I had a dialogue yesterday about this same approach in education: constant “solving” of each small piece, without ever looking to the entire structure and concept for reform. That’s essentially contemporary business strategy, although even in business the shortfalls are obvious. But those shortfalls are ignored, in business, in education, in healthcare, because those at the top don’t have a sense of obligation to the community, and government is not regulating to provide it. I will do everything I can to support the progress that Dr. Nunez-Smith envisions, including moving beyond a task force.

I feel optimistic and encouraged about the work Dr. Nunez-Smith is doing. The part pointing out how setting our sites “on more achievable goals” holds us back really stood out to me. Dr. Nunez-Smith isn’t just imaging what can be, she’s actively pursuing it with expectation it will happen. That challenges me. When things look and feel daunting in the part of the medical field I work, I will sometimes tell myself ‘what I’m doing here isn’t going to matter much because XYZ things aren’t happening too’. I imagine, however, that even entertaining that line of thinking impacts the quality of the services I’m offering and how hard I’m advocating for individuals I’m working with. There are so many holes in the systems it can feel like devestation all the time, but I’m contributing to that devastation and ultimately harm to Black, brown, and Indigenous people if I’m not continually setting my sites high and helping my colleagues do the same.

(cross posted to facebook)

This is such an inspiring article! I’m guilty of believing the people who say that the failures of our healthcare system are just too big, they can’t be solved, it’s always been this way… all we can do is make it a little better. Dr. Nunez-Smith has the amazing courage to suggest that the problem can be solved, and we must try.

Cross-posted: There’s so much in this article to digest.

#1, It takes a village…

I’ve learned the value of community here, especially how to hold and be held. I’ve also recognized how much side-eye I’ve given to my white cohort over the years.

I didn’t grow up in a “village.” I grew up in a neighborhood that largely kept to itself. Struggles, and yes, they were privileged struggles, weren’t shared openly. Collaborative problem solving and support wasn’t observed or expected, and we hid our issues under that proverbial “rug.”

I was quickly introduced to competition and critique/slights, both of myself and others. Thus, everyday side eye was born and ingrained.

WP (me) have to learn how to operate in a village and eradicate the side eye we give each other daily in our capitalist way of being. We need to figure out how to be in relationship, be vulnerable and de-weaponize. We need to start looking through a shared responsibility and less harmful, much safer lens and not a competitive one.

We have a lot to learn and can truly grow if we listen and follow Black and Brown people.

#2, “She still encounters hospital patients who assume she has come into the room to collect their meal tray or empty their trash, even though she introduces herself as a doctor and has a stethoscope hanging around her neck.”

When my whyte friends and family fight the idea that they are racist and supremacist, these are the type of examples I share. “But it was an honest mistake” or “I’ve never done that.” Nope. And, yes, you have.

It’s racist and supremacist bias; we (WP) all have it, and we (me) need to root that out and dismantle it.

I may have not mistaken a Black doctor for a janitor (because I don’t know that I’ve ever had a Black doctor), but I have given side eye and questioned why Black people at work always commune together. I have mistaken someone for an employee in a store. I have struggled to remember names of my Black work colleagues or wanted to call them the same name.

WP (me) fight this idea of being racist and supremacist SO hard – but I have to face that moment to moment racism and supremacy occurs because of the white supremacy soup I bathe in every day. And I’ve absolutely contributed to it.

I don’t fight it anymore. I own it instead, and I’ve fully embraced internal work, always pivoting to race and daily walking.

And when I read about Dr. Nunez-Smith’s treatment, I cringed and then immediately started leaning in and rooting out.

#3, The importance of hiring the right people is not lost on me, especially as it’s my daily tent making job.

And this “most qualified for the job” language is a deflection that has to be addressed in predominately whyte work environments.

WP (me) have to acknowledge that we are not the “most qualified” for these highly sought after positions. We need to get out of the way and find opportunities to listen and follow Black people.

We (I) need to realize that if Black and Brown people are absent in key leadership and project/initiative roles, it’s not because the “most qualified” were all white, it’s because of racism and supremacy.

There are tangibles and intangibles in hiring the “most qualified,” and I’ve realized over my career how much more focused I’ve been on certain criteria.

I need Black and Brown people in my life. I need to listen and follow their lead. I need to understand direct giving and what being part of a village in my online and offline life truly means. I need to be held accountable and called out on my racist and supremacist behavior. I need to immerse myself in lived experience that is different.

