Racism is reinforced later in the episode when a second young African American male is brought to the emergency room with a gunshot wound to the chest. Assuming the patient is also a gang-banger, Dr. Malucci treats him with disrespect. It is not only individual people who exhibit racist behavior. For African Americans, racism and distrust against our government and against the white majority population dates back several hundred years to when they were first victimized by slavery2, more recently to when they were victimized by segregation2 in the deep south and in recent times with Apartheid in South Africa. In this week's episode of ER, Dr. Malucci demonstrated racist behavior by making assumptions about both gunshot wound patients, by making sarcastic remarks to the first patient and by dehumanizing the second patient.
History dictates why medical distrust exists today for some minorities.
Hence, distrust developed. After the Civil war, many blacks in southern communities believed that night doctors would kidnap black people during the night, kill them and use them in medical experiments. The legacy of medical racism in the U.S. continued with the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. To continue the program the original guidelines and policies were changed from a public health forum to a study control illustration.5 Sites were selected with preferences given to rural areas with large black populations. To many African Americans the link between Tuskegee, Genocide and AIDS is a great concern.