Racism in the Medical Field

As a pre-dental student, I was very curious about minorities in the medical field. I found out that 5% of doctors are black. I found an article about a black doctor who talked about his struggles in become a respected physician. He said that he didn’t get into any medical schools not because of his grades (he says he had a B+ average) but because he was black. He also described how he was denied the job of chief resident because he was black. His superior even told him he didn’t get the job because he was black! He refuses to be apart of the American Medical Association because he says they are racist against black people. He said that he does not want to be associated with the same men who denied his access to his top medical schools. This is very shocking to me that his man had to go through all of this hardship because of racism in the medical field.

John Mayer Uncut

I know someone commented on John Mayer’s recent remarks in another post, but some serious mistakes he made in his comments seem to have been censored out in that post. I understand that his sexual comments were seriously offensive to the black community, the female community, and any combination thereof, but prior to these statements he made these comments earlier on in the interview:

MAYER: Someone asked me the other day, “What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?” And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a n****r pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, “I can’t really have a hood pass. I’ve never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, ‘We’re full.’”

PLAYBOY: It is true; a lot of rappers love you. You recorded with Common and Kanye West, played live with Jay-Z.

MAYER: What is being black? It’s making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that’s seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you’ll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude’s.

First of all, the sexual comments that he made were made in a Playboy interview, and I don’t know if their interviewers encourage disgusting comments or not, even though this would still not make his comments excusable. However, it seems to me that (on a level more easily related to racist intentions) John Mayer made the classic mistake of thinking that just because he has good relationships with multiple African Americans it would be okay to use the one word that would jeopardize those relationships the most. I understand his wit, and generally enjoy it, but in this particular instance it was unneeded. I also think that his “What is being black?” synopsis is ridiculous, especially coming from someone who is white, and whether he thought what he was saying was wrong or not it could easily be misconstrued or taken as offensive by many people.

step show (blacks only)

My girlfriends parents came up for the weekend and were surprised to see so many people walking around, she lives across the street from the o’connel center where the step show is being held tonight, and she explained that the step show was taking place today and her parents responded and said oh no wonder they’re all black. I was surprised because since they are hispanics i would think that they would not be people to discriminate since they are part of a minority themselves. It just surprises me when a minority discriminates and kinda forgets they’re a minority as well.

Speak AMERICAN

One of my best friends here called me up yesterday to let me know how she had quit her job. She was a costumer service manager at Wal-Mart. The problem was that there was this old lady complaining about an emuloyee there that didn’t speak English. When the old lady called a manager, my friend had to respond (my friend is hispanic) and ask the lady what was the problem. The lady without thinking twice told her “you guys should fire this woman, how can somebody who doesn’t speak American work here? Immigrants should learn American or go back to their country.” My friend (whose parents DONT speak American) tried to lecture this lady about discrimination and racism now days. She also told the lady how she was hispanic and her parents didn’t speak American, but the lady repeated her thoughts once again. My friend got so mad about this that after she went and talked to her supervisor about this (and he didn’t pay attention) she went ahead and quit because she doesn’t like to work in a place where not even her supervisor understands how “speaking American”is not everything that counts in thi country.

Point of Views

So earlier this week the ant-abortion people paid us a visit. I want tell you my beliefs on abortion, but I will tell you that most people were offended by the way that they executed their message. I found it highly offensive, that they were comparing abortion to the holocaust, genocide, and hanging black people. The images that were displayed were simply gruesome, and disgusting. Maybe people would have taken to their message more willingly if they would not have forced us to view this horrible images.  People let us be considerate for now on.

Immigrants vs. Lawyers

Apparently a lot of immigrants have gotten themselves in deeper trouble when they get involve with lawyers. Thousands and tens of thousands of immigrants have been affected by this and quite frankly I blame the justice system for this. If a lawyer is given a case it should not matter whether or not the lawyer is defending an immigrant or not, they should have some kind of system that requires this lawyers to defend these people just like everyone else. These lawyers when representing these immigrants, they take their fee money and don’t even show up to represent them and that is just wrong. Some immigrants even ended up getting deported because their lawyers screw them over. Not only do these lawyers screw these immigrants over, a lot of them get away with it because most of these immigrants are afraid to come forward and with their stories. This is very sad and wrong and the American justice system is partly to blame for these lawyers’ actions.

John Mayer

So most people know John Mayer for his sarcasim or lack of filter during interviews, but his interview with Playboy magazine made alot people angry when asked if Black women threw themselves at him, he responded by saying “I don’t think I open myself to it. My d*ck is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fu–in’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my di-k. …I always thought Holly Robinson Peete was gorgeous. Every white dude loved Hilary from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And Kerry Washington. She’s super hot and she’s also white-girl crazy. Kerry Washington would break your heart like a white girl. Just all of a sudden she’d be like, ‘Yeah, I sucked his d*ck. Whatever.” Ok as a John Mayer fan and a young Black woman I was a little offended, did he really need to use white supremacist as a metaphor. Why couldn’t he simply say I’m not attracted to Black women, I could’ve lived with that. No he had to put his foot in his mouth.

Chapter 10

After reading Chapter 10 of “Racism Without Racists” I realized that I was one of those people that questioned the book the entire time I was reading it.  It wasn’t because I didn’t believe that racism exists, because it clearly still does, but it was because of the way the author brought the subject up.  It seemed like he was attacking all of the white people he interviewed for the book and that everything they said  was considered racist.  I don’t think that a lot of the stuff the people said was  racist, but the author took it as meaning that.  I still enjoyed the book even though I found some things that I did not agree with.

Justified Frenzy Over Fliers

After reading Bernie Machen’s email regarding the fliers made against the Student Alliance Party, I felt disgusted and outraged. Apparently, fliers were made and distributed that compared the student government party to a Nazi group. The fliers read “The Student Alliance Party is the Nazi Party.” As a student and human being, I find this extremely offensive. How can students that want to make a difference on campus have any resemblance to a group of people that outright killed millions of people during the Holocaust and had radical, discriminatory views about certain religious groups, minorities, and mentally disabled individuals, just to name a few. Bernie Machen said something very enlightening in his email. He said, “What I hope we take away from this incident is that while the First Amendment gives us great freedom in protecting speech, including offensive speech, it also comes with great responsibility to use this freedom wisely” (Email). I hope that who ever did this realizes what they did was wrong and extremely offensive.