An Apology For Nothing

The American Medical Association (AMA) has issued a public apology for its collaboration in the establishment of policies of institutionalized racial disparity that helped to prevent many African Americans from pursuing careers as physicians. The way a lot of people like to tell America’s history no one has done anything to keep black people from getting ahead since slavery was abolished. While white people were free to become physicians black people had to deal with artificial barriers because some white person had their head up their ass. The domino effect from this policy robbed the black community of prestige, wealth, the ability to take responsibility for itself, and a host of other problems that continue to reverberate through the black community to this day. The theory that black people just have to make the decision not to be victims in order to not be victims really doesn’t hold much water when an institution like the AMA, an institution that has the sole responsibility for developing doctors here in America, admits it was actively doing its best to injure the black community long after slavery was done.

The AMA’s confession and apology is more evidence that racial disparity is alive and well. Many people will make a somewhat vociferous gasp and feign surprise and tepid horror over the fact that an institution firmly supported by the racially generic dominant community that is predominantly white admits that it was as racially corrupt as they come. But then these same people will say that black people need to just get over the blatant racial disparity because no one is doing anything to keep people from the black community from getting ahead. Black people need to learn to put the past in the past and leave it behind. Black people who constantly see racism are little more than bitter holdouts of a bygone era.

However, all we have to do is look around and see that this country is far from being racially equal. We see disparity every time we take note of the percentage of the black population in America and compare that number to the percentage of black doctors in America, the percentage of black scientist in America, the percentage of black billionaires and millionaires in America, the percentage of black corporate executives in America, the percentage of black actors are put across our television and movie screens, the percentage of black television shows that dignify the black experience and doesn’t simply limit black people as caricatures to be laughed at for their buffoonery. We see the racial disparity when we see the number of black people paraded across the television news as thugs and criminals. We see the racial disparity when we see the percentage of black people who don’t have access to basic legal maneuverings in order to stay out of some form of incarceration. We see this disparity when we see the number of black people who cannot obtain quality healthcare and have to wait until their condition becomes critical and visit the local emergency room. If we bother to look with an honest eye we will see evidence of racial disparity all around us in our every day lives.

People will point to the AMA confession as an awful exception instead of an indication of the racial rule in America. Most of us are more than happy to think it is just a coincidence that black people just happen to be, without any exception, on the shitty end of any social measuring stick when we are compared to our white counterparts. We like to convince ourselves that the black community refuses to take responsibility for its perpetual condition of supposed inferiority. If black people would just stop blaming white people for slavery everything would be so much better for us.

But the reality is that despite how much we will turn the other cheek or how much we forget the past of our ancestors or how much we keep trying to use our boot strap or how much we keep on keeping on or how much we stop blaming white people for slavery or how much we do all the other simple sound bites of rhetoric that way too many people say we need to do, the fact of the matter is that there are people who have actually instituted policies and procedures that are designed to keep black people in a perpetual state of subjugation. And when we do find these policies and procedures, when white people’s discrimination is finally exposed to the light of day like the rotting carcass of a centuries old vampire, will the dominant society do anything to correct the injury and try to make the black community whole? Hell no! That would be too unfair to the white community that has been benefiting from the racial disparity since forever. It’s better to stop looking at racism altogether and keep the status quo. Otherwise, we would be opening ourselves up to suffer the injustice of reverse discrimination.

Regardless of how anyone cares to look at this whole sordid matter, the black community is damned if the racism is exposed, and we are certainly damned if it’s not. The racially generic dominant community will insist that there is nothing despite the evidence to the contrary. The AMA apology means nothing because racism does not exist. And even if it did or does or whatever it doesn’t matter because to do anything about it would constitute reverse discrimination.