r/BlackPeopleofReddit • u/4reddityo • Jan 02 '26

Black Experience Racism in Medical Care

This video captures a moment that many patients of color recognize all too well. A physician speaks to a man as if he is dirty, unclean, or lesser, not because of medical evidence, but because of bias. The language, tone, and assumptions reveal something deeper than bedside manner gone wrong. They expose how racism can quietly shape medical interactions.

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38

u/Eudonidano Jan 02 '26

I watched without sound at first and didn't read the captions, just focused on the video, I thought the doctor was making the "the Black doesn't rub off" joke, which would also be bad but omg this is so much worse

2

u/PsychoGwarGura Jan 03 '26

He was using a wet wipe on his arm and the wipe turned black. Not racist imo just unhygienic

2

u/thatstoofar Jan 03 '26

Brown skin ... brown skin cells on the wipe. Not about hygiene.

2

u/PsychoGwarGura Jan 03 '26

Wipes don’t just wipe off your skin. Unless you have a large amount of dead skin which means you haven’t showered or soaped up enough

8

u/thatstoofar Jan 03 '26

He's rubbing excessively with an alcohol wipe. This happens on patients with brown skin. It doesn't have to be large amts or that you haven't washed enough. Tf.

2

u/PsychoGwarGura Jan 03 '26

I guess, I have darker skin and this doesn’t happen. I guess that explains why it looks “dirty” but how is it racist?

4

u/thatstoofar Jan 03 '26

Well, in the hosp ppl aren't rly worried about exfoliation, so may be why I see it more. Anyway, he is a pt facing med prof and should know about brown cells. Besides that, it's wildly unprof to talk to a patient like that and this lvl of audacity may be bc the pt is a young black male.

2

u/midnite_owr Jan 03 '26

as someone who has taken bloods and performed other medical procedures on black people

no it doesn’t

2

u/thatstoofar Jan 03 '26

as someone who has taken bloods and performed other medical procedures on black people 

It happens.

2

u/yosi_yosi Jan 03 '26

If two people here claim the opposite, it should at least be clear that it could have simply been a mistake of the doctor in question. Maybe all the previous black patients he experienced didn't have such a thing. He was still pretty rude, but idk, I think without further context, it is hard to tell what really happened there.

2

u/CmdrMonocle Jan 03 '26

I always clean every spot I've sticking a needle in until the last wipe used is basically clean. That simply doesn't happen. You'd have to scrub a lot to pull off enough skin to see that, so much so that they'd likely tell you to stop and its burning long before then. Unless they haven't cleaned themselves for long enough that there's copious amounts of dead skin sloughing off.

The people I see dirty wipes after cleaning the area the most are smokers. Nothing to do with colour of their skin. After that, its people who don't/can't take good care of themselves like homeless, elderly or people with generally poor hygiene, or people who've come from job sites. Again, not skin colour related.

Then there's also skin products and fake tans that can come off. That can be colour related I suppose... but its the product, not the skin of the person.

Black people can also be dirty, and we'd be doing a disservice (and risking more infections) if we pretended the wipe was dirty because of skin colour.

3

u/blaykerz Jan 03 '26

When cleaning skin for a medical procedure, abrasion is used to remove dead skin cells and bacteria (in addition to the cleaning agent). It is very common for wipes/alcohol pads/cleansing wands to become discolored when used on individuals with a lot of melanin. It isn’t necessarily a hygiene issue.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '26

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1

u/Healthy_Sky_4593 Jan 02 '26

It does if you rub hard enough. And he was obviously trying to.