Why is my pain not enough for a doctor to recognize it as such? Pain is something that is subjected to the eye, if you see it, you acknowledge it. “On that looks like it hurts.” But if it comes from within you are “dramatic,” “wasting time,” and “you need to get over it.” The pain you can’t see is most likely going to be overlooked by others, by medical professionals, and even by yourself. The chronic pain millions of people around the world are dealing with not with the help of a medical professional but on their own because their pain is not legitimate enough for a doctor’s visit is discouraging. Not only that but looking at the pain that goes untreated based off of race is disgusting and still plays off with the medical myth that people with darker skin have “thicker” skin. The racism that is rooted within our medical system has caused millions of people to die due to negligence. I commonly see on the internet a black person reaching out to a medical professional for help just for the doctor to do a whole 360 and say that the patient is “lying” or “they just want drugs.” These types of interactions with the same people that are supposed to be saving lives deter so many minorities especially black people from going to the doctors.

 From personal experience and growing up with my grandmother who lived through Jim Crow and seen the evil that society can radiate from the cracks of the foundation that was created by those who society hates, and I say hate because even though we have taken steps to achieve equality, we are still not yet equal and are still being treated like it’s the 50s. My grandmother would talk about the nasty things the doctors would do, and you could forget about chronic pain because if you can’t see it, you can’t treat it. White doctors only understanding white bodily issues because with all the experimenting they were doing on black people they, of course, forgot to include how our symptoms look different than white peoples in the medical journals. Or how black women are dropping like flies if they dare to give birth in a hospital. What is crazy is that people will treat black people (minorities) so cruel and harsh and delegitimize their pain but then wonder why they aren’t coming in for checkups or wondering why they question a vaccinee that was made by the same government that ran unethical experiments on people like them. It is a lot of distrust that is spilling over from generation to generation and if it does not get fixed then a lot of people are going to get hurt or worse.

We cannot continue to blindly support a medical system that is rooted in racism and biases because these ideologies and teachings are being just that taught to every generation of doctors that comes. People should not be hesitant or have to be afraid to come to the doctors because of skepticism in medicine because it can cost them their lives.