Dear Black Voices
Questions for those with, and from one without, perspective.
Here’s what I know with certainty
Systemic racism, anti-Black bias, and white privilege exist and are prevalent in the US. The Black experience in the United States is something that no one who hasn’t lived it can understand.
Dear white readers who want to argue about this … please be quiet and listen.
An abbreviated timeline of Black medicine in the US
Dr. James Durham was born into slavery. He was owned by several doctors and eventually bought his freedom. He practiced medicine for 18 years. In 1788 Dr. Benjamin Rush, a prominent white physician, read the paper that Dr. Durham wrote on diphtheria to the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. Dr. Durham was not allowed to present his own paper, because he was Black.
In 1801 Dr. Durham was forced to shut down his practice because he did not have a medical degree. The rest of his life and his death remain a mystery.
Side Note: Encyclopedia.com called the years Durham spent serving his slave masters an “apprenticeship”. That is what we mean when we say white washed history.
