A note on race and racism, to the Dept. of Medicine

Dear Colleagues:

The images of the past few weeks – of a Minneapolis police officer killing George Floyd by pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck while he lay face down on a city street; of Ahmaud Arbery, out for a jog, being cornered and shot by white men who couldn’t abide his presence in their neighborhood – are sickening and soul-crushing. The deaths are brutal reminders of the structural and interpersonal racism that is pervasive in today’s America.

These are extraordinary times for all of us, and the layers of sadness and outrage are building up too quickly to fully process. Racism is as old as time, and its current expressions are made even more monstrous by coming at a time of enormous hardship – from a pandemic that has already killed more than 100,000 Americans and nearly 400,000 worldwide; from an economy in freefall; and from leaders who, rather than meeting the challenges with empathy and thoughtful policies, instead choose to stoke division and hatred.

For those of us in positions of privilege, it is easy to believe that we’ll ultimately get back to normal – confident in America’s capacity for scientific innovation and economic resiliency. And then, after we recover, we’ll be free to live our lives as we did before: yes, normal. These horrifying deaths, which capture just the tip of a large iceberg, make clear that a “normal” that assigns segments of our population to a life diminished by bias and colored by anxiety is not one that we can accept.

While we are mourning and protesting the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and the many others who have died of racist violence, we must consider the broader toll of prejudice and injustice in our society. The death numbers from Covid make clear that, while the virus doesn’t discriminate, attitudes and policies do, with far higher death rates in African-Americans, Latinx, and Native Americans. Ageism has also devalued the lives of elders in the pandemic. Moreover, the economic toll is far from equally distributed, with minority groups and women disproportionately affected. In all of these areas, we need to redouble our efforts to root out the prejudice and structural barriers that undervalue the lives of some of our people.

In our own world at UCSF, while we’ve made strides in improving equity and justice, it’s clear that we need to do more. In the face of these killings, we must ask what our black and brown faculty, staff, and trainees are feeling. From the notes I’ve received from several of our faculty, I can see that – even if “I'm OK” is their well-meaning answer to a superficial inquiry – they are not OK. They need more than our empathy – they need our active allyship and advocacy to create opportunities for discussions and collective actions that make things better in our own community and beyond. Our diversity is a core strength, and I will continue to do what I can to value, promote, and celebrate it in our department.

And, of course, we must all vote, and fortify our efforts to get others to do so as well.

I have never seen a sadder time in my life, but I truly believe that deep despair and suffering can turn into opportunities to unlock the status quo; to create long-lasting and systemic change – in policies, attitudes, and what we accept as “normal.” President Barack Obama wrote this week that “we can and must be better.” I will do what I can to be better, and I hope you’ll resolve to do the same.
 

Sincerely,

Robert M. Wachter, MD
Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine
Holly Smith Distinguished Professor in Science and Medicine
Lynne and Marc Benioff Endowed Chair in Hospital Medicine