‘Why not me?’
By Racial Diversity Committee member Dr. Ngozi F. Mbibi, DNP, RNC-OB, FWACN, FAAN
Welcome to the MNA Racial Diversity Committee’s first blog post.
Our committee is only a few months old. We started as a new Racial Diversity Task Force in 2017. (MNA had a similar task force and a work group in the early 2000s.) In 2018, the House of Delegates saw the importance of continuing and expanding our work, and decided we should be a standing committee. Members were appointed at the January 16, 2019, Board of Directors meeting.
We have been meeting monthly ever since and are working on some major projects. (Some of our members who were at the July 11 meeting are in the photo at the top of this post.)
Our committee looks for ways to curb the rampant discrimination reported in our institutions.
The committee is looking for more nurses of diverse origins to join and showcase what facilities have to gain by embracing diversity and stamping out discrimination.
Racial discrimination is real and can lead to toxicity in the workplace. The need for team effort is important in healthcare settings; and it reduces stress on both staff and management.
Let’s look at this example:
Why not me? This was a recurring question in the mind of Nurse A. This question is related to her numerous efforts to be part of the team or be treated like one. Nurse A made a sixth application for her unit’s working committee; and for the sixth time, the response from her manager was that she was not selected because they got a better choice.
On close observation, she noted that the nurse accepted into the committee was her white colleague who works the same shift, has the same qualifications as her, and is about the same age.
“Why not me?” she thought. Nurse A is a person of color working among numerous white colleagues.
This raises an issue of discrimination and my question for you to discuss and think about in this first blog post is: How can we make her belong?
Watch for more to come soon.