How was I a racist today?

My husband and I have been having more and more conversations about race, racism, and equity. Being a biracial (sort of, I mean, Arabs are considered "White") couple, the issue of race probably comes up for us more than some of our friends. I've been drawn deeper into the world of racial equity and wanting to be more of an activist and advocate in my own right. We decided to listen to "How to be an Antiracist" together on audibles. We listen to a chapter each night (started two days ago, so we're two chapters in). I'm also listening to "So You Want to Talk About Race" by Ijeoma Oluo. In my learning about racism, privilege, and fragility, I'm taking stock of all the times I've been a racist. Sure, I don't go around using racial slurs, or burning crosses, or truly believing that people deserve to be offered less or valued less because of their race. Yet, I have often said racist things, thought racist thoughts, and held racist beliefs. Being able to sit with that knowledge has been uncomfortable and humbling, to say the least. It's strange to wake up and realize you aren't as "woke" as you thought you were. In this journey of self discovery in order to be an advocate, the one thing I've truly learned to do well is be wrong and learn from it. My reckoning last night was that I can be a racist and still be striving towards being anti-racist. I have to learn what I'm doing that is racist, and then stop, and try to topple the system allowing it. So I've been thinking back to some examples of when I was distinctly thinking I was not a racist, and still upholding racist ideas. I remember listening to a discussion about Black health disparities within psychiatry, and not being able to stand the notion that psychiatrists were racist. When given information about how Black people are more often prescribed older medications, instead of being able to see that this can be racist, I retorted with "maybe it's because we know our Black patients can't always afford the more expensive medicines, adn they don't work that much better anyway." When faced with "Black patients are more likely to be seen as aggressive in an ER" I came back with "sometimes a very loud, agitated patient can seem psychotic in that moment." I was so defensive, and standing up for psychiatrists. I honestly felt like because I was White appearing but not White, I had a better understanding of and ability to articulate what psychiatrists were actually trying to do, instead of listening to these Black advocates explain to me how my profession can be racist. At the time, I was so proud of my "performance" in this discussion, but now I'm ashamed of how I behaved. Anyone there would have been hard pressed to label me a "racist" but I sure was allowing a racist system to continue to go unchecked. This past weekend I was working in the psychiatric emergency room and a Black woman came in after being sexually assaulted. She told me she was in pain and asked for pain medication. My immediate thought was "she just wants narcotics." Why am I so quick to judge another person's pain? I ended up giving her medicine (non-narcotic, as I don't like prescribing opioids anyway), but when I went home, I had to seriously reflect on how much of the racist teaching we get about Black people in medicine (they have less pain, or thicker skin) that I don't even remember learning, had been imbedded in me. How much was my response due to her being Black. How much of it was bias towards pain in general, which (like sleep), I have difficulty wanting to medicate away. On Monday, I was waiting for my second patient of the morning to show up. As I was disgruntledly thinking "my Hispanic patients are always late" I remembered chapter two of Ijeoma's book, where she specifically gives an example of how this is a racist thought. Why am I always assuming my Hispanic patients will be late? Why, when a White patient is late, do I not have that same reaction? Why am I willing to generalize all of my Brown patients this way? I thought more about it, and realized that being "on time" is a construct of a White society. Many Brown people view time as more fluid. So my Brown patients are often late, but maybe it's not the same value to them as it is to me. Maybe, in reality, my White patients are just as often late (they are) but I don't assume they will be because of the color of their skin. How was I racist today? How will I be racist tomorrow? I've also been actively anti-racist, which definitely takes more work. Learning about what it truly means to be anti-racist (more than just saying I'm not racist) has been eye opening. Today I made sure my White students were able to acknowledge the racism within medicine. Today I was also able to call out a friend who had made racist comments on social media. Today, I actively made sure I was offering my Spanish speaking patient the same explanation of medication and offerings of services that I would my native English speaking patients. I'm actively trying to learn and teach and preach anti racism. What a strange journey this is. I apologize for all the times I was racist in the past, and hope to minimize the number of times I'm a racist in the future.