Colorblind racism expands scientific racism, medical racism, health racism
This 2018 piece written for The Conversation received unsurprising opposition to me from many people.
Some of the unsurprising opposition to me was expressed in the comments section in 2018.
Some of the unsurprisingly opposed people are racially white but not all of the unsurprisingly opposed people are racially white.
The racial identity and racial presentation of people who defend and protect white people is five centuries of necessity to perpetuate white power and white dominance.
Sociologists who use the term “colorblind racism” explain white people’s post-racial attempt to pretend racial categorization does not exist or can be ignored.
Therefore, any problems that are correlated with racial identities and experiences, caused by racial identities and experiences, and have outcomes varying by racial identities and experiences can be ignored.
Or, “race” can be inaccurately or half-accurately replaced with anything else such as class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, nation and any demographic and cultural identity that white people consider less challenging to white people since white people feel included and vocal in every identity except for race.
This is not surprising after five centuries.
What is surprising is the increase of this colorblind racism to be appreciated and perpetuated by many people who are Black, Indigenous, Aboriginal, Asian, non-white Hispanic, and non-white Latinx/e/a/o.
This pertains to, and harms, every part of people’s lives around the world.
Our development, our resources, our opportunities, our health, and our lives are expected to — and often required to — fit into whatever is supposedly created by white people and allowed by white people and white-accommodating people.
This perpetuates no matter how much a few of us explain, teach, research, and focus on community development.
Most people — including most medical and health professionals — only want concepts, theories, smiles, and hugs while people remain sick and dying at the hands of white-based medical and health policies and procedures that do not conduct assessments to make changes.
Sickness data, death data, and program assessments are used for research publications, increased funding, and career assessments.
This is centuries perpetuated through meaningless bias trainings, definitions trainings, and overuse and misuse of the acronym “DEI” and catchword “antiracism.”
This became rampant since 2016, expanded in 2020, and continues as COVID-19 illness and death are highlighted often without the context of centuries of racial variance in medical and health outcomes that connect with variations by ethnicity, nation, language, socioeconomic, gender, sexuality, and religion.
Addressing this in teaching, training, policies, and behaviors is difficult because most people are focused on not offending power majority/decision makers rather than prioritizing community-patient outreach-advocacy.
Now back to my 2018 The Conversation piece and some of the people who expressed annoyance and outrage at my piece four years ago.
Again, what they expressed is annoyance and outrage. Disagreement and debate would be different tone and words in an intellectual and health-based environment. Their annoyance and outrage is not based in facts. They proved they do not read decades of writings and research. They proved they did not even do an Internet search to find publicly accessible health writings. Instead, they pretended my The Conversation piece should convince them.
I provided information in the original piece and additional information in the comments section.
Most annoyed and outraged people will not read anything, will not learn anything, and will not self-reflect on their colorblind racism annoyance and outrage.
People wanting to waste my time to convince them is centuries of apathy about life and death and pretending disparities should be silenced or pretended to be race neutral (false colorblindness, colorblind racism).
By the way, The Conversation writers receive emails when there are comments.
The most recent comment was “Sarah VanBlarcom” in 2021 sharing a traumatic experience and explained the white focus of suicide prevention information.
Two new comments were posted on Saturday, April 16, 2022 at 2:25am and 2:29am.
Saturday, April 16, 2022 at 2:25am “Pam Connolly” commented:
Ok so 1st of all mama….it’s very obvious you are 100 percent anti WHITE. I mean seriously…..you don’t need to be a genius to figure that out. And your complaining that white people have better and easier access to doctors???…. Hahaha!! Sorry sweet heart….but you are wrong. You know what your problem is?? Your a racist!! You do notttt like white people…. Lol….. damn girl!… Could you be any more obvious?? Ok first of all ….my mother’s Indian and Chinese. My father’s white!.. IRISH AND SCOTTISH TO BE EXACT! My husband is Puerto Rican……which makes our son half PUERTO RICAN….. ALL OF OUR SKIN COLOR IS BROWN….MY FATHER IS WHITE. AND ITS SO MUCH MORE EASIER FOR US BROWN PEOPLE TO GET MEDICAL CARE. OHHHHH YAH…..AND ANOTHER THING SWEET HEART…YOU COLUMN SAID BLACK PEOPLE MAKE UP ONLY 12 TO 18 PERCENT OF USA POPULATION….RIGHT?? HMMM…VERY INTERESTING. THEN PLEASE TELL ME WHY BLACKS COMMIT MORE THEN 50 PERCENT OF THE CRIME IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?? PLEASE EXPLAIN?? YOU WANNA CLAIM THAT SUICIDE AINT JUST A WHITE PEOPLE THING ……RIGHT????? ..LOL…..
