The Empire is falling.
That’s what we’re feeling.
We are experiencing the collapse of the U.S. Imperialist Complex in real time.
And it won’t go down quietly.
Let’s be honest.
Many Black person will refuse to take this COVID vaccine bc most of us don’t trust that white people or the government mean us any good.
And when that happens, know that the hesitance is not some baseless paranoia. It is completely rational.
Let me explain.
I woke up yesterday morning, looked out my window and saw the neighbors had hung this flag on their children’s playground.
Pull up a seat, and join me, friends, for The Chronicles of Being Black in a Rich, White suburb
A thread 💀
Still think it’s just paranoia?
That’s fine. And may even be true.
But you can’t tell that to my body.
As soon as I saw it, I had a visceral reaction. A a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. A fast heartbeat. A cold sweat of fear and a deep sense of dread.
That’s because, in that moment, a cascade of stress hormones automatically rushed through my body.
Well guess what. The body is not designed to be exposed to these “flight or fights hormones over a long term.
Chronic exposure to psychological stress—like the kind that comes
In other words, the psychological is physical.
Racism is not just killing Black people’s life opportunities and limiting our societal advancement.
It is doing more than just concentrating us into areas of extreme resource deprivation and asking us to fight each other for
They have kids that are about my kid’s age. I have been meaning to set up a play date with them.
Something had me dragging my feet on it.
Mother’s intuition.
(1/12) Getting emotionally close to liberal White women is exhausting. I need a break.
They draw you in with calls of shared womanhood and you relax your guard with them.
But then, the inevitable bait and switch. That’s the problem.
A thread.
3/ But when my Black patients balk at the idea, I won’t judge them. Because I intimately I understand their fear.
Listen. Even I’m a physician myself, and even I don’t trust ya’ll.
Being a doctor has made me LESS trusting of the Medical Institution as a whole, not more.
4/ I KNOW Medicine is deeply racist.
It is another American institution, like so many others, that mistreats & ultimately kills Black people. Over and over. With impunity.
This is not a theory...I live it.
As both patient & provider.
Listen to me.
This is important.
2/ Black people’s mistrust in Medicine and Public Health is well-deserved and completely rational based on what you all have done to us, and continue to do to us.
Let me say clearly: I will 100% get the vaccine. I believe in it. I trust it.
Get this.
Last night I, along with a coalition of Black physicians, met with the President and Senior Leadership of the AMA.
Here’s what went down:
A thread.
8/ First, we need to admit that white people and the government have little to no credibility in the average Black person’s eyes.
That’s not a debate. That’s a forgone conclusion.
What’s more, there is not enough time to correct that perception before this vaccine comes live.
13/ And not just wealthy Black people, Black academics and other Black “elites”
Give the mic and give MONEY to Black people on the ground.
Give it to grassroots organizers. Give it to Black church leaders. Give it to the people who live, work and love in Black communities.
10/ First slavery, then Black Codes, then Jim Crow, now mass incarceration, police brutality, and systematic oppression through a myriad of current racist laws and policies.
The harsh fact of the matter is...white people simply don’t deserve Black people’s trust.
At all.
5/ A lot more Black people with die if we don’t get this vaccine campaign right.
The odds are not in our favor based on everything that has led to this moment.
We need laser focus and surgical precision to pull this off.
But I believe we can.
Meanwhile, I went to an Ivy-League school with kids who had entire buildings named after someone in their family.
Yeeeah…Guess who doesn’t have access to generational wealth like that…
Slave-descended Black people like me.
We are 400 years behind you.
You are 400 years
Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions, and Biden ‘strongly’ disagrees
The Supreme Court's decision to strike down affirmative action in college admissions marks a significant shift in policy. By ruling that race cannot be a factor, institutions of
9/ There’s not enough time because white people and the white supremacist institutions that run our country have been abusing and terrorizing Black people for over 400 years. And continue to do so actively.
Again, this point is not a debate.
Can we finally admit out loud that it was a HUGE mistake to lift the indoor mask requirement (even briefly) this summer?
That horrible political stunt is literally still hurting us 👀
I mean come on
6/ If we are serious about addressing the racial Heath disparities around COVID-19, we need a legitimate, well-planned and executed approach to getting Black and brown folx to buy in.
