Approaches to change

Nanette Massey calls out racism in cancer care

/ Peggy L Chinn / Leave a comment

Nanette D Massey, who was an inspiration for, and has worked with “Overdue Reckoning on Racism in Nursing” for over 3 years, has written an article in NABJ Black News and Views that describes the appointment of two Black women to the top administration of Roswell Park cancer center in Buffalo, New York, as a result of a report that detailed widespread racism toward Black nurses, doctors and other staff.

Nanette D. Massey

In the article, Nanette describes the situation that the report revealed at Roswell Park, and the changes that the institution is taking to begin making the needed changes. Nanette’s own work has focused on raising the awareness of white people to the widespread realities of racism, and supporting any and all action to bring about change. In the Black News and Views article, she acknowledges the work we are doing in our “Overdue Reckoning” project, including our current October series focused on actions needed by white nurses. Nanette cites Lucinda Canty’s remarks about the systemic ways in which hospitals are designed to sustain racism:

The experiences of Lucinda Canty Ph.D., one of the authors of “An Overdue Reckoning On Racism In Nursing” and an associate professor of nursing at UMass Amherst, add more logs to this fire. 

“Hospital systems,” said Canty, ”were never designed for Black people, as patients or employees. Segregation of hospitals ended with the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.That’s not too long ago. The structures are still in place in the form of leadership, policies, or procedures, all designed so that people of color cannot thrive. When racial issues come to light there is no accountability.” 

Nanette Massey, September 27, 2023

All of us who are nurses and who want to make change can take action anywhere we live and work. We cannot do everything that is required, but each of us can do something. Join in on our Saturday discussions for the remaining Saturdays in October! Here are topics we are planning to kick off discussions for the rest of October –

Oct. 14 – Dismantling white privilege – “What is your experience of remaining silent while people of color speak?”

Oct. 21 – DEI is not enough — “What happens when you attend the dance, but are not asked to dance?”

Oct 28 – Blueprints for action – “What antiracism actions are we committed to take on an individual, group, and structural level?”

You can learn more about Nanette, and the work that she is doing on her website, including information about her in-person workshops in upstate New York, webinars, and writing. Nanette is a highly skilled and compassionate facilitator, and without her inspiration, our work would not have evolved as it did! Connect with her now!

In AJN Now! “Activism is an Essential Nursing Role”

/ Peggy L Chinn / 1 Comment

The October issue of the American Journal of Nursing includes an article titled “Activism is an Essential Nursing Role!” This article has been brewing for at least a decade, conjured up by Shawn Kennedy, now Editor Emerita of AJN, and me (Peggy Chinn), now Editor Emerita of Advances in Nursing Science (ANS). As nursing journal editors, we had experienced blow-back from readers who objected not only to “political” content in our journals, but also claimed that “politics” is not an appropriate concern for nurses. Shawn had taken a strong editorial stance related to gun violence as a public health issue, for example, and had received threats to discontinue subscription to the journal as a result of this stance. In ANS, we maintained a strong reputation of publishing politically controversial topics but when one of the articles published in the journal addressed explicitly the militarization of nursing education, we also received threats from readers that they would not only not subscribe, but would cease to use ANS content in their reading lists!

Source
Maureen “Shawn” Kennedy

Shawn and I had several opportunities to share our experiences and our mutual commitment to continuing to advocate for nursing’s responsibilities to protect the the health and well-being of all , even when it required taking a “political” stance in our journals. We presented the topic for discussion at several nursing editor’s meetings (INANE), and maintained our intention to publish an article on the topic! Finally, once we each “retired” from our editorial roles, we moved this intention to the top of our “to do” lists, resulting in the publication of the article!

We hope you will take a few moments to read this article, and welcome your feedback! Please add your experiences advocating for activism here — we all are inspired when we hear the stories – we know we are not alone!

More Evidence – Now We Need Action!

/ Peggy L Chinn / 1 Comment

Ms. Frankie Manning shared with us an article published on the web on May 30, 2023. The article is titled “‘A target on my back’: New survey shows racism is a huge problem in nursing.” It gives ample evidence of one of the most pernicious and seemingly intractable and systematic patterns that sustain racism – the subtle and explicit ways that we are all complicit in simply not recognizing and addressing it. Those of us who have been participating in “Overdue Reckoning on Racism in Nursing” over the past 3 years are all too familiar with stories and situations reflecting what is in this article. Time and again – situations in which nobody acknowledges the blatant expressions of racism, denies the reality, and places insurmountable barriers in the way of making change.

This article reminds me of a comment that we heard when we were first announcing “Overdue.” More than one white nurse said to us something along this line: “I hope that this is not just going to be a complaining session.” Our response to this was along this line: “We intend to listen and hear any and all complaints – until we pay attention and start to see the reality, and talk about it we will never see change.”

The “Target on my back” report explains how many nurses of color have simply given up, assuming that it is hopeless for white nurses to ever come to terms with the racism that they participate in and enable. The energy and courage that it takes for nurses of color to even begin to address the issue is overwhelming and destructive. Looking at this reality as vividly portrayed in this article is disheartening, but it is also a wake-up call, and a reminder, that we must do better. We white nurses need to do more than offer cheap apologies – we need to examine the harm that is still happening around us every day, and engage in the deep, authentic and sincere processes of forgiveness, which leads to change.

