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How do I respond to suspicions from a hostile culture?
Working at the hospital admissions desk, I have to deal with suspicions all the time, though I would hardly classify them as pertaining to the culture. Rather, the times when people assume that I am treating them unjustly due to their race, it is always an individual claiming an injustice.
While I do not for an instant believe that these injustices do not exist, it often seems to me that these people put on the injured mantle of their culture for their own personal gain, to lend credence to their complaints that might seem petty otherwise. I will return to this vein of thought in a bit, as I answer the aforementioned question of what I do to respond.
I do unto others exactly what I would have done unto myself. I tell the truth as it IS, I remain calm, and I do not resort to anger or statements that merely put off what the affronted party claim. When I deal with these suspicions, it is largely at work. I work at the admissions desk at the hospital and it is there that race is often brought up by someone who unfortunately has to wait for the emergency room services. The hostile individuals that I encounter are Native Americans, due in large part to the fact that we treat just as many Native Americans as others, because of the location of the hospital, and the quality of care that we have. I keep calm when they become upset about this, and explain it to them as I would to a person of my own race. I explain that the emergency room sees patients based on severity, and that nurses might have to take longer to get to the less severe cases. I explain to them why it might be taking so long, and do my best to represent the truth.
This is exactly what I do to the(pardon the bluntness of the phrase) white people who complain of the same wait. I do the EXACT same thing. The difference is that they do not assume that it is due to race that they are waiting. They just resort to swearing when they cannot get their way.
This brings me to the point that I left off earlier. This is not a race issue, but a practical one. If someone has a cold or flu, and then someone comes in with a heart attack, which one should be seen first? Of course, everyone will say heart attack patient. What I do not understand is why certain members of the race must always search for insult to their skin color when this occurs. It is NOT skin color, but how things operate in a logical world.
I would believe that this is a race issue if everyone of the native american culture was forced to wait regardless of their affliction. I would believe the claims that the hospital is being racist if a white person with a cold was taken in before a native american with a heart attack. The fact that niether of these occurs, or to the best of my knowledge has occurred when I’ve worked defeats the notion that it is a racially motivated action that causes the wait.
This brings me to my main gripe with these individuals: because of their constant belief that when something doesn’t go correctly it is because of their race, they are injuring their culture’s attempts at repatriation, or reconcilliation. There are needs to address problems that are caused by racism, and hostile relations, and these are indeed caused by racism and it is needed to be pointed out. But these people who claim that it is race at every insult whether real or perceived, are causing a situation much like the boy who cried wolf. Too many times this is claimed, and it hurts the credibility when the real threat of racism rears its ugly head.
Because so often it has been called racism when circumstances do not work in one’s favor, the entire culture suffers. When it actually is a racist event, then the culture who makes the case lacks the weight it would have had otherwise. I realize that I am a bit off the path of what I do when encountering a hostile culture, but I feel this point needs to be made. There would be more sympathy and readiness to reconcile our differences if it weren’t for certain individuals who cry racism whenever they don’t get their own way.