Week 13- Black Man in a White Coat

[brutons1]

I have loved this work by Damon Tweedy so far as a good amount of his experiences with simply being black are one’s I relate to. Especially in relation to his undergraduate college. A lot of people tried to persuade me to attend an HBCU as I would lose “touch with myself” by attending an institution like UNC.There have been moments where I have contemplated leaving but like our main character the experience being had is our own and it becomes what we make out it. What Tweedy is saying, more or less, is that it seems as if graduate school is “medicalizing” the black experience but in a way that green lights stereotyping to do so. His experience is thrown into this array of things and the self disengages and catalyzes how things occur and if they progress beyond the comfort zone. Tweedy is an almost an anomaly as far a Duke Medical School goes and he works hard to even his mental playing field with the playing field of students who are not counted as minorities but in doing so his “blackness” feels like a deterrent for change. What is even more compelling about this work is that it is an autobiographical account of Tweedy’s experience but the side of him engaging in this mental and racial warfare is also a character in the story that seems to have dissociated and yet implemented itself into recurring problems.

[kayley]

This is very insightful! Thank you for sharing your connection to this piece and Tweedy’s experiences! This really resonated with me, especially after we talked in class about Tweedy’s treatment as a black patient and how the way he was treated changed when the doctor learned that Tweedy himself was a doctor. It reminds me of the other articles and stories we’ve read of marginalized groups not having equal healthcare because of the demographic they fall into. Even though we’ve heard stories of black doctors treating black patients differently (more condescending or dismissive) than they treat white patients, on the whole, I hope that having more black doctors will help make black patients more comfortable seeking medical help, as Tweedy references that there are many black people and communities who don’t trust the American medical system due to historical injustices such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.

[Author]

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