Race Relations under BO

This week I was on call and was called into the hospital in the middle of the night to consult on a patient who was having an emergent problem breathing. He bit his tongue and the entire tongue swelled to the point where it was blocking his ability to breath. When I arrived at the bedside in the intensive care unit there was a Filipino nurse an Indian hospitalist, an Arabic respiratory therapist, an African American anesthesiologist and me, a white Jewish guy. This is truly a remarkable collection of disparate ethnicities that were brought together that night. Almost every corner of the globe was represented that night, assembled to save the life of this man. The truth is nobody in that room cared about the sex, color, religion, or age of the other people. Especially the patient didn't care, he just wanted us to do our best to help him.

When I arrived there I saw the anesthesiologist who was trying to help this man. I have known him for several years and is one of the best anesthesiologists I have ever worked with. I was incredibly relieved knowing that he, in particular, was there as we worked together to save this man. His skin color never was or is a factor in our working relationship. We respect each others ability to do our jobs as we aim to help our patients. We look at each other and we look past the superficial. When I look at him I do not see a black anesthesiologist, I see an extremely competent professional, an excellent anesthesiologist. This patient was very lucky to have had this anesthesiologist on call that night. The two of us live in a post-racial world where we judge each other not by color but by our abilities.

This episode stands in contrast to what I am reading in the newspaper and seeing on the television. The comments by Jimmy Carter that opposition to BO's health care is racially motivated. The questions of Barbara Boxer to Harry Alford about his taking a position not in line with the black caucus. The recent discovery that BO's czar Van Jones believed white people were intentionally polluting black communities. All these are making race relations worse. BO was supposed to be healing racial tensions but I believe instead things are getting worse. Certain people in both parties cannot get past the color thing. One might expect more from the dems as they are the party that supposedly represents most African Americans. But every time they bring up the race card they show they are just as fixated by color and cannot see past peoples skin.

We will never live in a post racial world as long as every time someone opposes a position by BO they are called racists. How are we supposed to have a democratic system if your motives are questioned whenever you disagree with a position held by someone of the opposite sex, different color, or another religion. Fortunately for that patient the other night, many of us do live in a post racial world and see each other as colleagues and partners. We work together as equals to perform for our patients. We see past the amount of melanin in our skin. We in the real world have made great progress in this regard while the government and politicians cannot and may in fact be contributing to undermining this progress.

We all thought that having an African American president would be great for the country. Even if we didn't believe in his policies it would demonstrate that we are past the whole race thing that we could elect a black president. Unfortunately, I believe the legacy will be that race relations will worsen under his administration. There are just too many people white AND black that just cannot see past skin color.