In today’s episode, we’ll dive into the charged topic of race in 2022, why it effects each of our lives, and how we can all help sensitive conversations become productive and empowering. We'll use evidence-based research and examples, all of which are referenced in the show-notes.
New research is clearly showing that people of color experience strikingly different outcomes in healthcare facilities, and that systemic inequity and interpersonal bias pose significant, even life-threatening safety risks to our fellow Americans. By personally and bravely reconciling the moral distress of racial inequality, we can take a significant first step toward aligning our actions with our values and contributing to the freedom, wealth, health and happiness of all who call this land home.
Our guest today is the closest person I've personally worked with to a modern-day Mother Teresa, but she says you don't have to spend your whole life in service to others to spark positive change and see your own life transform. Tess Marstaller is a bedside nurse turned hospital risk manager who has been studying, volunteering and advocating in the non-profit and public health space for over 15 years. Tess is an example of backing beliefs up with actions, yet the more she learns the more self-growth she's inspired to pursue. Tess received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in non-profit management before pursuing nursing school, where her guiding interest became maternal health inequities. Tess also volunteered as a community health educator in Cameroon, Africa for two years with the Peace Corps, where she came to understand just how much health is the key to life, and a key many never hold. In San Francisco Tess has found meaning connecting with the homeless and underserved community as a nurse. In her current role investigating events where harm could have or did occur, she brings an equity lens to the case review process, her goal being that any patient can expect a high quality outcome when they arrive sick or injured.
If you’d like to connect with Tess, you can reach her via email at [email protected].
Show Notes/resources used for and referenced in this podcast:
Facing Race | Episode 11: Discussing race over the holidays
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xTqSbqGXXA&t=109s
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
https://nationalseedproject.org/Key-SEED-Texts/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack
White privilege doesn’t mean your life has been easy, it means that race hasn’t been one of the things making it harder.
Explained | Racial Wealth Gap | FULL EPISODE | Netflix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqrhn8khGLM
Dante King - Speaker and anti-racism teacher mentioned in podcast:
https://www.danteking.com/resources
1619 Podcast about how American slavery connects to life today
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/podcasts/1619-podcast.html
13th (Netflix) - Documentary about the legacy of the 13th Amendment
“Combining archival footage with testimony from activists and scholars, director Ava DuVernay's examination of the U.S. prison system looks at how the country's history of racial inequality drives the high rate of incarceration in America.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8
Implicit Bias Module Series:
KIRWAN INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF RACE AND ETHNICITY
https://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/implicit-bias-training - I
Racial History of American Swimming Pools
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90213675 -
How the GI Bill's Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans
https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits
RACE IN AMERICA ‘It was a modern-day lynching’: Violent deaths reflect a brutal American
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/history-of-lynching-violent-deaths-reflect-brutal-american-legacy legacy
Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns in Hospitals 2021
https://www.ecri.org/top-10-patient-safety-concerns-2021 -
Racism as Public Health Crisis:
USA: https://www.cdc.gov/healthequity/racism-disparities/index.html
San Francisco: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/hc/HCAgen/HCAgen2020/July%2021/20_10%20Anti_Black_Racism_Is_Public_Health_Crisis.pdf
Maternal Health
Vital Signs: Pregnancy-Related Deaths, United States https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6818e1.htm
Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Pregnancy-Related Deaths — United States
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6835a3.htm
Nothing Protects Black Women From Dying in Pregnancy and Childbirth
https://www.propublica.org/article/nothing-protects-black-women-from-dying-in-pregnancy-and-childbirth?utm_source=Arent+Fox+List&utm_campaign=70d815f56e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_01_20_08_35_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3a013c8d3d-70d815f56e-424471426&mc_cid=70d815f56e&mc_eid=de44b7284a
- “For most people of color, racism isn't an occasional problem but a subtle, everyday stressor that is added onto all the other stressors in a person's life.” – Dr Camara Jones, CDC
UNNATURAL CAUSES - acclaimed PBS documentary series looking at the root causes of our alarming socio-economic and racial inequities in health.
https://unnaturalcauses.org/episode_descriptions.php?page=2
Experiments/studies noted in podcast:
Implicit Bias in Preschool: A Research Study Brief
https://medicine.yale.edu/childstudy/zigler/publications/briefs/
https://news.yale.edu/2016/09/27/implicit-bias-may-explain-high-preschool-expulsion-rates-black-children
Partners in study gave legal memo a lower rating when told author wasn't white https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/hypothetical_legal_memo_demonstrates_unconscious_biases
Doll Study: White and black children biased toward lighter skin
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/13/doll.study/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZryE2bqwdk Clark Doll experiments
Implicit bias
https://www.simplypsychology.org/implicit-bias.html
“The attitudes and stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions and decisions in an unconscious manner. - that unconscious part is key, these aren’t views people know they have but don’t share publicly, these are true blind spots until we use a mirror to find them or they are pointed out by others.”
Redlining: 1932-1968 - Learn more and explore your area
https://ncrc.org/holc/
https://www.urbandisplacement.org/redlining
