I don’t post many opinion pieces, but this one is worthy. This is from a doctor who was been licensed for almost 50 years in the state of California who is black.
I’m a Black physician, and I’m appalled by mandated implicit bias training – Washington Post Opinion, 2023/02/22
When I graduated with a medical degree in 1973, a Black woman in a class of mostly White men, there was a real sense that the days of obsessing over skin color and making race-based assumptions about our fellow human beings was finally fading — and, hopefully, soon gone for good.
Apparently not. That racial obsession has come rushing back — in academia, politics, business and even in my beloved medical profession. But now it’s coming from the opposite direction. The malignant false assumption that Black people are inherently inferior intellectually has been traded in for the malignant false assumption that White people are inherently racist.
The underlined is really good.
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That is the basic message conveyed by “implicit bias training,” which is now mandatory for California physicians; it is a message that I believe is harmful both to physicians and patients. There is a sad irony in all this, because the misguided focus on racism is intended to improve the health and well-being of Black patients in particular.
There’s no irony here. There’s no misguided-ness here.
The intent is continued divisiveness. People need to understand this. This type of racism is not designed to bring about unity. People should stop assuming they mean well with these types of racial regulations and trainings.
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In California, where I’ve been licensed since 1974, every physician is required by law to participate in this racially regressive practice. Doctors must take implicit bias training not just once but as part of the curriculum of “continuing medical education,” for at least 50 hours every two years, required for their medical license renewal.
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Many of my friends and colleagues ask why I’m so upset by the law. Clearly, implicit bias training isn’t meant for me. It’s aimed at White people, who are far and away the biggest share of the medical profession. My answer is simple. I reject the unscientific accusation that people are defined by their race, not by their individual beliefs and choices.
There’s a reason for aiming this at white people that I won’t address here. She is right. We are all individuals with our own beliefs and choices.
Think about the message this mandate sends to Black physicians. It suggests that I should be wary of my White colleagues because, after all, they’re biased against people like me.
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Since I became a physician, I have seen exactly one instance of racism in health care — and it was from a patient, not a fellow physician. As for my colleagues, I have been consistently impressed with the conscientious, individualized care they have provided to patients of every race and culture. When we all took our oath to “first, do no harm,” we meant it, and we live it.
Her experience says there’s very little racism. The authoritarians want people to believe them, over people’s own senses in what we experience through our own eyes and ears.
She has to be trained to be racist. They are training doctors (in this case) to judge people solely on race. Kids get this training (through Critical Race Theory in schools) and they are not equipped to effectively dismiss this – so they do what kids do, fight back to try and stop what they have been trained to perceive as evil.
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The whole point of implicit bias training is to create better health outcomes for Black patients and others who might be the target of discrimination, but the opposite seems more likely. It fosters a climate of distrust and resentment that threatens to undermine the medical and moral progress I’ve seen over the decades. When I graduated from medical school, we were moving past the era of racial obsession and anger. Why are we going back to the days when race defined so many lives and dimmed so many futures?
Again – the goal is not better health. The goal is more divisiveness, distrust, and resentment as she points out.
She asks why – and here’s the short answer. There are many people, mainly among the elites, who have sold themselves out to foreign interests to take down America. And to take down America, they have to take down white people. If I am on task, I will try and explain this over the weekend.
Thank you Dr. Singleton for having the courage to speak the truth on this.
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