To move together is to live better: An Indo-Canadian Physiotherapist's take on allyship with black communities
Disclaimer: This is an opinion blog. I may use clinical knowledge and experience as a Physiotherapist to develop this content. I will also cite resources where appropriate. However, this content does not replace nor seek to replace the consultation with a Physiotherapist or other healthcare professional for your health concerns.
On the first day of Physiotherapy school, our professor asked us to look around the room at the 100 people sitting around us.
“These will be your colleagues for the rest of your career."
It wasn't until my second year in Physio School that I realized that the majority of my class's faces didn’t look like mine. Few faces had skin that was even darker than mine. There were no black students in my class at all.
In our second year, we had to choose a research topic from a list, and I decided on “Increasing the recruitment of black students in Canadian Physiotherapy Programs.” Until that moment, I didn’t realize that there weren’t any black students in our program. It wasn't because I didn't care, but because I turned a blind eye to my own experiences of race and racism throughout my own life, and couldn't even begin to fathom someone else's. I was blind to the reality of not only my adversities but also a lot of my privileges based on my perceived gender and colour. In Physiotherapy, I became frankly aware of two things: I am male, and my skin is light brown. These characteristics made for many stares on the subway when I chose to put something away or take something out of my backpack. Growing up, other kids sometimes made fun of me if I had an Indian lunch, so I asked my mom to pack less cultural lunches. I worked extra hard at being courteous, speaking intelligently, and dressing well to the point where I was seen as either a teacher’s pet or a nerd. But I never put two and two together. I never realized that I did these things and thought this way because something in me knew that I was being treated differently. I was also, however, raised by two loving parents, given an education, supported physically, emotionally through my life by friends and mentors from school. I had privilege too.
So, maybe I never realized that I was brown or male until Physiotherapy School because I had the luxury of not needing to know. My life never depended on it, and because of my light skin, I could pass off as culturally ambiguous.
After talking with my black colleagues and patients, I very quickly learned that a lot of black parents will teach their children that they will be treated differently because of the colour of their skin. Their merits would shine less, they would have to work 10x harder to achieve the same status as their non-black colleagues, and that they might be criminalized despite having nothing to do with a crime. Their parents know that their children need to be extra careful to continue to exist on this planet, even here in Canada (1). Black males have to be particularly cautious of being racialized and being blamed for something that they had nothing to do with and having to pay with their lives in one way or another. None of this is okay.
As I immersed myself in Racism theory to prepare for our research project, I learned of Dr. Camara Jones’ levels of racism: institutionalized, personally-mediated, and internalized. She cleverly used the analogy of a flower garden to help drive her points across. I will describe her metaphor in my own words here, but I will leave the link to her TEDx talk down below, where you can learn it straight from Dr. Jones as well.
Dr. Jones' Garden Allegory:
Imagine that a gardener has two pots in which she wants to plant flowers, one that she knows has good soil, and the other she knows has poor soil. This gardener has a preference for white flowers over red flowers and so plants the white flowers in the good soil and plants the red flowers in the poor soil. Over time, the white flowers flourish, and the red flowers do not, and the gardener says, “I was right to prefer white flowers because of how much more beautiful they became than the red flowers.” This is a demonstration of institutionalized racism: creating an environment that systemically disadvantages particular groups of people based on skin colour. Personally-mediated racism exists when the white flowers think they actually ARE better than the red flowers and act in ways that reflect this. Internalized racism exists when the red flowers think less of themselves simply because of their petals' colour and how everyone else treats them (2). If the red flowers had hands, they might do things like paint themselves to look whiter. To Asian Canadians, this should sound familiar.
As Asian Canadians, we have more in common with our black brothers and sisters than we may think. The differences exist in the privileges we have been afforded, whereas they have not. These privileges can be used for the betterment of black communities. You'd hope that if the tables were turned, they would do the same for us.
Let's move together
Physiotherapy was a profession developed to help those who were unable to move, to move again with as much independence as possible. Research shows that, when you have more racially diverse healthcare providers, underserved and minority groups have greater access to healthcare (3). However, we know anecdotally that the number of black Physios across Canada is meagre. With fewer black and other racial minorities serving as Physiotherapists, how are we supposed to help ALL Canadians, where the population is becoming more racially diverse every day (3)?
My dream is to help people accurately understand human movement such that we prioritize it in the development of our societies, communities, and organizations. Those who need help with regaining movement or maintaining it will get the help they need and deserve. This will not be possible when our black brothers and sisters are left behind. Yes, to move is to live. But to move together is to live better. All lives will not matter until black lives matter too, because black lives are PART of all lives. So, what I’m doing to become an ally, especially as an Asian Canadian, is checking my privilege, understanding and tackling any internalized racism I have to open my heart to experiences of racism against black communities, and doing my best to ACT in ways that allow all lives to move forward together.
I think that it’s about time to help make Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, a reality. What about you?
Until next time.
Resources:
I encourage you to listen to Hasan Minaj’s talk on what to do about black racism from an Asian American perspective:
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CA_-WbRJmpZ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Dr. Camara Jones, Allegories on Race and Racism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNhcY6fTyBM&t=352s
Here a link that shows you a list of Black organizations that you can donate to support their cause:
https://nowtoronto.com/news/black-organizations-toronto-donate/
References:
Race, Crime and Justice in Canada [Internet]. The John Howard Society of Canada. 2017 [cited 2020Jun4]. Available from: https://johnhoward.ca/blog/race-crime-justice-canada/
Phyllis Jones C, Jones P. Going Public. Am J Public Heal J Public Heal. 2000;9090(8):1212-1215. doi:10.2105/AJPH.90.8.1212
Baker J, Lyons BA. The recruitment and retention of minority and disadvantaged allied health students. Journal of Allied Health. 1989;18(4):389-401.