AT THE HEART OF THE MATTER BY DR. DELA TAGHIPOUR
MY PRIVILEGE
PERSPECTIVE FROM AN IRANIAN IMMIGRANT Old post but still relevant… ‘White Privilege. One Middle Eastern Woman's Perspective.’
“Acknowledge the differences. Then be completely outraged.” Even I, an immigrant from Iran, who speaks English as a second language, who carries the weight of being considered a second-rate Naturalized citizen... still has White privilege in this country. See... when my black hair is dyed blonde enough; when I say my name in the Americanized way people prefer, without the use of the accent that comes with my mother tongue; and when I put on my white doctor's coat, I am White-passing. Don't get me wrong. I'm proud of my roots. Proud of my name. Proud of my melanin. Proud of my language and culture. Proud of what makes me a Middle Eastern woman. But in this world, people see what they want to see. So even when I'm called a terrorist, a sand nig$#, an oil monkey, a camel jockey; even when I'm being told to leave the country to go back 'home.' Even when I can't return to Iran to say goodbye to my dying grandmother during the 'Muslim ban' despite not being Muslim... still I have White privilege. Why, you ask? Because I would never have to be in Breonna's shoes. Cops would not be able to kill me in cold blood and not be charged or be charged for shooting the White walls around me. My family would never need to wonder if my case would go without any arrests because I am not a Black woman. I do not have to suffer the crushing injustice of blatant dismissal of my life. I admit my privilege -- not because I had an easy life, not because I didn't face racism too -- but because for all the rest of us, we will never have to face the horror that happened to Breonna Taylor or so many others I hope this story, my story, is a reason to look within. A reason to understand the deep debilitating feeling this case has brought out in me and in so many others who are in disbelief and rage. Acknowledge the differences. Then be completely outraged. I'm fu%$ing exhausted. ∎
DELA TAGHIPOUR, MD, MPH, MB Physician, Medical Correspondent & Awareness Ties Ambassador for Heart Disease www.awarenessties.us/delataghipour Venous and Lymphatic Medicine Fellow, Medical Journalist, and Activist. Prior training in Preventive Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and General Surgery at Howard University Hospital Dr. Delaram Taghipour spent two years as a Research Fellow at the Clive O. Callender, M.D. Howard-Harvard Health Sciences Outcomes Research Center, contributing to the eld of outcome disparities; authoring or coauthoring several abstracts, posters, manuscripts, and presentations. Dela also had the opportunity to propose grants to help better de ne the impact of Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act on patients’ outcomes; contributing to one of the seminal health policy debates of this generation.
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61 AWARENOW / THE INCLUSION EDITION