As nurses, we like to believe we rise above attitudes that would harm our patients or ourselves. But a more honest self-examination might find we sometimes harbor racist feelings toward our own colleagues who have different racial or ethnic backgrounds, say nurse experts in cultural diversity interviewed by Nursing Spectrum. Fortunately, attitudes are changing. Nursing leaders in hospitals and in schools of nursing are creating workplace and educational programs to help nurses overcome discriminatory feelings they may consciously or unconsciously hold toward colleagues or patients. They are fostering open environments in which students can discuss racism and how it might affect their own nursing practice when they enter the healthcare workplace.
What's in a word? Within health care, racism can manifest itself through negative assumptions surrounding job capabilities. You might hear it in snide remarks during report that devalue others or in the language of disrespect in what should be mentoring situations, such as the orientation of new hires. Racism can even lead to minority hospital or faculty members being passed over for higher positions because of false beliefs they cannot perform at that level. Betty Smith Williams, RN, DrPH, FAAN, president of the National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Associations, believes nurses are less prejudiced than other groups. "I think nursing exhibits less racism compared with other groups that do not have [regular] contact with people or who do not focus and pride themselves on understanding people. Racism is about not knowing and understanding people and then assuming generalizations about them."
However, Smith Williams has witnessed the racism that does exist within the profession. In academe, where she has spent most of her career, Smith Williams has heard professors voice assumptions that black nursing students could not conceptualize or formulate abstract thoughts from their learning and experiences. "This is happening less, as nurses [like the rest of the country] have become more informed," she says.
Hidden agenda "Minorities, underrepresented in the nursing workforce, aren't given the same consideration [for job opportunities]," says Sandra Webb-Booker, RN, PhD, coordinator for the Chicago Public Schools Practical Nursing Program. "For example, nurses and physicians [from other units] seek out Caucasian RNs when looking for the person in charge," she says. The absence of blacks in administrative positions fosters this attitude, she believes. Webb-Booker, past president of the Chicago Chapter of the National Black Nurses Association, says people are mystified when they discover she has a bachelor's degree in nursing and that she has been awarded a doctorate...
