“From Black to Black”
As noon approached that recent Tuesday, Dr. Stallworth told the team about her exam with a black middle school student with ADHD. He was being bullied by gangs at school in the spring. He changed schools this fall and is happy now, Dr. Stallworth said.
“He was smiling. This was the first time I saw him do that,” Dr. Stallworth said. “There was a funny little kid out there today. I saw it. It was so cool.”
Dr. Lewis spoke up. “Dr. Stallworth, I know you have had many difficult cases,” he said. “I want you to remember this.”
All doctors in the clinic team face racism. Dr. Lewis grew up in an upper-middle-class family in Parkland, Florida. Among his few black peers, his white friends called him “Oreo.” he said: black. “In his high school band, it was a tradition for juniors to give each graduating senior a gift. Dr. Lewis was given a watermelon because “that’s what black people eat,” he recalls.
Dr. Vinson described their first job encounter at a major Atlanta hospital. When an elderly white social worker told her at her meeting that she “felt unsafe,” she said.
“I said, ‘I’m a 5-foot-2 woman, and I’ve never raised my voice against you, used inappropriate language, or threatened you.’ It’s essentially calling me an angry black woman.”
The fourth member of the team, Dr. Joshua Omade, grew up in a middle-class family in Bowie, Maryland. He played rugby and soccer in high school and was big for his age. He was stopped by a police officer in a shopping mall and asked, “Why are you here?” he remembered. He was waiting for his mother to finish shopping.
