From Non-Racist to Anti-Racist: My Personal Journey

I am writing to share my personal journey from a self-identified non-racist to a ‘woke white privileged’ anti-racist. It has been a long, difficult journey that involved searching my heart, my beliefs, my unconscious behaviors and finding how I had inadvertently harmed others. I invite you to share my vulnerability and start or continue this journey in your own life.

I am an 85-year-old progressive minded white person. Most of my life I was certain I was completely non-racist. I always tried to use politically correct language, even before “politically correct” became a buzz phrase. I assumed my own good intentions toward all people included people of color, and I might even have said “I don’t see color” with pride. The idea of systemic racism had no meaning to me, and it took years before I could see how I had contributed to it throughout my life.

I grew up in Chicago and started my nursing career in a three-year hospital-based diploma program. I felt pride that the first person of color ever admitted to this school of nursing was in our class. I still remember her name, although not many others. I don’t know if she had a single friend in school, and lived in a private room in the dorm.

I picked up a lot of race-based attitudes from my family, who saw the Black migration to Chicago as a threat to white people. There was a lot of fear and anger as large numbers of African-Americans migrated to the city. Housing was the sharp point of the anger, especially on the South Side. The process in Chicago was when one Black person bought a house, usually far above market value, the rest of the block homeowners quickly put their houses up for sale before the market value dropped. Block by block, the word would pass as the migration moved forward. I lived on the North Side of Chicago, but my South Side relatives were enraged as “Black blocks” moved closer and closer to their homes. In short order, they sold and moved to a suburb, perfect examples of White Flight. Hopelessness, anger, rage, and a sense of superiority based on their whiteness became their self-identity.

This was occurring in my teens and early twenties and although I did not agree with the angry fear and the derogatory, demeaning, and ugly words of my relatives, I was confused about my own beliefs. I went to Catholic schools all through my education up to and including Nurses Training. I was indoctrinated in a belief system that did not support denigrating a population because of their skin color. Yet, I saw the Catholic Church do nothing to mitigate the terrible discrimination and hateful attitudes the white population of Chicago had toward the Black population. I eventually identified myself as non-racist.

My amazing career, for which I feel deeply grateful, with accomplishments in both education and experience lulled me into believing I was non-judgmental. This self-perception was not challenged until just a couple of years ago. I was one of those liberal minded white people who kept saying “I wish I knew and had friendships with some people of color.” I said this again and again but never took action to make it happen until I met and became friends with an African American nurse named TS. As our friendship grew, we began to have serious talks about racial inequities throughout society, health disparities, and other related issues. We then started taking small steps together to address various issues.

For several years before I met TS I had been hosting nursing salons at my house to create opportunities for conversations that matter to nurses. As our friendship evolved TS started coming frequently. When she was there the conversation often moved into issues regarding racial disparities in nursing and in health care. I began to learn about and understand the meaning of the term systemic racism and became more and more motivated to do something. TS and I started working together to secure a scholarship to provide additional funding for students of color at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing.

Another part of my awakening had to do with my connection to the University of Minnesota School of Nursing. My interest in history resulted in a service commitment on my part to be very active on the Heritage Committee. This committee is comprised of several volunteer alumnae responsible for managing and promoting multiple aspects and materials relating to the history of the school. In that capacity, I began to delve into the story of the first Black nurse to graduate from the School of Nursing. Frances Mchie was first denied admission because of her skin color. After being ordered by the legislature to accept her as a University student she was denied housing because of a University policy not allowing ‘colored’ students to live in a white student’s dorm. I was surprised, angry and disappointed that within the proud tradition of this amazing and beloved School of Nursing, this act of prejudicial discrimination had occurred. Learning of the Mchie incident led me down a dark path of learning about what systemic racism looked like nearly 100 years ago. Around the same time I attended a lecture at the University on implicit bias. This was one of the first times I realized there was something I needed to change about my worldview. As my friendship with TS continued, my awareness grew, and more opportunities to grow became available. As an alum I was invited to a seminar about racism sponsored by the School of Nursing. This helped me see other aspects of racism, especially as nurses of color attending the lecture told their lived experience of micro and macro aggressions. At the same time, I began hearing about current students of color experiencing microaggressions and subtle forms of negative judgements based on their skin color. These examples of current discriminatory interactions were disheartening and confusing to me. The School of Nursing leadership clearly and explicitly valued diversity, equity, and inclusivity and yet...

The biggest breakthrough was stirred in me when TS and I decided to offer a nursing salon for ‘Nurses of Color.’ We hosted it in my home; I was the only white person there. Like I always do for a salon I cooked and served dinner. We started with the check-in question of “What have you experienced as a nurse of color in your work?” As the nurses discussed their answers to this question, they described experiences of being passed over for promotions, constant micro aggressions from their peers and colleagues as well as from the patients. As I sat in my living room while the attendees ate the dinner I had prepared, I experienced being A DIFFERENT COLOR. I, and sometimes they commented on that. It was a wholly different experience for them and for me, an experience they almost always had, especially related to their careers, and that I was having for the first time. After about eight of these salons, I felt a definite shift in myself at a very deep level. I saw how the system is racist.

I became deeply conscious of my own implicit bias throughout my life and felt a deep need to apologize to the group and accept responsibility for my part in their discrimination. I wanted to apologize for all of white peoples’ behavior over the last four centuries. I felt an apology was not enough. I needed to take actions to make reparations and could only do so by accepting my personal responsibility to do everything I could to dismantle systemic and all forms of racism. I ‘got it’ that only white people can dismantle systemic racism. People of color cannot fix this problem. They did nothing to create it. White people designed, own and operate these systems, thus it falls completely on people with white skin to eliminate systemic racism.

Doing so requires courage. For this kind of action can be fearsome and fear requires courage. The fear can be as minimal as “people won’t like me” to “I could lose my job” to as strong as “if I anger someone I might get hurt.” Some of these fears are based on real-world paradigms and some of them are the product of our imagination. Any actions an individual takes to dismantle racism needs to be done thoughtfully and as tactfully as possible.

Let us en-courage (give courage to) our colleagues, friends, and family to join us in the work to eliminate systemic racism from the United States—four hundred years is enough.