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By RENEE STOVSKY

Fifty years after the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s rousing "I Have a Dream" speech, racism in the U.S. may be more covert than overt, but it still exists.

St. Dominic Health Services, located in Jackson, Miss. — a ground zero for the civil rights struggle of the 1960s — aims to eradicate racism in all of its forms. Its antiracism team, a diverse, 24-member group representing various departments and facilities in the hospital system, was formed in September 2012 as part of a long-term catalyst for cultural, moral and social change.

 
And though the team, after extensive training, is barely beyond formulating a strategic plan, it already has identified many examples of racism, whether intended or not, in health care settings. For example:

• Many hospitals give complimentary toiletry kits, consisting of shampoo, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste and combs, to their patients. Yet some of the products — especially shampoos and combs — are not optimal for African Americans. Unintended institutional bias is at play.
• Many cultures are normally more emotionally expressive than the white culture with which doctors in behavioral health are often trained to interact. Social workers worry that when those physicians come in contact with patients who appear to not be in control of their emotions, their diagnoses of problems can be based on bias.
• In the workplace, black and immigrant employees often encounter racially and culturally insensitive language from their peers. Teasing about accents and exhortations to "go back where you came from" are not unknown.
• Hiring practices have potential for discrimination. Until recently, for example, male employees were not allowed to wear braids or ponytails at St. Dominic Hospital. Because of that dress code, the institution may have overlooked able Native American and African-American men for various positions.

"We are determined to uncover systemic dimensions of racism — which we define as prejudice plus the power to enforce it — to transform our organization," says Sr. Susan Karina Dickey, OP, director of mission integration at St. Dominic Health Services in Jackson. "Though we cannot fix the racial disparities in the whole state of Mississippi, we can create more just working conditions and improve culturally competent care here. And perhaps that will have implications for the broader community."

St. Dominic's concern with eradicating racism, she adds, has a long history.

"When the Springfield Dominican Sisters arrived in Jackson in 1946, Jim Crow laws were in effect, and that racial injustice violated the sense of Christian charity. They tried to upgrade the quality of care for black patients and the working conditions for black employees within the limits of the law," she says. "In the 1960s, St. Dominic's was the first hospital in Jackson to comply with desegregation."

Antiracist congregation
By the 1990s, the Springfield Dominicans began to study racism and question whether they ministered from a standpoint of superiority, Sr. Dickey says. By 2005, they declared their intention to become an antiracist congregation, and in 2010 they charged St. Dominic's to form its antiracism team.

"We had a two-year planning process before we commissioned the team in 2012," says Carmen Calvin, care manager of behavioral health services. "We asked employees from the entire health care organization to participate and interviewed all applicants. It is a big commitment — a year of training followed by two years of service."

St. Dominic's took care to assemble a diverse group, Calvin adds. In addition to race, team members represent a variety of ages and job categories. "We have people in management, including an administrator, as well as nurses, social services personnel, people from radiology, coordinated care and outpatient rehab. We also have representatives from St. Catherine's Village, our continuing care retirement community, and from an independent community ministry called Mission Mississippi," she says.

The antiracism team meets monthly for 60 to 90 minutes, and has participated in two three-day training sessions, one in November 2012, the other in March. In May, the team took part in a three-day workshop with Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training of Matteson, Ill., which promotes the work of Bronx pastor Joseph Barndt, author of Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America.

Setting priorities
After the workshop, the team identified three areas of focus to pursue through 2014.

First, the team has committed to assessing the entire continuum of employment, from recruitment through termination, by analyzing policies and practices that might put people of color at a disadvantage or unfairly favor whites, as well as policies that may have the potential to harm everyone.

Second, the team wants to communicate and educate for racial justice by developing materials, working with existing communication tools, such as the intranet, employee newsletter and web-based instruction.

"We would like to take surveys and conduct focus groups with employees to give us a baseline on their knowledge of race relations so we can gauge any shifts in common understanding and comfort levels as we move forward," says Sr. Dickey.

Third, the team would like to focus on its own development through ongoing education about health care disparities and their relationship to race, particularly in Mississippi. The objective is to examine St. Dominic's and identify where the group can have a positive effect not only on health care access but also outcomes.

The long haul
The team also has a five-year vision to have education in place for every employee in order to combat racism throughout the St. Dominic's system.

"Our antiracism team is not a group that has come together for some quick turnaround on how to fix a problem," explains Sr. Dickey. "This is a different creature — a long-term, transformative effort dedicated to systemic examination and with the goal of helping us grow into a racism-free environment."

In addition, she says, St. Dominic's hopes that the experience will help lead to discussions about other issues in the workplace that may be difficult to address.

"Like many other places, we may have to make changes at St. Dominic's because of changes in the health care industry as a whole," she says. "We are very optimistic that our team members — wonderful, talented people who want to be of real service — can help guide us in many positive ways."

 

Copyright © 2013 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
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