Dear Black SPT (Student Physical Therapist)
Dear Black SPT,
You are not alone. I am writing to you about some of the challenges I faced as a minority student physical therapist (SPT). Even if you are not specifically in school for physical therapy, if you are a professional of any kind, I have a feeling you might be able to relate.
In 2015, I got accepted to the University of Miami just a few weeks after I interviewed. I was so impressed by my interview experience that I denied my acceptance to my top 3 programs and began making plans to move from Atlanta to Miami. After all of the headache caused by researching schools and navigating the PTCAS application system, I was confident that I had chosen a program in a culture filled city that championed diversity and service.
As a black student, diversity among my peers is a feature of community that I am naturally drawn to. It's always more comfortable knowing that you’re not the "only one". My University of Miami (UM) interview was the most diverse interview out of the four I attended; even more so than my beloved alma mater, Georgia State University, which is one of the most diverse PWIs (predominantly white institutions) in the United States[1]. Yet, as diverse as the UM interview was, there were still only 3 black students present -- including myself. So you can imagine how the other interviews must have been, where I was most definitely the "only one".
After accepting my offer to attend the University of Miami I was finally added to the University of Miami Class of 2019 Facebook group! Time to look for new roomies. Naturally, the first thing I did was look to see if there were any other black students. In the black community, we are fully aware that the higher we achieve, the less of “us” there will be. I was following my natural instincts, looking for my other "brothas and sistas" in the program - and there were none. I wasn't worried. It was early, students were still interviewing, and there was plenty more time for students to be added to the group! After checking the Facebook group religiously, just a few weeks before school began I was shocked to see only two other black women were added to the group, and not a single black man.
Surprisingly all hope was not lost. The weekend before class started, a brotha finally got added to the Facebook group! By this time I had already connected with one of the black women in my class and I immediately messaged her the fantastic news. Both of us were in committed relationships, so we weren't excited for any type of prospective dating opportunities. Rather we were excited for the simple fact that one of our strong black men was here at this ‘Top 10 Physical Therapy Program’ with us. It was kind of a big deal, considering only 3% of applicants accepted through PTCAS were black males for the 2015-2016 cycle[2]. We were so excited to meet him.
It's a hectic process to find out you are accepted to your first pick PT program just days before class starts. Naturally, I kept an eye out to see if he would need any help. It wasn't long before I realized he wasn't having much luck finding a fellow student to crash with for orientation on Monday. My "it takes a village" instincts kicked in, and I immediately got clearance from my new roommates for him to stay with us that night. I wasn't going to leave him out there like that. In reality he was a stranger, but that day he became a brother. Without knowing him, I still knew I had to have his back. It felt like my responsibility. Can anybody relate?
So then there were four! Four outstanding, black, young professionals ready to trail blaze in the physical therapy profession. We established a group message that we cleverly named “The Complexion Connection" . Although it is a funny and cute name for a friend group, it also represents a groundbreaking truth. We were four individuals, knowing nothing about each other prior to physical therapy school. However, the one thing we have in common, our melanin, united us in a special way. Ironically, I couldn't help but notice that all of us had some inherent fear about our classmates misinterpreting our unity as negative, dangerous, or threatening. There were many times when we would discuss among ourselves what our classmates and faculty might think about us always taking pictures together. How should we pose? Should we post them? Is it ok to take a picture with the black guest speaker? Are they going to think we are trying to start trouble?
I honestly don't know the answer to the latter question -- I hope the answer is no. Where did this hesitation come from? Perhaps from all of the black leaders who came before us that dared to stand together in unity and were persecuted and criminalized. Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, and Rosa Parks - all were black intellectuals who had a knack for bringing black people together in confidence, but also found themselves labeled as a threat to society and public peace. Is it possible that through their examples we learned that coming together in the skin we are in sends some type of threatening message to the society we live in? Even in PT school?
The anxiety I felt about being judged for taking a “complexion connection” photo for Instagram pales in comparison to the feeling I would get after hearing all of the black statistics slide after slide during the majority of lectures given in physical therapy school. What are the black statistics, you ask? You know the ones:
"BLACKS have the lowest life expectancy compared to all other racial ethnic groups."
"BLACKS have higher incidence than whites in heart failure, hypertension, and stroke cases."
