Our Authentic Selves
Adam Howard is a third-year student at the Mayo Clinic Alix school of medicine. COVID-19 has given him the opportunity to lovingly plant a garden for his wife, as well as put pen to paper and formulate this critically important perspective on race, identity, and social justice in the 21st century. In our correspondence, he told us: “We as a society value many things more highly than we value health and life … I will strive to serve my future patients in the context of such systemic limitations.” We have no doubt that he will be successful.
Our Authentic Selves
By Adam Howard
Current events have brought race into the public eye. As individuals aspiring towards servant leadership, especially here in the United States, we must have a more-than-cursory understanding of this topic insofar as it impacts the individuals we aim to care for and lead.
Finishing undergraduate school, my grasp of how race impacted citizens was quite limited. From a class called “Social Epidemiology,” I knew that patients were more likely to trust physicians of similar racial backgrounds, thus leading to better health outcomes.
As a person of color myself, I was also familiar with the impact of race on self-concept. I remember having once had a discussion with an advisor about whether or not I’m “black enough” to be African American on paper, despite the fact that Egypt is located squarely in Africa. I’ve never been prone to being offended, my view having been that responding to irreverence with grace was as much as one needs to do to move the needle away from bigotry and towards love.
As my experience with that advisor demonstrated, however, social ignorance about race can play a significant role in a person’s development, even when that person is not consciously distressed by race-related experiences or ideas. Indeed, it can’t possibly be okay that one would ask permission to identify with their birth race. That would not happen in a society where the nature of racial formation was properly understood. If even my development had been impacted by this experience, how might others be grappling with such things? How might explicit racism affect a person’s development? How might insidious, implicit ignorance shape the self regard of entire generations of young people?
Around that time, I watched a TED Talk on YouTube given by a dark-skinned man who had befriended an ‘executive’ of the Klu Klux Klan. He spoke about how that friendship had led to the Klan member’s ultimate withdrawal from the organization, conflicted as he became over long-held ideas which their relationship had challenged. Pondering that talk, I became convinced that a key element of change must be espousing the best of who we are. By demonstrating excellence in whatever skin we wear, we challenge ignorance by our very existence.
Despite that point of clarity, reports of white police officers shooting black individuals kept filtering into my consciousness one way or another. In many of those instances, the recipients of that violence had been comporting themselves respectfully and honorably, however this did not suffice to protect them from the injustices they faced. The question of why such horrors keep repeating began to weigh heavily on my mind.
The book The Deepest Well by Nadine Burke Harris, M.D helped to contextualize the source of that weight. In her book, she speaks of ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ (ACEs) and their role in human development. She points out that the environment in which one is raised tremendously impacts all dimensions of biopsychosocial development. Awareness of that has helped me to conceptualize and articulate the profound effects of police brutality and racism upon individuals of color.
Toxic stress is inarguably an independent risk factor for the development of psychiatric disease. It is also inarguably an independent risk factor for the development of disorders which, on the surface, seem less clearly related such as autoimmune disorders (hypothyroidism/hyperthyroidism, multiple sclerosis, etc.) and cancers (immunologic/hormonal changes play at least a part in this increased risk, see the aforementioned book). Since poor mental or physical health can inhibit social mobility (i.e. the pursuit of financial security or other basic needs), and since socioeconomic vulnerability is associated with risk of being targeted by brutality, adverse childhood experiences may be a significant driver of the cruelties perpetuated in our time.
In light of that, how can anyone honestly think that being raised in a community wherein being shot is not an uncommon problem isn’t profoundly disruptive? Think even of various cultural groups’ relationship with the police. As a child, I was led to believe that no matter how bad things got, a call to 911 would reestablish safety. Though we rarely think of it, what a comfort that is! How must it be to have that idea challenged by the deaths of parents, loved ones, friends, or even unrelated persons who look like you on television at the hands of people in authority? What must that do to a child’s concept of ‘security’?
Clearly, a competent healthcare provider, teacher, or leader must understand the role that race plays (consciously or otherwise) in the lives of those they serve. To separate the biopsychosocial health of an individual from what seems ‘relevant’ is nothing short of folly. We constantly are all that we are, not one part of who we are at a time. To engage with human beings, we must engage with their entirety, lest we inadvertently enact less-than-humane treatment.
Race is an indelible part of the human experience. All that makes us individual makes us human, and to deny any aspect of that is not sensible. In any position of leadership we occupy we must have a multimodal approach towards moving that previously mentioned needle away from bigotry and towards love (tolerance is not sufficient, it being “bigotry on ice”). We must start within ourselves by demonstrating the best of who we are, championing all that makes us unique and, in so doing, trailblazing a bright road for those who come after us.
The effects of racial ignorance are often under-recognized. Too many hearts and minds are ravaged by the effects of the toxic stress and feelings of persecution imposed by systemic disrespect for human dignity. Healing these wounds begins with personal excellence, but efforts must transcend the personal to include thoughtful advocacy. It requires that we espouse what is right and decry what is unacceptable in all aspects of our lives. The fear and irreverence which propagates injustice must be replaced with understanding and thoughtful, empathetic discourse.
For weal or for woe it falls to us who live amidst such galvanizing turmoil to revolutionize the way in which we interact with one another as human beings—to rigorously establish being humane as a defining feature of being human.
Though the discussion with my advisor resulted in us consulting a government guideline which suggested that I am “Caucasian,” I respectfully point out that the Caucasus mountains are not, and never have been, situated near my ancestral home and unapologetically reclaim my racial identity. Now is a time for being our authentic selves, together.
