We Will Not Be Silenced!

Writer: Alexandria Morgan

Decades later, in the year 2020, the black community has reached a milestone of equality. Job opportunities present themselves more frequently and the healthcare system has progressed exponentially, right? Wrong. Sadly, today black men and women barely receive access towards any of these resources. In their case, such resources are considered privileges. Despite progression, the black class still continues to fight for the same opportunities and rights that our grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and ancestors fought for in the 50s and 60s and years prior to.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the fight for equality and access to needed resources has become more important than ever. The black community has begun vocalizing their concerns while imploring that the ignorance of a stagnant nation eventually changes its ways. Despite financial and educational success, many black men and women still find themselves with odds stacked against them in the healthcare field, whereas, black women are the most ignored. Now, we as the black community are committed to exposing and fighting against a racist healthcare system. Now is not the time to be silent!

Here’s a fact: black women have higher infant mortality rates opposed from their white and non-black POC counterparts. Based on this statistic, 11.4% of black women are more likely to die than the 4.9% of white women. That’s almost 3x the rate! So, what is it about black women that makes it inevitable to receive proper and quality healthcare assistance in hospitals? When observing these factors, a huge part that contributes to the high mortality rate is the socioeconomic status, education status and its required resources. The black community has witnessed this example with Serena Williams — despite being wealthy — she still lacked proper medical care when delivering her firstborn, Alexis. This shows that the socioeconomic gap within different communities is still not equal despite numerous other claims. 

Kennetha Gaines, a clinical health major for the UCSF Health System in San Francisco, recounts her own experiences having her two children in hospitals. “Both of my children were born by C-sections, and for my second child it was something that was understandable based on my first experience. With my first experience, you kind of feel like in the back of your head, if I had been white, would my experience have been different? I had labored for quite some time and I got to six centimeters, and my doctor, she was white, had come in and said that, you’re not projecting, so we’re going to have to give you a C-section, I do think of sometimes, if I had been white, would they have given me more time. I’m educated and I’m looking at my socioeconomic status, that didn’t seem to come into play when I was in my birthing room,” Gaines said. “But for my second experience, when I had my son, it was really important for me to really take control and have a voice in terms of how I wanted to drive my health care. And I think a lot of times, especially for minority communities, they sometimes don’t have that opportunity to understand their health care. And for them to be able to make their decisions, sometimes they have other people making their decisions for them. And so for my second experience, I was really looking at okay, I would like to try a VBAC, which is a vaginal birth after a cesarean section. I changed my physician.”

“She was Latina, she was amazing, she listened to me, she agreed with me in terms of yes, if you want to have a VBAC I’ll support you in that. At the end of the day I ended up having another C-section, but it was very different because I felt like my physician actually listened to me. I wanted to take my own experiences and say, hey these communities may not have advocates, but what can we do as a hospital to make sure that they get the best quality care that they can,” Gaines added. 

Gaines’s experience in the delivery room is not the only one that exemplifies the disregard that many white doctors show towards its black patients. The majority of black women have complained about their requested needs not being met or taken seriously on the account of their race. Christina Presmy, a current writer for The Voiced Society, shares a personal experience dealing with hospital officials. She was waiting to receive word about her anxiety diagnosis when a male doctor acted dismissive towards her case and told her that “everyone has anxiety and that just because she was bored doesn’t mean that I have a mental illness.” Morgan, a rising junior at Howard University, has not had a negative experience in the healthcare system but has stated that she has a black doctor. The needs of the black community are only taken seriously by the black community or by non-black POC doctors. Gaines even mentions the questions that doctors asked their minority patients about breastfeeding and newborn care were relatively different than their white counterparts. Simply put, racial biases are affecting the health of the black community. 

While we’re on the subject of racial biases, black people are getting sicker and dying even younger! Why may you ask? Blacks receive lower quality care and are given less than stellar care. With the ongoing stressors of racism and prejudice in the black community, care for diseases and illnesses should be of better quality. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In fact, whites are more likely to receive pain tests and more radiation for cancer treatments than their black counterparts due to the stigma that black patients are more tolerant to pain. Black patients are more likely to be discharged from the hospital earlier, as well. I, myself, find it discomforting that black patients are not receiving proper cancer treatment, as I am a survivor of Lymphoma and a relapse is potential. Regrettably, whether conscious or unconscious, these biases do us more harm than good. 

With ignorance and prejudice more rampant than ever during this Trump era, it’s imperative that the black community become a beckoning voice that vocalizes our trauma and pain. We must continue to fight, tell our stories and assert our confidence! Dear white people, we will not be silenced!