Saturday, April 16, 2022 2:29am “Pam Connolly” commented in response to Sarah VanBlarcom:
I’m sorry for your loss. How long were you guys together?
The ridiculousness and falsehood of “Pam Connolly’s” first comment at 2:25am (a form of colorblind racism) aside, after “Pam Connolly” realized some commenters appreciated my The Conversation piece, “Pam Connolly” deleted the 2:25am jargon. Since The Conversation sends us comment emails, the comment remains in my inbox and remains relevant.
I would also not be shocked if “Pam Connolly” is not really biracial Black-white. This might be an anonymous white person doing blackface.
Even if “Pam Connolly” is really biracial, the deleted jargon ignores everything in my piece to defend white people.
This is five centuries of our lives and our needs not mattering to most white people and white-accommodating people.
I began suicide work in 2004 and am intentionally impossible to censor and silence.
I prioritize minoritized people and particularly minoritized people not wanting to be tokenized by/for oppressors.
I am a Black person who lost a Black family member to suicide in 2022 and a Black friend to suicide in 2021.
I am a Black person who understands feelings of helplessness, negative emotions, and suicidal thoughts connected to desperation, apathy, health conditions, and life circumstances.
I am a Black person with years of public writings about mental health, physical health, substance use, and suicide.
I am a Black person with years of being on Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, national, and international mental health board of directors, suicide prevention organization board of directors, suicide prevention committees, suicide prevention conferences, suicide prevention trainings, and created and taught college courses regarding mental illness, suicide prevention, and community-patient advocacy.
I am a Black person who does presentations in Black communities to explain Afrikan holistic health based in thousands of years of Afrikan sciences, medicines, health approaches, mathematics, arts, music, and literatures that explain the span of “holistic” to include various approaches to improving mental health, physical health, perspectives on life, and perspectives on death.
When I present in Black communities and with Black medical and health professionals, I provide a discussion (and sometimes a disagreement and debate) of Igbo Landing and the profundity of Ebony Magazine addressing Black suicide seven times since 1970:
2018, Researchers Unsure What’s Fueling Black Child Suicides
2016, As suicide rates for black children rise, protecting emotional health is vital
2013, Black suicide: When prayer is not enough
2012, For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Not Enough
1976, How to prevent suicides
1973, Suicide: A growing menace to black women
1970, Black suicide: Statistics reveal an alarming increase in such deaths among males 20 to 35 years of age
Despite all of this, white people and white-protecting people are allowed to express annoyance and outrage towards me everywhere in-person and on the Internet.
They are uncensored, unpunished, and unstopped.
How will Black health be protected and improved?
How will Black lives be protected and improved?
I speak with Black people constantly about protecting ourselves and not relying on anti-black places.
Still, Black people cannot escape anti-black spaces including when we need well-funded and well-resourced (despite often not well-educated and not well-trained) medical and health services.
Black people are generations of demanding, discussing, and researching Black mental health, Black suicide, Black disability, Black physical health, Black maternal health, and preventing abuse from medical and health professionals and police officers lacking racially inclusive crisis de-escalation.
Black people sacrifice a lot for rights and justice.
Non-black people put themselves on Black people’s backs to benefit from Black sacrifices.
This is why Black people’s demands for education changes, medical and health changes, employment changes, and police-court-penal changes are falsely depicted as Black people being non-black people’s laboratory experiments and spokespersons.
The same is the case that my The Conversation piece was labelled inaccurate and anti-white (there is no such thing as reverse racism/racism against white people — unless you only know European-white dictionaries).
This is centuries of white attacks and white-accommodating attacks on Black activists, Black artists, Black writers, and Black educators.
Aside from the occasional discussions and procrastinations, I remind Black people to not waste time explaining everything and responding to (mostly rhetorical) questions.
These are designed for centuries to have Black people begging white people and white-accommodating people rather than Black people saying what we say and doing what we do to make changes.
We look forward to seeing you at this Black-Only community health event on Saturday, May 7. To purchase a ticket: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/to-thine-own-cellf-be-trill-black-families-black-communities-tickets-274576063397?aff=erelexpmlt
