Mixed Nuts

At first site one would be hard pressed to see the connection between Michael Richard’s rant and health disparities. On a closer look the connection seems a little more obvious, at least to some.

What happened on stage at the Laugh Factory shocked America. However, American public had been getting a taste of all this throughout the year. The opening salvo was fired by Mel Gibson with his movie that suspiciously reeked of anti-Semitic motives according to some. If there were any doubts about his ulterior motives they were summarily confirmed when he got arrested and went on an allegedly anti-Semitic tirade with a police officer.

But these were people affected by alcohol or anger with “impaired judgment”. How about politicians who are known not to open up readily and are known to choose their words carefully. One would think that the days of Dixieland are gone with Strom Thurmond. Remember Trent Lot who got a little too comfy at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. His apology was not enough and he had to resign as the majority whip. Similarly, the infamous macaca incident involving George Allen was enough to sink his political ship.

However, the Kramer incident has many people asking the question: Where did all that come from? For some especially from the African American community, the answer is simple. It was there all along. For others it is more of an anomaly, a failure of a single person and not the whole system. A recent article in TIME named “The Kramer in All of Us” asks some difficult questions. It points out the all-too-familiar “offense-contrition-comeback cycle” that is becoming a hallmark of incidents like these. Another article raises a very interesting point. According to Tabitha Dell Angelo, Michael Richards actions are being judged by consequences and not intent.

According to her:

“As I am writing, it is becoming clear what he really looks like. His expression reminds me of a small child who was caught doing something wrong. Just as young children judge “wrongness” by the consequences and not the intent of the actions, Richards is responding to the consequences more than the intent. We must remember though that this is a very immature expression of morality. As we get older, have more experiences, dare I say, “grow up”, we learn to reason in a morally advanced way. Richards has not learned to do this yet.”

I agree with this observation. This observation is important because of two reasons: first, this attitude of averting difficult racial issues prevents us from addressing them and second if we do talk about these issues we are more focused on risk management strategies rather than real remedies. We still have not been able to decide whether institutional racism is a true phenomenon or a figment of our imaginations and biases.

As a physician and as a student of public health I am always interested in learning about the impact of racial attitudes on health disparities. On a bigger scale and more relevant to our discussion is the question: do these attitudes have any bearing on institutions like health care and justice? If (some) actors and politicians harbor these ideas then are there (some) medical health professionals, researchers and administrators that do the same? Does it impact health disparities in any meaningful way?

For a society that is led to believe through news, media and ads that race in America is a rapidly healing wound these occasional abrasions remind us of a slightly different reality.

See the video below.
This video may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube’s user community.