Holding Each Other Accountable:
Our work towards racial justice.
Black lives always have, and always will, matter. While this is a belief that we all should share, many of us had not begun to do the deeper work that is necessary to actually combat racism, until this summer. The murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were the wake-up call that America as a whole should not have been needed, but did. Millions of people quickly learned that simply self-proclaiming that one is “not racist” is not enough to protect Black Americans from harm, as has been demonstrated countless times. What became clear is that “not being racist” is not enough -- that being actively anti-racist is how real changes are made. In this spirit, we wanted to have these difficult conversations that are decades and centuries overdue, and to put in the time and effort to further racial justice and equity, in our professional lives and beyond.
We have an incredible community within our program, and wanted to utilize the power of “group think” and social accountability to continue anti-racist work. During orientation week, both classes worked together to draft a Community Statement to serve as an outline of our collective beliefs and action items. There were considerations to be made about virtually every aspect of the document; what order of content is best? How explicit should our language be? What should be the scope? What action items are realistic for us? How do we ensure we are not simply virtue signaling? How do we simultaneously support and hold one another accountable? Should this be a public facing document or for our own purposes? Over the following weeks, we continued to brainstorm ways to approach our goal of intentional conversation, meaningful education, and community impact. During fall semester, we did research and recorded podcasts with one another on topics related to race, genetics, and healthcare. We watched The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and discussed systemic exploitation of Black Americans by the medical field and it’s far-reaching implications. We did educational outreach presentations in a primarily Black high school. We read an article detailing experience of minority genetic counseling students in training programs, and discussed how to apply these findings to adapt our own and other genetic counseling programs' cultural competency curriculums. Although this list is not exhaustive, each of these experiences made it more obvious that “racial justice” and “inclusion” are not end-points that we can expect to reach, but ongoing and intentional work.
One thing should be made exceedingly clear: doing this work doesn’t make an individual, or a genetic counseling program, admirable or heroic. It’s work that is centuries late, and is the social responsibility of everyone to contribute towards. As future genetic counselors, lifelong students, educators, and advocates, we consider this to be one step of many towards making healthcare a more inclusive and accessible space for communities of color.
