people. I live in a white community; I have white friends; I send my son to a predominantly white school. I treat them the way I want to be treated—based on their individual merits as human beings, not on their skin tone.
But then again, the white people I work with and eat lunch with and who teach my son are not overtly prejudiced.
I grab Twizzlers for Corinne and a cup of coffee for myself. I carry my cup to the condiment island, where there’s milk, sugar, Splenda. There’s an elderly woman fussing with the top of the cream pitcher, trying to get it open. Her purse sits on the counter, but as I approach, she picks up the handbag and anchors it to her side, crossing her arm over the strap.
“Oh, that pitcher can be tricky,” I say. “Can I help?”
She thanks me and smiles when I hand her back the cream.
I’m sure she doesn’t even realize she moved her purse when I got closer.
But
I
did.
Shake it off, Ruth,
I tell myself. I’m not the kind of person who sees the bad in everyone; that’s my sister, Adisa. I get on the elevator and head back to my floor. When I arrive, I toss Corinne her Twizzlers and walk toward Brittany Bauer’s door. Her chart and little Davis’s chart sit outside; I grab the baby’s to make sure that the pediatrician will be flagged about the potential heart murmur. But when I open the folder, there’s a hot-pink Post-it on the paperwork.
NO AFRICAN AMERICAN PERSONNEL
TO CARE FOR THIS PATIENT.
My face floods with heat. Marie is not at the charge nurse’s desk; I start to methodically search through the ward until I find her talking to one of the pediatricians in the nursery. “Marie,” I say, pasting a smile on my face. “Do you have a minute?”
She follows me back toward the nurses’ station, but I really don’t want to have this conversation in public. Instead, I duck into the break room. “Are you kidding me?”
She doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Ruth, it’s nothing. Think of it the way you’d think of a family’s religious preferences dictating patient care.”
“You can’t possibly be equating this with a religious preference.”
“It’s just a formality. The father is a hothead; this just seemed the smoothest way to get him to calm down before he did something extreme.”
“
This
isn’t extreme?” I ask.
“Look,” Marie says. “If anything, I’m doing you a favor. So you don’t have to deal with that guy anymore. Honestly, this isn’t about
you,
Ruth.”
“Really,” I say flatly. “How many other African American personnel are on this ward?”
We both know the answer to that. A big, fat zero.
I look her square in the eye. “You don’t want me to touch that baby?” I say. “Fine. Done.”
Then I slam the door behind me so hard that it rattles.
—
O NCE, RELIGION GOT tangled up in my care of a newborn. A Muslim couple came into the hospital to have their baby, and the father explained that he had to be the first person to speak to the newborn. When he told me this, I explained that I would do everything I could to honor his request, but that if there were any complications with the birth, my first priority was to make sure that the baby was saved—which required communication, and meant that silence in the delivery room was not likely or possible.
I gave the couple some privacy while they discussed this, and finally the father summoned me back. “If there are complications,” he told me, “I hope Allah would understand.”
As it turned out, his wife had a textbook delivery. Just before the baby was born, I reminded the pediatrician of the patient request, and the doctor stopped calling the arrival of the head, right shoulder, left, like a football play-by-play. The only sound in the room was the baby’s cry. I took the newborn, slippery as a minnow, and placed him in a blanket in his father’s arms. The man bent close to the tiny head of his son, and whispered to him in Arabic. Then he placed the baby into his wife’s
But then again, the white people I work with and eat lunch with and who teach my son are not overtly prejudiced.
I grab Twizzlers for Corinne and a cup of coffee for myself. I carry my cup to the condiment island, where there’s milk, sugar, Splenda. There’s an elderly woman fussing with the top of the cream pitcher, trying to get it open. Her purse sits on the counter, but as I approach, she picks up the handbag and anchors it to her side, crossing her arm over the strap.
“Oh, that pitcher can be tricky,” I say. “Can I help?”
She thanks me and smiles when I hand her back the cream.
I’m sure she doesn’t even realize she moved her purse when I got closer.
But
I
did.
Shake it off, Ruth,
I tell myself. I’m not the kind of person who sees the bad in everyone; that’s my sister, Adisa. I get on the elevator and head back to my floor. When I arrive, I toss Corinne her Twizzlers and walk toward Brittany Bauer’s door. Her chart and little Davis’s chart sit outside; I grab the baby’s to make sure that the pediatrician will be flagged about the potential heart murmur. But when I open the folder, there’s a hot-pink Post-it on the paperwork.
NO AFRICAN AMERICAN PERSONNEL
TO CARE FOR THIS PATIENT.
My face floods with heat. Marie is not at the charge nurse’s desk; I start to methodically search through the ward until I find her talking to one of the pediatricians in the nursery. “Marie,” I say, pasting a smile on my face. “Do you have a minute?”
She follows me back toward the nurses’ station, but I really don’t want to have this conversation in public. Instead, I duck into the break room. “Are you kidding me?”
She doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Ruth, it’s nothing. Think of it the way you’d think of a family’s religious preferences dictating patient care.”
“You can’t possibly be equating this with a religious preference.”
“It’s just a formality. The father is a hothead; this just seemed the smoothest way to get him to calm down before he did something extreme.”
“
This
isn’t extreme?” I ask.
“Look,” Marie says. “If anything, I’m doing you a favor. So you don’t have to deal with that guy anymore. Honestly, this isn’t about
you,
Ruth.”
“Really,” I say flatly. “How many other African American personnel are on this ward?”
We both know the answer to that. A big, fat zero.
I look her square in the eye. “You don’t want me to touch that baby?” I say. “Fine. Done.”
Then I slam the door behind me so hard that it rattles.
—
O NCE, RELIGION GOT tangled up in my care of a newborn. A Muslim couple came into the hospital to have their baby, and the father explained that he had to be the first person to speak to the newborn. When he told me this, I explained that I would do everything I could to honor his request, but that if there were any complications with the birth, my first priority was to make sure that the baby was saved—which required communication, and meant that silence in the delivery room was not likely or possible.
I gave the couple some privacy while they discussed this, and finally the father summoned me back. “If there are complications,” he told me, “I hope Allah would understand.”
As it turned out, his wife had a textbook delivery. Just before the baby was born, I reminded the pediatrician of the patient request, and the doctor stopped calling the arrival of the head, right shoulder, left, like a football play-by-play. The only sound in the room was the baby’s cry. I took the newborn, slippery as a minnow, and placed him in a blanket in his father’s arms. The man bent close to the tiny head of his son, and whispered to him in Arabic. Then he placed the baby into his wife’s
Similar Books
