In need of a national healing.

In medicine we speak of symptoms and the disease. The symptoms are the manifesting signs of the underlying condition. Without addressing the underlying disease, the symptoms will continue to manifest. In light of another death of a black male and the challenging response we are seeing across the country, we must apply this to our national plight.

These deaths sadly represent the symptoms. The underlying disease is prejudice, racism and discrimination, a plight that has afflicted our great nation since its inception. What is the cure? Some of my thoughts:

1. This is not a political post, but suffice to say, calming and level-headed national leadership would help the nation heal. No matter your political affiliation, this needs to be considered and pondered before retreating into partisanship and tribalism. 
2. I am a believer in the thought that public facing occupations such as social work, education, healthcare, and yes police work, are subject to the larger forces and constructs of society. Meaning that all those fields have to deal with the end societal effects of racism, poverty, discrimination, and prejudice. Those same forces can also infiltrate the occupations themselves, to a certain degree. So yes, we can advocate for police reform which could be effective, but ultimately the police actions represent the symptom and not the disease. This is why, in my opinion, saying "abolish police" is analogous to saying "abolish nurses and physicians" for our role in health disparities - while an understandable response, it is ultimately impractical. The lasting change has to come from above.
3. People have to care, in a meaningful and authentic way. And in the news and social media cycle, we must not forget about what we have endured. We can't forget the names of those previously killed. This applies to other things as well - I have already noticed that the grim mark of 100,000 dead from coronavirus seems to be left behind in the news cycle. And we also must be forgiving and understanding towards each other. I see many posts impugning those that remain silent. I think these posts are well-intentioned but slightly miss the mark in terms of the intended message I think as long as the work is being done offline, it is OK to not feel obligated to post online if that is not true to you. It is also OK to need time to process and understand, before posting something on social media or putting something out there in the real world. We run the risk of virtue signaling otherwise - which is not the worst thing in the world because virtue signaling does have some intrinsic value in raising awareness - but it is not the ultimate solution. Offline, we must put in the work, which is ultimately is the step which has the most meaning. 
4. I am admittedly not an expert on anti-racism - being a target of racist actions does not make one an expert on anti-racism. However, I am pleased at the sharing of these anti-racist resources on social media. I don't prefer the terminology/labels of racist and non-racist when talking about individual people, as I think they present a false dichotomy - I truly believe that all of us have a varying degree of prejudices towards others that we have acquired through living in America, and one acquired prejudice in particular is that towards those of darker skin. Even in the black community, for example, there are certain prejudices that we have acquired and been defined by. Other marginalized groups also in turn carry prejudices. I think we are all capable of racist acts under the right circumstance and context. Thus, while everyone is not starting from the same point, no-one is exempt from the work of anti-racism, and it is a collective action that is needed by all peoples, regardless of ethnicity or background. We all have to challenge ourselves. In medical schools across the country, there have been movements to implement implicit bias training in order to help prevent the future generation of doctors from contributing to the issues of health disparities. Implicit bias training is a close cousin of anti-racist work, and may be something that should be implemented on the societal level - in all high schools prior to graduating, for example. While we continue to demand action at the structural and institutional level, we must also examine ourselves at the personal level. 
5. Ultimately, the change will have to occur at a societal level. Hatred and fear are born from ignorance. Ignorance is born from exclusion and lack of interface. Anti-blackness has unfortunately been an affliction from which our country has suffered for a long time. We have made advances and taken steps forward, but there is still work to do, and it won't be solved overnight. We all will need to put in the work to help cure it. As we do that, we will also address the related afflictions of classism, poverty, tribalism, homophobia, and others. And as above, no one is exempt from the work. 

These are just my opinions and thoughts, reflecting on our current plight. You may not agree with everything I have written here, but I encourage you to consider it closely and use it to reflect on the role each of us can play in making our country a better place for everyone.