The normal approach WILL fail. Completely.
So how do we do it?
12/ If health systems, the government and providers *really* want Black people to take this vaccine, you all better start passing the mic and passing the power to act to Black and brown people.
And fast.
One third of all Americans who have died from
#COVID19
are Black.
We are 12% of the population.
Understand that the struggle for racial health equity is a Civil Rights struggle.
11/ You all have not earned it. And you certainly won’t earn it in time for this latest vaccination effort.
Let that hope go.
In Medicine, we triage during emergencies.
The trust can’t be repaired in time. We can and should fix that on the back end...once we survive this.
Can we officially do away with the phrase “implicit bias” in 2020? Please? Pretty please?
Can we FINALLY just call it what it is? It’s racism. Can’t we finally just say racism when we actually mean racism?
It’s sad that having this stance in academia makes me “radical” 🙄
7/ As a Black woman and front line physician currently caring for patients with and without COVID on Chicago’s South Side - here is what will ACTUALLY work in my view:
Everyone birthing person who has a vaginal delivery should automatically be referred to pelvic floor Physical Therapy.
I will die on this hill.
#WomensHealth
16/ Then use your power, position and privilege to empower the right people to get this done.
Why?
Because you are still good person despite the horrible, racist lies we were all taught about each other.
And because it is the right thing to do now.
15/ White ppl - This is bigger ego. Or at least it should be.
If you are not the right person to get this done...it is okay. I promise.
Just PLEASE be honest with yourself about it.
Guess what! My husband just graduated from Residency and is officially an Attending too 🙌🏾
For context, for our entire 8 year relationship, one or both of us have been in some stage of Medical training..and Medical training is BRUTAL.
This is a huge win for our family 💕♥️☀️✨
In honor of
#LovingDay
, if you are an
#interracialcouple
show me a pic of you and your partner and tell me what you were doing when the photo was taken ♥️💕🏳️🌈✨
I’ll start!
My husband and I heading to a
#videogame
convention together 🤓
I’M FULLY VACCINATED!! 🙌🏿❤️💕
I’m thrilled to say my second COVID-19 vaccine dose is in now the books!
Feeling truly blessed to have access to this life saving vaccine 🥰🙏🏽♥️🌈
I hope you will join me when it comes available to you :)
#vaccinessavelivess
#BlackDocs4COVIDVax
@DominiqueJL15
I’ve got so many diagnoses in Black women that were missed for YEARS by white doctors because they didn’t believe my patients.
As a Black woman doctor who gets tired of cleaning up the racist misses of my colleagues, this means more to me than you know.
Thank you for sharing ♥️
Black Lives Matter more than white comfort.
Black Lives Matter more than white comfort.
Black Lives Matter more than white comfort.
Black Lives Matter more than white comfort.
Black Lives Matter more than white comfort.
Black Lives Matter more than white comfort.
#BLM
#DNRTulane
(2/12) Progressive White woman racism is the worst of all in my opinion. Theirs is the sneering, arrogant certitude that “I’m not the problem”.
Theirs is the “you can be liberated but only after I get mine” type of racism.
Dr. Brittani James is encouraging the Black community she serves to take the vaccine
"I'm able to use my own body, essentially, to say, 'I'm taking the vaccine, I believe it's safe. I personally reviewed the evidence and I know that it's safe'"
(6/12) See, all their energy goes into making sure YOU see that they are not the problem when it comes to racism, instead of doing the actual work of dismantling their own internalized racism.
12/ But here’s the thing:
As Black physicians, we know this truth: Black and brown bodies cannot be healed if their minds and bodies are being crushed by racism.
We can only be healed through justice.
It is the only way.
Being married to a white man has been one of the most illuminating experiences of my life when it comes to understanding race relations.
White people talk about us differently when we aren’t there.
My white husband is my personal double agent and I love it🕵🏻♂️
4/ When Martin Luther King Jr, famously said: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in Heath is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.”
...he was responding to the “conspiracy of inaction” at the AMA.
Let that sink in.
Minding my own business shopping and a middle-aged white woman asked me if I work there.
