The Allyship of Realist Thinking

*Disclaimer: I’m not a medical professional

The conversation goes:
Student: “Are you saying there are genetic differences between the races?”
Teacher: “Yes, medically speaking.”
Student: “I find that statement problematic, and I disagree with you. But you’re a doctor and I don’t want to take up too much of our time with this conversation.”

There are so many different contexts of this one conversation that depending on the identity of the student and teacher, either perspective could be innocent and valid, and either perspective could be malicious and discriminatory.

Be that as it may, this conversation highlights the importance of nuanced thinking and realism when it comes to the decisions and teaching conversations of the medical and social services that millions depend on for survival.

If we take race out of it, consider for a moment how long it was believed that men and women (sex assigned at birth) experienced heart attacks in the same way. And then it was discovered that, that was not the case; that the symptoms that birth assigned (B.A.) women experienced during a heart attack were very different than what B.A. men experienced.

This distinction is critically important in determining whether or not someone needs medical attention.

Consider also the opposite, when similarities of the human experience are ignored:

• When we believe that African American, black, POCs experience a higher pain tolerance than other races as the reason for not receiving adequate supportive care.
• When the pain of B.A. women are not acknowledged by medical professionals when an IUD is incorrectly placed and induces labor like pains as the body attempts to reject the foreign object

And the list goes on.

Has medicine; society (U.S. specifically, but an injustice done globally) at large informed by heteronormative, cis, , rich, white male, etc. privilege; and broken social reformation collectives done us all dirty? Yes,

and

they serve as a very critical reminder of the importance of realism, collective discourse, and receiving buy in from the populations you seek to support when finding solutions.

Is it delightful to have space for open discourse that unearths, dissects, and rejects medical statements and thought rooted in eugenics? Abso-fucking-lutely

and

it’s important not to veer to hard in the direction of “we are all one and the same” mentality which can be just as deadly in it’s naivety.

It’s important to understand that life has nuance, that many things, for better or worse, are “yes, and”. Often there are not clear absolutes and what works for one individual might not be the same for the group they belong to because we are all just as different as we are alike.

There are two sides to the coin of prejudice and both are blinding when we are so stuck in our beliefs that we don’t hold space for nuance, exceptions to the rule, and the reality of imperfect, incomplete solutions to problems that are more gray area than black and white.

I leave you with this parting statement: As a femme of color, please do not address my health needs in the same way you would another white male in the name of social justice if doing so would put my life at risk.