What made this flight attendant think Dr. Cross wasn't a real physician? The only possible cues this flight attendant could have called on to make this erroneous assumption were Dr. Cross's appearance: clothing, age, gender, and skin color.
Dr. Tamika Cross is a young Black woman. You do the math.
 |
| This is what a doctor looks like, America. |
There are two layers of atrociousness to Dr. Cross' experience. One is that the prejudices of that flight attendant could have cost the sick passenger his life. What if there hadn't been another medical professional on board? How long would the flight attendant have dithered about, making Dr. Cross drag out some kind of ID to satisfy her doubts? The other is a deeper, sadder truth about our judgements and decisions under stress.
I recently attended a fabulous training on racial diversity. The presenter made a point early on of saying that she judges people all the time--in fact she judges them before she's even seen them. She gave the example of making judgements about the people she's hired to train based on where they work, their line of work, where they sit in the room, what they're wearing, etc. Then she pointed out: "Judging people like this is normal, everyone does it. Don't be worried that I'm judging you--be worried if I'm not aware of it."
Of course I do this, too. And I'm sad to say that the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the word "doctor" is a White man. But it's happened to me enough that I am aware of it--that, and other prejudicial, knee-jerk assumptions that lurk in my unconscious mind. When people wonder why it's so important to have diversity in things like the cast of TV shows and movies, or in the characters of novels, this is why. We need to see people of all genders, colors, body types, ages, and sexual orientation in all kinds of life roles.
It's even more important that we see that kind of diversity in real life, which brings us to Affirmative Action...but that's another post. We think that these kinds of superficial, snap-judgement prejudices are relatively harmless. So what if the first thing we think when someone is driving slow is "probably a little old lady," or if we see someone struggling with an ATM we as assume, "must not be from this country?" Now we know what: the doctor on the plane when you're having organ failure might be a little old lady, or might have English as a second language. Fortunately, the signs of heart attack are the same no matter where you are from in the world.
If that flight attendant wasn't aware of how she judged people before this incident occurred, I sincerely hope she's aware of it now. I'm going to keep pushing myself to over-come my own mental stereotypes.
Delta airlines is apparently investigating the incident. Dr. Cross is not responding to media requests for interviews, which is the professional thing to do. She is completing her final year of residency at a hospital, and believe me when I say hospitals do not like their medical staff to be in the news for any reason besides awards. Although many people - including myself - would like to see Dr. Cross speak about her experience on a respectable national news program, keeping silent is definitely the way to go.
The only point on which I disagree with Dr. Cross is on the issue of compensation. According to her Facebook post, she would accept Skymiles as part of the airlines apology. Whereas I intend to never fly Delta again.
*The type who are disinclined to believe in the existence of rampant racism in our society, which is sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle.
No comments:
Post a Comment