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Key Words: Racism, disparities of health, discrimination.
Racism has been declared a public health threat (American Medical Association [AMA], 2020; Eschner, 2020; Wamsley, 2021) that impacts various points of health care interactions; such a real and present danger requires us to anticipate and address the effects of racism on patients and families we see every day. One way to start is to think about how your own race may - or just as importantly, may not - impact your daily interactions. I, for instance, am a White woman and a Certified Child Life Specialist in various health care settings for over 10 years. According to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (2021), I would be classified as a middleincome, married, cis-gender woman. Thus, no experience in my life has ever prompted me to wonder: Did that happen because I am White? This is a privilege I have enjoyed that Black caregivers and children often do not share.
Much of what I have learned about race has come from marrying a Black man and becoming a mother to two Black biracial children, which is both useful and limiting at the same time. I yearned to ensure I was not "part of the problem" long before marriage and motherhood, but I never imagined I was so far off from the truth. Some of my past thoughts and reactions to our society's treatment of people of color were honestly, and with good intention, ignorant and oblivious. Despite what the fields of psychology and sociology have taught me about our human propensity to distance from the difference of the "other" (whether as a defense mechanism or an unconscious attempt to cling to the stability of power and privilege), I still wondered why it was only firsthand experience that brought me closer to understanding the problem of race.
Even though I understand my own position as a mother to biracial children, I do not know the intricacies and daily lives of caregivers of color - those who have been experiencing what I am now just beginning to learn about - for their whole lives, each day, every day. I am speaking only about my own experience and beautiful transformation as a mother, but also a mother...