Major medical associations adopted a language guide regarding race, gender, and sexual orientation to promote “health equity.”
The American Medical Association and the AAMC Center for Health Justice collaborated on “Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts,” which was released Oct. 28. The material included concepts closely related to critical race theory, even citing the term in its glossary.
“It is critical to address all areas of marginalization and inequity due to sexism, class oppression, homophobia, xenophobia and ableism,” the guide stated. “Yet conversations about race and racism tend to be some of the most difficult for people in this country to participate in for numerous reasons, including a lack of knowledge or shared analysis of its historical and current underpinnings, as well as outright resistance and denial that racism exists.”
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Critical race theory and other closely related ideologies hold that the United States is inherently racist and that skin color is used to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites. Critics claim it relegates all white people to the role of oppressors and all people of color to that of victims.
“Given the deep divides that exist between groups in the United States, understanding and empathy can be extremely challenging for many because of an inability to really ‘walk a mile in another’s shoes’ in a racialized sense,” the guide continued.
It outlined a glossary of terms the organizations deemed significant regarding medical care.
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Some of the lingo included: asexual, asset-based (or strength-based, agency-focused) approach, cisgenderism, cissexism, coded racial appeals (dog whistles), coming out, critical race theory, cultural appropriation, environmental justice, genderqueer, gender nonconforming, intersectionality, microaggression, pansexual, racial justice, social justice, white fragility, and white supremacy.
Critical race theory, according to the guide, is “born out of both legal studies and education scholarship” and “is a framework that centers experiential knowledge, challenges dominant ideology, and mobilizes interdisciplinary action and research in order to uncover inequalities related to race and racism and other intersectional identities and/or experiences.”
White fragility was defined as “a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium. Racial stress results from an interruption to what is racially familiar,” citing author Robin DiAngelo.
The American Medical Association referred the Washington Examiner to its president’s remarks.
“Physicians instinctively know the power of our words,” Dr. Gerald Harmon said on Oct. 28. “They must be clear but also precise; they must convey empathy but also understanding. Above all, our words must demonstrate our competence and our confidence when counselling our patients or their families about a difficult diagnosis. Our words matter because trust is foundational in the patient-physician relationship.”
The AAMC Center for Health Justice did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
