"Could it be that despite all the years I spent in medical school and residency training, acquiring specialised knowledge and practical skills, that this expertise mattered little to my patients' overall health?" lamented Damon Tweedy in his 'A doctor's Reflection on Race and Medicine'. Similar statements made by late Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela and even Jackie Robinson compel me to see eye to eye with Damon. This unending chain of arguments and affirmations links to the kernel of the problem itself: discrimination on the basis of color.
The visions of the black man are continuously choked and his voice silenced. Despite the many young and beautiful innovations emitted, the black identity has been made wallow in oblivion and obscurity. If the wild dreams of Ronald MnNair, Bessie Coleman and Alexa Canady, among others, were successfully veiled or stolen by our racial counterparts, who knows if America would still be wet behind the ears or the world up the creek? This menace might result in overall underdevelopment if not nipped in the bud.
This syndrome has also refused to erase itself from the educational space. Apart from the generous scholarships and elite alumni body they provide, why do so many black talents prefer to cuddle in the warmth of a HBCU? Later in the same documentary, Tweedy goes on to explain: "The stereotype of black intellectual inferiority was so ingrained that for a black person to do as well as, or better than, the whites or Asians, they had to be "exceptionally bright" - earnest administrations and condensations wrapped in the same package." This along with the numerous trifles of blacks at PWIs simply answer that. It is most disheartening that this practice is also rippled in the job sector as well.
Moreover, it is unfortunate that colored people still tend to be the future's slaves - instead of the technology illiterates. As projected in Nikyatu Jusu's 'Nanny' and even the biography of Malcolm X, we are still seen as the unlettered niggas of old. Airing opinions on public issues and even living a good life is not applauded.
I consider racial discrimination the most pressing global issue for reasons more than explained above. In the absence of any substantial reason for this baseless bias, I join Robert Smalls to say: "My race needs no special defence, for past history of them in this country proves them to be equal to any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life."
It is high time that our color is fully embraced!
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