‘A target on my back’: New survey shows racism is a huge problem in nursing
In a new survey, 80% of nurses said they have seen or experienced racism from patients, and 60% from colleagues.
A family nurse practitioner in New York City, Jose M. Maria has come to expect overt racism from patients. “I’ve been called the N-word, I’ve been called, you name it,” he said. A triple minority in nursing — Black, Latino, and male — he often gets mistaken for a janitor. More subtle racist behavior has come from supervisors and fellow nurses in past jobs, too — uncomfortable looks in the break room, extra questioning from supervisors over narcotics errors he’s responsibly reported and been cleared for. “I’ve felt I’ve had a target on my back.”
But he’s never reported a single racist incident to his employers. Partly that’s because he’s accustomed to such behavior; he grew up during New York City’s “stop and frisk” era and was himself targeted by police who could search anyone they deemed suspicious. But he’s also been afraid of repercussions and thinks nothing would be done anyway. “Forget about it. They will just fire you,” he said.
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