Shakyara Jean

Professor Jennifer Byrd

Women and Gender Studies 2310

29 October 2019

This I Believe: Blacks and Healthcare

I believe that the healthcare system is in dire need of change. I believe there is corruption

and discrimination of not only the African American community but the women of the African

American community. Our issues are constantly put off, we are treated unfairly, not given the

proper treatment, the list goes on.

Growing up black and a woman in the country we experience the real world early on. I

have experienced racial disparities in hospitals since as long as I could remember. When I was

just a baby I was diagnosed with asthma. At just the age of five, I had an asthma attack and was

rushed to the hospital. While being in the emergency room I could remember not being able to

breathe while my mother argued with multiple doctors to get some help. She kept being told

“we’ll be with her in a second”. All she could think about was how her baby was losing air while

the nursing wasn’t trying to do anything to help. Since then we have been very careful about our

health and always made sure we took the proper precautions to make sure we wouldn’t have to

go to the hospital for any problems. It is sad that at such a young age I had to experience this

type of oppression in fields that we all believe would give us the most care.

I believe to create the change we have to be the change. There are so many doctors and

nurses in the medical field that are predominantly white, especially males. We have to expand the

field and get some new faces to change the social norm. In the world we live in today people say
we have to face the fact that racism will never end. I believe that with the right amount of

motivation, dedication and empowerment we can bring change to this corrupt world we live in.