’ experiences, there are great resources. Books like White Fragilty, How to be an Anti-Racist or Let it Shine, Separate is Never Equal for kids or Netflix shows like Explained: The Racial Wealth Gap or When They See Us. Follow people online that you relate to...Emmanuel Acho, OfficialMillennialBlack, Rachel.Cargle, Nicole Walters.
-Support. Everyone is called to growth in various ways. It may be doing some thought on your own during this time. It may be having conversations with your friends and family and supporting them. It may be making a donation to CampaignZero or the American Civil Liberties Union. It may simply be befriending new people at your church or in your community. It may be shopping at new stores or inviting new people to your business.
If I know one thing about your health, it is that it is NEVER stagnant. Our thinking and mindset is not meant to be stagnant; our physiology is not stagnant; our body structure is not stagnant. We are meant for growth and adaptation and I lovingly urge you to explore your personal opportunities for growth! What is your best next step?
