[BLACK] LIVES MATTER

I remember during one of my clinical rotations in Florida, a white elderly lady with dementia came in to the ER; she lived in a nursing home and had taken a tumble. She was given IV morphine due to the excruciating nature of her injury, and this frail lady needed it as the older they are, the more sensitive they are to stimulus. My preceptor asked me to do the intake. Went to the room, introduced myself but as soon as she laid eyes on me, it was like her pain was no longer there, she was full of energy now: “Monkey, get out of my room”.

Dementia is an illness of the brain, affecting your current memory. So things you have learned in the past, experiences from several decades ago are intact and you can tap into them whenever needed and seeing me, darker skin she felt comfortable associating with, her racist past came right back. Front and Center. Now I can’t recall if my preceptor was white or black – this was my ER rotation and you worked with whichever provider was available but when I told him why I came back with no intake, he looked at me with a disbelief mixed with déjà vu and took me right back in the room with him.

“She’s not a monkey” – he said and asked me if I wanted to excuse myself or continue with the shadowing process. Now I don’t know if he would have really let me stay if I had chosen to but I excused myself. For two reasons: first, it was the first time I was ever called out a racist term. Now I’ve had “looks” thrown my way or people excusing themselves from my presence but verbally acknowledging their “skin color superiority”, never. A little more on that because I want to touch on colorism, which I think is far worse. Second, the patient – just like good customer service, is always right. Their care and recovery come first, not my feelings, especially the disdain that started to creep up.

I remember getting home and talking to my roommate about this experience and to hear she has had many racist encounters in good ol’ Texas was just heavy; like her circle of friends personally knew Sandra Bland crazy. So many times, we like to pretend or simply wish the events happening are scenes from a bad TV show or will never hit home; life is hitting us in the face now – do we have social media, which exposes and expedites these events, to thank for?!? We can’t ignore them now, even if we try to.

I have seen many posts asking the “non-black friends” to do something, anything to change the narrative. I hear you, I agree. They have the power to kill AND get away with it so the change HAS to start with them. But what have we, the Blacks, done consistently to strengthen our race? NOTHING GIVES ANYBODY THE RIGHT AND FREEDOM TO TAKE ANY LIFE – let me make this point clear right here. We have been fighting the same fight for centuries – one step forward, twenty steps back! But again, are we changing our mindset, to later strengthen our race because we are stronger together. This leads me right into the colorism topic.

I am Haitian, from the great 1st Black Independent Nation; like we revolted and kicked the white people’s butt and helped many of other nations do so, especially you, United States of America. If anything, this should count for something, eternally, like how do you repay someone for your freedom. Let me help you; you can’t. So in Haiti, which should have been the epitome of Black Excellence, we had schools for different shades of black. I am of a darker black complexion, I remember vividly when I went to test for 1st grade at College Saint-Rose de Lima, the “mulatto school” – I still do not know why my mother bothered, my sister was already at College Marie-Anne, why would you have to drive to drop your second daughter to a different school blocks away – I was the only dark skin girl in the room. I have always been strong academically, so we all knew I would get in, but I ended up at the same school as my sister. I have gone to Haitian parties where the light skinned girls moved away from my group of dark skin girls. A friend of mine from college is very light and in the 2010s, even her own Haitian kind is still surprised she was 100% Haitian – I can remember some people vividly asking her if she spoke Creole and even be shocked, like she was an unicorn. Like seriously?!?

As a race, we are divided. Whether it is trauma from the white colonizers centuries ago, or just simply not wanting to have kids with kinky hair, we as a race need to do better. How are you supposed to show the Whites how to love and respect us if the majority of us don’t. You have people bleaching their skin, wanting to look lighter, and you telling me this is not a form of racism within the culture. You are hating on your own kind. We do not love ourselves. It is sad to see.

Justice needs to be served. Since the earth was created, the best way to stop someone from committing a crime is to show them what happened to the previous person who thought they were almighty, untouchable in a negative way. You steal, you lose a hand. Now are the riots the right way? Should we go high when they go low? What else do we do? One thing for sure, in whatever we do, it will not be effective if we are do not think, strategize and aim as a group towards the common goal – EQUALITY.

So how can our dear “non-Black friends” help?

· Educate your kids on how beautiful diversity is.

· Instill more self-love in them, but not at the detriment of others.

· Inspire them to be a change agent, by seeing you actively do so.

· Vote for laws and regulations benefiting your community, humanity as a whole, do not just vote for a “person”.

· Believe in equality and justice so much that you are able to see their nemesis miles away.

· BE HUMAN.

Dear White folks, we the Blacks, would not be so outraged if justice was not also white. Justice needs to be color-blind; that is the only way it can be neutral and effective.

I am tired of praying my nephews get home unharmed

I am tired of praying for my husband

I am tired of praying my brother gets home safe to his family

I am tired of praying for my unborn kids

Praying for a reality to change, if not during my generation, at least for the next one

I am tired to secretly hoped my nephew had chosen to go to college in Canada and not the US

I am tired of patients thinking I can’t care for them because of my skin color

I am tired of us, Blacks, not knowing our strength and only see violence as our mode of expression