"I would unite with anybody to do right and nobody to do wrong." – Frederick Douglass (left)
America is on the verge of doing something it has never done. If you believe the polls, there is a rising likelihood that this country will elect a President self-identified as African-American. If it happens, it will have taken 232 years for a person "of color" to accomplish such a feat. The very possibility of Barack Obama's election shines a spotlight on America's long history of discrimination.
Discrimination of any kind interferes with good caregiving. The same spotlight that illuminates Obama's potential triumph also reminds us of the way in which our health care system has, in the past, discriminated against minorities in medical treatment. Most of us know the sad, early history of the treatment of the mentally ill, the disabled, and racial and national minorities not to mention the marginalization of the poor, of rape victims, and of women.
How can a country grounded in principles of equality have such a history of bias? In one word, the answer is fear. Ignorance no doubt fed this fear. In an effort to accomplish dominance, European-American males have traditionally found "reasons" to achieve control of this country by demeaning others they feared might take control away from them. 
Why else would women be denied the vote until 1920? Why else would white-run American medical schools refuse to grant admission to James McCune Smith,(left) a brilliant caregiver of the 19th century, driving Smith to a Scottish Medical School. There, Smith received his medical degree and did an internship in Paris before returning to the United States to become America's first black M.D. (in 1837.)
It took twelve more years for Elizabeth Blackwell (left) to become America's first female M.D. (in 1849 )Imagine the number of women and other minorities, before and since, who never considered a career as a physician because they feared discrimination!
This essay is not about the politics of this presidential election. It is about the need for justice in the administration of American healthcare. Prior discrimination in America's professional schools blocked capable people from careers in healthcare. Prior discrimination against patients has caused untold suffering.
Sadly, discrimination continues to this very day. When anyone of us is weakened by illness or injury we become vulnerable to marginalization by those who are strong. The moment we are reclassified as someone with cancer or AIDS, we are at risk for being condescended to as objects of pity and disdain. How often have you heard some voice in your head telling you that you are "better" than someone who is an alcoholic or who suffers from schizophrenia?
Why does this matter? Because our attitudes so often affect our behavior. Frederick Douglass offered to "unite with anybody to do right." But, only a small percentage of Americans in Douglass' time could see past his skin color to recognize his genius. What remarkable Presidents Frederick Douglass or Susan B. Anthony would have made. Imagine the medical breakthroughs that might have occurred if the doors of medicine had been opened immediately to all based on ability, not on color or gender or nationality or any other such foolishness.
Caregiving needs justice. Only Love can guide us to give the same quality of care to a homeless alcoholic that we would want for our mothers. Only Love can provide us with the patience to deal with patients so addled by Alzheimer's that they are unable to remember us from one moment to the next.
Only Love can enable us to live as true healers. That is why we must always seek to live Love, not fear.
How do you deal with discrimination and injustice when you see it? How do you encounter the voices within you that may incite you to bias?
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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