Page 10 - Nebraska Report January/February 2012

Conversations on Racism

and Anti-Racism

by those who should know better in the Omaha World-Herald

has less education, they may work in society, the African-born professor can
a lower-paying job, perhaps a job that be forgiven, I suppose, for not fully un-
does not offer health insurance… If they derstanding the pervasive and pernicious
get ill or injured, they’re less likely to racism that Blacks in America face 24/7
be able to afford the care they need.” from cradle to grave. But honestly, folks,
Governor Ricketts’ appointee continued, let’s be real. In a White majority country
“With more education, people have more that from its founding has written all
opportunities for better health—more of the rules (and is still writing them),
income/resources means more access to how do you separate the “structure”
health care, they’re more likely to live in from the “Whites”? As the Black French
healthier neighborhoods and have social West Indies psychiatrist and political
and psychological benefits that come with philosopher Frantz Fanon said 60 years
having a higher income.” ago, you are rich because you are White,
As I read these words I had a sink- and you are White because you are rich.
ing feeling I knew where this was going, In racist apartheid and colonial systems,
when an African-born professor of pre- all of the White settlers lived better than
ventive medicine at Creighton University the Indigenous Natives in Africa and
who was interviewed for the article made other colonized continents. Those same
it all perfectly plain. “The less educated privileged structures still exist in White
A’Jamal-Rashad Byndon, someone is,” she said, “the higher their America today.
More credible indicators than “high
chance of dying disproportionately than
Community Advocate for the general population from diseases.” school graduation rates”—such as
Real Justice Factors like poverty, socioeconomic wealth, income, homeownership and so
status, jobs, income, the environment forth—reveal the racial gaps in a country
and crime favor “the White individual,” that reaped over 300-years-worth of slave
On the last day of the most racially the professor said. “Is this the fault of the and Jim Crow labor from a systematically
charged year in generations, the Omaha White person? No. It’s just the structure.” subjugated African American populace.
World-Herald ran an article examining And there it was… The storyline I But what the graduation data itself fails
health disparities in America based on knew in my gut was coming; the story to illustrate is that within these still of-
race. Whites, not unexpectedly, came out I’ve been hearing versions of all my life: ten segregated education systems mere
on top as the state’s healthiest population. It’s not ‘racism’ and ‘White privilege’ ‘completion’ does not indicate quality.
Interestingly enough, the article opened that’s to blame for Blacks being poor, When you have racist educators, who
with a racial and ethnic breakdown of ill-educated and unhealthy, “It’s just the offer internal dual educational courses
Nebraska high school graduation rates structure.” for specified groups, the outcomes are
and discussion of the “gaps” between the …And after generations of having predictable. All you have to do is look at
groups in educational status, noting that, it pounded into our heads we can all fill the racial make-up of virtually any ‘hon-
“Such gaps can lead to big differences in the words and finish the story: Afri- ors course’ to see the pattern of apartheid
in how healthy or unhealthy people are can Americans need to exercise more education.
throughout their lives.” ‘personal responsibility’, show more Some years ago, one of my White
The reporter proceeded to quote the initiative, and work harder to ‘improve’ colleagues told me that she was able
State of Nebraska’s Chief Medical Of- themselves. to get free tuition in graduate school
ficer saying that, “Typically, if someone Coming from a virtually all-Black because her White advisor informed her
that if she became a student assistant,
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 NE REPORT, P. 10 the college would pay for her tuition