Occupational Therapy News July 2020 | Page 16

FEATURE EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
Let’s talk about race
Kwaku Agyemang and Musharrat J Ahmed-Landeryou look at the global
impact of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and ask: how are your Black
occupational therapy colleagues doing?
The whole world felt the injustice and pain of
the public murder of George Floyd on 25 May
2020; 8 minutes and 46 seconds of a man
publicly dying on the streets, despite pleas
from onlookers.
It was not only shocking to see a Black man treated
as less than human, but it also brought back the fear
and horror of public lynchings, which we thought of as
being in the past.
While there could be no excuse for this very public
murder, the reality is that it has been going on since the
16th century days of slavery.
However, the global protests in support of the
#BlackLivesMatters (BLM) movement has inspired
hope. Black people were not feeling their pain on their
own in isolation, they had allies, lots of them, marching
in solidarity.
This is different from the civil rights movement of
Martin Luther King, when the predominantly black
protests and marches had very limited allies from the
white communities.
For many Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME)
people who live with the daily consequences of structural
racism, this murder was tormenting, and excruciating
emotions and memories of past injustices surfaced.
BAME people feel injustices, inequalities,
discrimination, prejudices and micro-aggressions
every day of their lives. Sometimes BAME people have
become desensitised to this as a survival technique.
I (Kwaku Agyemang) started to think how this
exposure to trauma could be impacting on the emotional
wellbeing and personal experiences of my fellow BAME
occupational therapists.
I was feeling so many different emotions myself and
was at a loss as to how I could express this. I was also
torn on how I could support the #BlackLivesMatter
movement.
Having created the ‘OT and Chill’ podcast to discuss
‘all things occupational therapy’, I decided that this
would be the best platform to show support to the
movement on a micro level.
Our profession strives to advocate for occupational
and social justice for the people we work with; principles
of diversity and equality are at the core of our profession.
It is therefore also very important to advocate for justice
and equality among our own staffing group.
© GettyImages/Ukususha
16 OTnews July 2020