When I looked at her blankly and answered back in a deadpan voice “no”, she giggled it off and said “I was just wondering where to put this shirt back”.
But I’m a bad person if I go off.
10/ We call on them to stop being ableist.
We call on them to stop being misogynist.
We call upon them to first protect the most vulnerable among us.
We call upon them to honor their most solemn oath:
First, do no harm.
(7/12) Nope. Liberal White women want you to do that emotional labor for them. For free. They want Black women to teach them, coddle them, hold their hand and wipe their tears as they learn about racism.
(12/12) And all the while you are standing on our backs, silencing us and traumatizing us in your single-minded pursuit of your own horrific brand exclusionary liberation.
I’m tired.
(11/12) Liberal White women, you are silently and unapologetically killing us by a thousand invisible cuts. You are making us tend to you while we are bleeding out on the floor from your endless assault.
(8/12) White women perform “guilt” and center themselves, unapologetically, while they simulataneously traumatize, gaslight, demean and dehumanize us, invisibly, at every turn.
(4/12) White women are on 100% on board for the liberation of women unless those women are Black or transwomen.
God help you if you are both of those things.
It’s been almost 2 months since I’ve left Academia and I can honestly say…
It was the right choice.
I’m still processing the trauma of it. And will for some time.
But for now I will confirm for the POC women still in it, there is another way.
A healthy way.
(9/12) Their energy is poured into performing their allyship for the Black gaze for likes, handshakes and admiration. It bolsters their egos and fragile sense of self worth - which both stem from their own internalized oppression as women.
It is about them. It is not about us.
“I’m afraid that white medical students wouldn’t follow or rank favorably a program with a black program director; [however] we’ll be comfortable with you sharing a position as co-director with the previous [white male] program director.”
#DNRTulane
#BLM
8/ We call upon the AMA and the broader medical community to fight for the physical and mental health of Black and brown people as vehemently as they fight for that of white people.
9/ We call upon them to fight for the physical and mental health of transgender people as vehemently as they fight for that of cis people.
We call upon them to fight for the physical and mental health of the poor & working class as vehemently as they fight for that of the rich.
My white male MD husband encouraging me to stand tall and proud in my Blackness by going natural is why I love him. He sees the beauty of my Blackness and empowers me to stand in it, unapologetically.
(5/12) Liberal White women almost always cut you to the bone with their unadulterated racism if you get too close.
They are traumatizing.
They are exhausting.
6/ the AMA continues to ACTIVELY block the progress of racial justice in medical scholarship and practice — just as it continues to exclude people of color from its internal ranks.
Enough is enough.
Unpopular opinion: With rich white folks using their (unearned) priviledge to get into clinics serving low income Black and brown areas just to get this vaccine...we need to start distributing based on home ZIP CODE 💅🏾🤷🏾♀️
The reason we Black women are so often wise beyond our years is because we figured out early that absolutely no one is coming to save us.
We are our own Cavalry.
Understanding this reality early is necessary for our survival.
14/ We agreed to meet in a month’s time to check in on the AMA’s progress. We are beyond believing words.
We need action.
The lives of Black and brown people depend on it.
3/ We reminded them, as
@rcg1812
put it,
@AmerMedicalAssn
has a legacy of “brutal racism”.
We told them, in so many words, that that “legacy” continues unchecked today.
And it’s killing Black and Brown folks in droves.
3/ The theme of the conversation was straight talk, no chaser.
We told them, to start, that it wasn’t acceptable to distance themself from what happened at
@JAMA_current
.
JAMA is their house. If JAMA missteps, they are accountable.
The need for accountability was a big theme.
My aunt and uncle regularly shop at the Grocery store in Buffalo the White Supremacist drove to to kill Black people.
My aunt and uncle happened to be visiting me this weekend, so by chance, they were out of town.
I am not ok.
2/ They held their cards close. They started on the defense.
I expected that.
Most white folks clam up when Black folks enter the room meaning business.
They tend to assume the worst of us.
An MD doesn’t stop that.
15/ We believe and hope that the AMA will rise to the occasion.
Leaving the initial meeting, I am hopeful.
But I, and my colleagues, also know the game of these Institutions well. We have lived the shared trauma of their empty promises so many times.
And so...we are watching.