That’s it. Enough said.
Just Kidding. I have a lot to say on this. As a Black woman, seeking mental and physical health care is difficult and taxing, as I have found most care providers pass a Brown paper bag test (if you don’t know what that is, you have reading to do). It is challenging to find care providers that can truly see you and hold space for you. In many circumstances, Black women find themselves in informal positions of providing care, whether as mothers, girlfriends, wives, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, or friends. Black woman often bare the burden of the unhealthy family systems.
As I have combed through a number of medical science textbooks in preparation for medical school, the absence of Black female representation, both autobiographical and visual, is noticable. Many casual readers may not notice this absence, as the invisibility and subjugation of Black women is very normalized. This overt and disrespectful invalidation can feel heavy and make one weary.
My Medical Assisting textbook had a very short paragraph on the “History of Medicine”– not aptly named ‘conventional’ medicine,or ‘Western medicine’, but “Medicine”, broadly. The author credited the foundation of ‘medicine’ to one, European man: Hippocrates, an ancient, Greek physician, and named the clinical education of Johns Hopkins, a distinctly White man, as “superior”.
This biased authorship is unacceptable and harmful to nations of the developing world and global south, as it excludes and erases the contributions of African, East Asian, South (East) Asian, Arab/Middle Eastern, Hawaiian & Polynesian, as well as, West Indian, Central and South American, and Native American and Canadian scientists and medical practitioners. Do you see how that is problematic?
Modern medicine, as it is practiced in Western and conventional settings is incredibly exclusionary, prejudiced, and discriminatory. It is foundationally colorist, prioritizing the comfort, care, and recognition of Whiteness and White people above all else.
As I have searched for ‘healing’ in my Chemistry and Biology texts, I have found that the ‘healing’ is not in the texts, sciences, and practices that have upheld White Supremacy for generations, but in the representation and care of millions of Black and brown people who have been silenced and misrepresented for centuries by the agenda of White Supremacy.
With regards to the Black family, I have found little evidence to support that the current scope of practice in American family therapy is effective for Black families and the issues that effect Black families, as many mainstream therapeutic dialogues and practices do not recognize the racial, social, and cultural dynamics that interplay in these systems nor can provide adequate resources to resolve unhealthy dynamics.
That’s all for now!
Ashley C.
Earnest Supplication 
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