CONTINUED...
achievements. She has been an educator and scholar, has toured all over the world, and has written nine books on subjects such as race, feminism, social justice, and incarceration. She is a staunch advocate for Palestinian rights, and recently had a civil rights award rescinded2 for her spirited beliefs. She was a member of the Black Panthers, the Communist Party, was incarcerated, and placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.3
On this day, her stately presence was paramount as she slowly ascended the podium. “King’s birthday as a holiday is the ceremonious outcome of a long, arduous struggle,” she begins. The audience is reminded that although the bill to make MLK Day a national holiday was signed in 1983, the bill was first presented in 1968. Due to America’s long history of institutional racism, MLK Day was not observed by all fifty states until 2000.
Then she got down to business. In The Trumpet of Conscience, Dr. King states:
The storm is rising against the privileged minority of the earth, from which there is no shelter in isolation and armament. The storm will not abate until a just distribution of the fruits of the earth enables man everywhere to live in dignity and human decency.4
We must all have an “intersectional understanding of the nature of racism,” she says, for that is what we are witnessing in this country today. Women’s voices are vocalizing around the world with the MeToo movement, Palestinian women are on the front lines demanding to be heard, and black, queer women are leading the charge with the Black Lives Matter movement. “What was once marginalized as women’s issues, and therefore not seen as legitimate or universal, are starting to become legitimized.” However, that “legitimacy,” she states, “is dictated by privilege.” The controversial rise of Alyssa Milano as the spokesperson for the MeToo movement contextualizes this privilege. The recognition belongs to a black activist, Tarana Burke, who founded the movement many years prior, and yet she is rarely credited.5 “Why,” she asks, “is the experience of women of color seen as only relatable to communities of color” and white experience is taken as universal?
These racialized generalizations are unquestionably relatable to experiences in medical school. Last semester, a first-year UNE COM student expressed frustration with her fellow peers. For a club fundraiser, she helped sell pins for two groups: White Coats for Black Lives (WC4BL), and the Health Equality Alliance (HEAl). She discovered that while her peers were inclined to support the LGBTQI+ fundraiser (whether or not they were members of the group itself), students were disinclined to purchase pins for WC4BL because they weren't members of the organization. In a similar vein, when crowds chant “Black Lives Matter” there is often a group who protests by stating that “All Lives Matter,” as if advocating for communities of color is somehow oppositional to other, non-marginalized communities.
"You can always create an arena of struggle"
Karissa Rajagopal, COM ’22 and Jenna Wozer, COM ‘21 of White Coats for Black Lives