Nurse ethicist Marsha Fowler has offered insight into the harm of “cheap forgiveness” – and outlines the process of forgiveness as follows:

Forgiveness is a process containing several essential and sequential elements: contrition, confession, penitence, repentance, forgiveness, then reconciliation, meaning, to grieve, to acknowledge, to regret, to turn around, to let go/my sins let go, to be restored. This is the movement that is forgiveness.

https://nursology.net/2023/04/04/cheap-forgiveness/

So on this Juneteenth day of 2023, I am sending a call, an invitation, to my white colleagues to examine what we need to do, and can do, to engage in processes of forgiveness, and processes of building genuine reconciliation and partnership. At the same time I send deep appreciation to my colleagues of color who have joined us in this journey of reckoning with racism in nursing. Lucinda Canty has led us from the beginning, and many more have joined us, for which we are all grateful.

We are all on a journey, with each of us in different places on this journey. As Lucinda says, I will not lie – this is not an easy journey. But I believe that in embarking on our journeys, we are beginning to create real change.

The Invisible Brown Immigrant

/ Peggy L Chinn / 6 Comments

Contributor: Binita Thapa*

Binita Thapa

This poem has been inspired by my experiences of racism and discrimination in healthcare and nursing education. In the first part of this poem, I portray my experiences of discrimination in healthcare starting from the ambulance’s refusal to take me to the hospital to nurses under recognition of my pain, all due to ongoing appendicitis. I later illustrate an experience of racial discrimination in the form of exclusion as a Masters student in my school. These experiences were pivotal in not only making me realize the racialized world that I was a part of yet I did not acknowledge and recognize for a very long time but was significant in radically changing the trajectory of my thesis from end-of-life care to racism in nursing. These racialized experiences undoubtedly lowered my confidence and belonging, further oppressing me at times but was also a final thread to my unbearable urge to fight for social justice in nursing. I have now healed myself from these racial injuries with the validation, support, and mentorship from many allies and minority nurses. I am also proudly liberated from oppression. However, nursing education and healthcare continue to become a hostile place for racialized nurses and this poetry piece is a starting point of my reflective activism in fighting systemic racial injustices in nursing.

I open my eyes, I see my partner scream at me begging me to wake up
I see myself lying on the kitchen floor
Cannot recall where I was before
His eyes so desperate, his voice shaken, and his soul fragile
Never had I seen him so agile
Ambulance arrives with such an ease
So were the paramedic attendees
He tells me that I cannot be served sounding reserved
My unbearable pain did not matter, not enough to receive attention
I question myself, why am I an exemption?
His disengaged eyes and white skin
Nice racism as it is, nothing less than a brutal sin
Would my pain ever matter?
Will my pain ever be enough?
I could see my shadow and my feet yet I am unnoticeable
I am just a brown immigrant and my superpower is to be invisible

I stand there in front of my nurse in the hospital three feet away
Hoping that he would look at me without delay
He is sharing jokes with his colleagues
As if that is one of his side gigs
I question to myself: why aren’t his jokes funny to me?
Or is it my pain that is more bothersome to me
I bend down to put my hands on my knees
That is all I have to support my unease
I talk to myself inside my head ‘don’t fall’
‘Please can someone give me a medication to relieve this downfall’
I am clearly visible yet unseeable
Proof are these blank stares of disapproval
I could see my shadow and my feet yet I am unnoticeable
I am just a brown immigrant and my superpower is to be invisible

I sit there in a chair in front of my nursing professor
Her evil smirk, I still clearly remember
She proceeds to tell me that I do not belong here in nursing
Her words come out in such ease
As if dehumanizing racialized students was her expertise
All I hear in my soul is how dare that I am ambitious
Making my white professor have this urge to be this malicious
I walk outside her office, trying to make sense of the event that made me so nauseous
I could feel the warmth of my face increasing
As if my body and mind is exploding
The feeling of being unwanted and unwelcomed is suffocating
The proud nurse that I am but this feels humiliating
I could see my shadow and my feet yet I am unnoticeable
I am just a brown immigrant and my superpower is to be invisible

I question to myself ‘why me’?
Why don’t I have the courage to say ‘try me’?
A realization that racism and discrimination will be never-ending
A choice at hand either oppression or liberation
Oppression appears familiar, expected, and feasible
Liberation seems disobedient, challenging, and impossible
I desire love and humanity
I choose liberation and nonconformity
I refuse to be dehumanized by thousand cuts
I refuse to be silenced, asserts my blood and guts
The invisible brown immigrant is now awake
Unwilling to go back to sleep
She fights, persists, and continues to exist
Unaccepting to be dismissed
She now sees her shadow and her feet, and fights to be noticeable
She is now an empowered brown immigrant regardless of white disapproval
And, her superpower is her non-negotiable demand to be visible

About Binita Thapa

My name is Binita Thapa, an immigrant, a daughter of immigrant parents, an internationally educated nurse, and the first university graduate in my family. I completed my Practical Nursing degree from Centennial College followed by BScN from Ryerson University. I am currently a PhD in nursing student at the University of Ottawa. I am deeply passionate about social justice in nursing. As a woman of colour in nursing education and someone who endlessly faces systemic marginalization and racialization in my nursing school, my goal is to continue to have a voice for myself and for other racialized students. My doctoral thesis is focused on developing a post-colonial and anti-racist foundation for graduate nursing curriculum at the University of Ottawa.

A Conversation with Ibram X. Kendi

/ Peggy L Chinn / Leave a comment

For this week’s reflection on our “Overdue Reckoning on Racism in Nursing,” watch this conversation between Jemele Hill (staff writer at The Atlantic) and Ibram X. Kendi about his book “How to Be an Antiracist.” This conversation was recorded at the 2019 Aspen Ideas Festival, and touches on so many fundamental ideas that are at the heart of what we are doing in our “overdue reckoning.” At the close of this conversation, Dr. Kendi speaks to the importance of caring for ourselves as we engage in anti-racism activism!

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