And that won’t happen if WP keep telling themselves when they look around and everyone is whyte (and then pat themselves on the back according), “We hired the most qualified team for this project.”

Welp, no you didn’t. The walking continues.

The Biden Administration has done the right thing in selecting her. It is up to all of us to make sure that she receives the funding and other resources needed to get the work done. In the past I have been guilty of helping work on something at the front end, but not following through. That is not relentless reliability. I need to be relentlessly reliable.

I agree that setting our sights on what is “achievable” is holding us back. We need to start with a vision of the world that we actually want, not a world we think is achievable. We can’t give up on an equitable world before we even begin. That’s giving up on Black people before we even begin. Focusing on what is achievable reminds me of the Democratic party giving up on red states and red areas vs the 50 state strategy.

I hold myself back in my service to the North Star when I limit my vision based on conservative estimates of what I can achieve. Lace has shown us that when we keep our vision big and bold and strive to be relentlessly reliable, we can achieve much more than we thought we could to begin with.

I agree that the idea of achievability shouldn’t be the line things are based on. The way it is written in the article, that ‘at least’ making sure BIPOC have insurance etc. It shouldn’t be at least, it feels almost like saying what is the least we can do. Looking at the bigger underlying inequalities shouldn’t be branded as unachievable because then nothing will ever been done to deal with them. It was really good that not just the medical side was mentioned, everything must be looked at and systematic racism dealt with at the root. Loved that Dr. Nunez-Smith talked about the importance of community. WP especially don’t act in community and actively act against doing things for the good of others – like wearing a mask. I must act in community with those around me and with BIPOC.

Cross-posted from FB:

It’s reassuring to see a young Black woman taking the helm of a group that has the potential to promote positive changes. It sounds like they made a great choice. My job is to listen to what she has to say, to make sure my family and friends hear it, too. Since so many people agree that our health care system is broken, *perhaps* we can come together around the recommendations by a committee such as this. I won’t hold my breath, though. I know how hard it can be to accept direction-or even suggestions-from people who don’t look like me.

One part that stood out to me was the village. I have been taught all my life to be self-reliant and self-sufficient and as a consequence, I developed a tendency to judge those who I didn’t feel were as self-reliant or self-sufficient as I thought they should be. All this hard work at being independent of others has had the effect of isolating me from my community as well. Public health can be one indicator of community. If there is a significant portion of the population with health problems, it will affect the rest of the population. Solving those problems benefits everyone. I need to be better connected to my community.

Hearing about appointments like hers give me hope that change is actually possible. I’m so very glad they appointed her. At the same time, I also sincerely hope that she is surrounded by people who are listening to her and following her lead. The problem they are tackling is a massive and complex one, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be solved.

Inequity and racism in healthcare is of particular interest to me, since I am a nurse and am a cog in that machine. There does seem to be, at minimum, more awareness about racism being an issue in healthcare. The CEO of our company was on the news recently talking about how she has signed on to this big initiative to tackle racism in healthcare. She talked a lot about making sure everyone has access to healthcare. I agree that this is a huge hurdle to overcome, but it’s also a more complex issue than that. After reflecting on a few articles on the subject we have had here, I sent her an email asking if there had been any discussion in these meetings about how to address racism and inequities of patients once they are already in the system: how to ensure they are being heard about their concerns and not retaliated against, making sure they feel they are being heard and their concerns addressed. I have not heard anything back yet. But our latest education did include some bias training, so…. some progress, I guess?

Like others, I am struck by the emphasis on community and building a village, supporting each other. This runs so counter to the ethos of white supremacy, which demands competition and striving for perfection, exhaustion worn like a badge of honor as we talk over the cubicle about how little sleep we’ve gotten lately. The emphasis on individualism runs so counter to the idea of community. As white people, we are so terrible at it. And then we grumble that people are terrible, as this detached spirit of eternal competition would leave a bad taste in anyone’s soul. So we are further demotivated to build community, because we can barely stand to be around “people” in the first place. Never mind that we are also people.

Building community is most definitely the cure, but it is something we will have to practice a lot before we get good at it. It’s not only foreign to many of us, but it also runs counter to how we may have been raised. I lived in many houses and apartments in my life, but I rarely knew my neighbors. I have yet to find a place that feels like community; feels like someplace I belong. But I feel this may be a flaw that resides in me, rather than all of the places I have been. I want to focus this year on figuring out how to build community, and walk with all of you, and see eye to eye.