Spinning the wheel of colors…
Image Credit: Spin the Wheel App
by Thomas Antkow [Special to The Tennessee Conservative] –
Okay. I get it. Being categorized by skin color, muscle mass, sexual orientation, gender or even communication skills is discriminatory. Right?
I could be dead wrong. But, according to the philosophy of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King the “content of a person’s character” is supposed to trump color of skin.
Are we now experiencing a culture that folks with white or kind of pale skin need NOT apply? Is there a scale to measure skin color? Who controls that scale anyway? What about ability or qualifications? I know plenty of light skinned “black” people.
“Positive discrimination” on the other hand, a British term related to the cousin of the “United” States government program of “Affirmative Action” (at least the Brits are honest in their definitions) according to the dictionary, “an action (in the context of the allocation of resources or employment) a practice or policy of favoring individuals belonging to groups regarded as disadvantaged or subject to discrimination”.
What about ability to perform the job at hand? Best qualified comes to my mind.
Critics of Affirmative Action claim that since “Affirmative action currently includes assistance for gender representation, people with disabilities, and covered veterans higher program costs” the hiring of fewer qualified candidates, and a lack of historical progress in equal representation makes the program obsolete in today’s competitive and technocentric environments”.
Prioritizing those factors above testing and academic achievements may minimize a post education candidate’s employment prospect. In effect, college admissions based on prioritizing race, economic conditions, socioeconomic background, or skin color of applicants while minimizing academic achievements seems to produce less than qualified candidates for future employment.
When considering “made in the image of GOD” I think more of a CT scan, not a reflection in a mirror. I do think that when we choose a doctor of internal medicine I care more about the color of my internal organs and blood. Not of the sex or color of the doctor.
Let’s examine a recent article that appears in several publications and a report on CNN.
Updated 7:01 AM EST, Tue February 21, 2023
. Only 5.7% of US doctors are Black, and experts warn the shortage harms public health
According to the article a young, black, female third year medical student born in Nigeria and raised in Boston stated this.
“When being truly honest with herself, Seun Adebagbo says, she can describe what drove her to go to medical school in a single word: self-preservation”.
Further, she often saw tensions between certain aspects of Western medicine and beliefs within Nigerian culture. “She yearned to have the expertise to bridge those worlds and help translate medical information while combating misinformation – for her loved ones and for herself”.
Bravo!
Hopefully after graduation she will volunteer some time and her skills to assist people of her culture in Boston and in her home country of Nigeria.
For those of you not familiar with the Hippocratic Oath, and I was not, here is a copy. Please note that it applies to ALL human beings without defining race, creed, color, religion, or national origin.
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say, “I know not”, nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling, and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
According to Michael Dill (who appears white and not a doctor), the director of workforce studies at the AAMC better known as Association of American Medical Colleges where he oversees the association’s physician workforce research and data analysis portfolio, including the annual production of physician workforce projections. One reason he stated in the article was that the disparity in numbers between white and black physicians was mostly due to “systematic and institutional racism” as well as cultural and economic deprivation of young black youth as well as a lack of role models in the communities of color.
Along with our prospective future physician Ms. Adebago, there was another doctor of color Dr. David Howard, now a 43-year-old Ob/gyn in New Jersey, reflects with pride – and candor – on the day in 2009 when he completed his doctoral degrees, becoming both an MD and a PhD. At the time, “I felt like I didn’t fit,” Howard said. “I’m sure I’m not the only person who has thought those thoughts.”
Howard was one of very few men in the obstetrics and gynecology specialty, where most providers were women – and he is Black. He saw very few peers who looked like him and extremely few faculty in leadership positions who looked like him.
(I am sure that the number of White Ob/gyn doctors are scarce too). I may be wrong here. Just going on words from my wife.
Also, “When you’re going through a really difficult training program, it makes a big difference if there are people like you in the leadership positions,” he said, adding that this contributes to the disproportionate number of Black medical school students and residents who decide to leave the profession or are “not treated equally” when they may make a mistake.
In conclusion, I will suggest, let medical doctors stick to internal medicine and surgery. Allow neurologists to specialize in brain function. Confine psychiatrists to deal with emotions and relationships. Employ dermatologist to worry about the “skin”. Let’s sever politics from science.
If Justice and the Hippocratic Oath is supposed to be blind, then why can’t college admissions officers wear a blindfold too? Whatever you think of our justice system and university hiring systems they should be based on facts and evidence, not hope, what if, or a wheel of colors. Give me someone based on outstanding skills and excellence, not just pigment.
THOMAS ANTKOW is currently a freelance writer and produced and hosted his own daily radio show on KCSF AM 1300 and co-hosted talk shows for KVOR AM 740 for Cumulus Broadcasting in Colorado Springs. He can be reached at taradio863@gmail.com. You can subscribe to Tom’s FREE newsletter at: Antkow.substack.com
One Response
Sadly, what I read hurts me. I’m not going to say your racist, but as a black person myself, I would like to respond to this comment.
One of the problems is that you are saying *Democrats* are the biggest racists. You are categorizing a group of people. When talking about Trayvon Martin, (the part of the child is confusing), you say that the cop was doing his job? Martin literally just came out of a store and because he looked ‘suspicious’ he got shot. That’s not doing the job. It’s killing somebody for no reason but ‘self defense’. (assuming your talking about Obama being happy about the ‘anti white movement’), you think of him as a fraud. But if YOU didn’t trust him, you didn’t have to say it aloud. What even was the ‘grift’.
I will say, that it disappoints me because, no offense and all, people of POC have been through a lot of stuff. It’s not Obama’s fault, it’s like you’re blaming him for literally being black. You’re using the card, “I have a black friend,”, but in the view of wanting to have Alan West. It still doesn’t justify
Don’t blame a whole group of people. I am an Independent, but we need to think of everyone. The Republicans are changing the view everyday. Democrats may be split.
It’s not the work of one, but all. So don’t blame a few things on a group of people, or one person.