EM POC WEEKLY THREAD 11/18/2024
This is home for me.
I love all of my comrades on c/em_poc, but I wanna especially give a huge shoutout to @sweet_pecan@hexbear.net for doing a lot to help me keep my composure. I don't know if they quite realize how much I appreciate them!
Each and every single one of you makes me feel less alone through these struggles, though.
I hope all of you are well!
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How does everyone deal with skepticism of science based healthcare? Not sure if that's the right phrase, but its the only way I can think of describing it. My mom was just talking to me about a naturalist doctor claiming that there was an assassination attempt against them and honestly I don't even know where to start.
I get where some of the skepticism comes from considering the long history of white society using POC as their guinea pigs for medical advancements. And the fact that in the West, especially in the US, healthcare is more about profit than it is about actually helping people doesn't help. At the same time I feel like people take the skepticism too far and no matter what I've tried to say in the past about individual healthcare providers not being the problem, but rather the system that encourages profit over health people still fall back on their skepticism.
There was like a survey done that found a find number of nurses and doctors that believed that black people have higher pain tolerance than white people
I remember that or a similar study.
Shit sucks because it feels like there's no in between. Just full on dehumanization on one end and dangerous misinformation in the other. Like I myself have some of that skeptcisim, especially when it come to mental health, but its grounded in history and studies such as the one that you mentioned.
my friends all think im crazy for being afraid of doctors. hate alternative medicine more tho
Most of my family is the opposite. Big on natural and alternative medicine. Nothing wrong with that, but the way they completely disregard everything else is a bit bothersome.
I'm most comfortable talking to my mom about it, but when I talk about all the systemic issues around healthcare she just goes back to blaming individuals and talking the type of shit that I hear from right wingers. But IDK... Maybe I shouldn't let it bother me as much as it does.
I mean its pretty reasonable to be at least a bit bothered
Itβs a complicated question.
Like I said before, my family has had a history of disabilities, from schizophrenia to leukemia.
My entire family has had varying opinions and reactions when it came to healthcare in general.
In my culture there was a traditional βvillage doctorβ who would some of my family members would go to, but others explicitly rejected or did not think it works. There are also those that only go for βofficially sanctionedβ religious treatments. Many would visit a standard clinic or hospital as well and sometimes a mixture of all 3.
Our family had cases where one refused to take their prescribed medicines for schizophrenia, or other stuff and it became a whole process to ensure that they start taking it again.
Itβs easy to say but the scepticism really just requires a lot of communal and familial involvement at an individual level. People will trust those that they are familiar with. In terms of policy that would mean heavy investment in community-level health clinics and other related policies.
It obviously should bother you, because you are thinking they are not doing what it is in their best interests, but in the end we have to meet them where they are at and slowly chip away at their resistance. It definitely will not be easy.