"BLACK WOMEN are 4x more likely than white women to contract HIV."
And the list goes on….
I can't be mad at the statistics; they are what they are. Many black students and young black professionals, including myself, have probably experienced the unspoken psychological stress that accompanies the feeling that YOU represent the entire black community for your non-black peers. I noticed that I experienced a similar thought process every time the black statistics were read aloud through the nervous crackling voice of the professor. It always seemed like the word "BLACK" would ring extra long in my ear. My heart rate would rise, because I wanted so badly to stand up and defend my culture's "health crisis". I would wonder to myself: I hope my classmates don't see all black people like this. Yes I am black a woman - NO I DO NOT HAVE HIV. I often wondered when the lecture would ever highlight WHY black people seem to be so afflicted when it comes to health. Are we going to bother talking about the history of this country and why it seems black people are living such a sad story?
That day finally came the summer of my 3rd year in PT school during a lecture on health disparities. The professor was describing some of the reasons why some black people do not trust the health care system and therefore do not receive adequate health care. She briefly mentioned the "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" with no further explanation and continued with the lecture. My heart sank. Maybe she didn't know, but we [the black students] knew how unaware many of our classmates were about this powerful example of the injustice black people have experienced in health care. We needed them to hear and understand this too - because ALL OF US can be a part of the solution, if we are willing to educate ourselves on the reality of racism in America’s health system.
This lecture was already alive for us [the black students], because we live it daily - our families live it. I wanted this lecture to come alive for my classmates too. I wanted them to know that health disparity isn't just some theory you have to know about in lecture. It is a very real phenomenon caused by a deliberate and purposeful racial system established by this country that has afflicted black people for DECADES. Just before it was too late, one of my fellow sistas bravely raised her hand and politely asked the professor to elaborate on the topic for "those who may not be aware". When the professor wasn’t able to fully explain the impact of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to our peers, my sista courageously assisted her and took on the task to explain in detail the impact of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment on black Americans. I was so proud of her and thankful to her for standing up for us. (To learn more about the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment click here.)
It takes guts to do what she did. It's in those moments that you swallow the temptation to just "let it go", and speak out in hopes that allowing your classmates to hear about a small piece of the black experience from your perspective opens up a new perspective for them. You hope that it resonates with them in the clinic, and that some black patient has a more positive experience because of it. You hope that their concerns are truly heard, that they are fully acknowledged as a whole human being, and that they are respected. And not just by the black health care professionals, but by every health care professional in their plan of care. Yes - all of that is going through my mind in those moments. I wonder if it's just me?
I would like to conclude this summary of my experiences with a public service announcement about the term 'black excellence'. I discovered for the first time in PT school that this term was offensive to some of my white peers. However, I believe there is no need for anyone, black or non-black, to draw any offense from it. In a nutshell, the word combo "black excellence" is a term that represents the positive expression of the progress black people have made in this country.
You see, this United States of America never intended for black people to be successful or excellent at anything. We were simply viewed as a means to an end, subhuman, and disposable. We were brought here from the shores of Africa as labor tools used to propel the success of white men and women - nothing more. We were deprived of education, family structure, self-identity, and any other component of what makes a "successful" person today. That is why when we do things, like get accepted into PT school, make straight A's, and accept promotions in important leadership roles, we caption the moments with "black excellence". It doesn't mean that we are more excellent than anyone who isn't black. It just means that we are, and always have been capable of being excellent in spite of being reared in a society that is determined to convince us otherwise.
As you may have noticed through this public letter, I have finally released the fear of expressing my experiences as a black student. I fully understand the consequences of writing something like this. I don't expect this to be my most popular or successful blog post. But I have learned that there is nothing to gain by suffering in silence alone. After all, I am black. That is a fact. My experiences in the United States of America and all of its institutions and organizations will be remarkably different than my non-black peers. Therefore, if I truly desire to be understood and no longer have black unity and brown skin viewed as an immediate threat to society, then why not get comfortable with discussing my experiences with my peers instead of hiding in fear about what they might think - pretending that they don't exist.
Signed,
Your fellow black student physical therapist.
Written circa July 2017.
References
1. https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/georgia-state-university/student-life/diversity/
2. https://www.jmu.edu/pph/prept/_files/PTCASApplicantDataRpt%2015-16.pdf
