HJNO Jul/Aug 2023

This is the way I think my childhood com- ing from Haiti into the United States gives me some revelation because I was con- scious enough, coming at an age where I could see and think about the world that I was living in in some ways. One of the things that I became aware of around the age of 9 or 10 was when I began thinking like an American because somebody shocked me; because at one point something came up, and I asked myself, “Was he Black or was he White?” It’s an automatic thing that Americans do. And remember, I came from another country where the person doing me great harm or great good was also Black. So, that color, that Blackness orWhiteness, had no value. When I lived in the United States for a while, suddenly I was thinking differ- ently. I was asking myself that question, and I realized that as I’ve grown up, it’s the ques- tion that we ask as Americans: “Is he White or is he Black?” Almost as the human, theAmerican brain needs to know that; and I would say it needs to know the same way that if I were getting a call on the phone from someone who had an ambiguous voice that could be male or female, my brain wants to know whether it’s a man or a woman. Why? Because even as little babies, we’re coded to listen to gen- dered voices. So, my brain wants to know, is it male or female? Even though it may be irrelevant, the person’s telling you, “Reyn- old, your car’s about to be towed. Could you move it?”It’s irrelevant whether the person’s male or female. My brain wants to know. Somehow, as an American, I want to know the race of someone, and we assume that everybody does that. And that’s anAmerican mindset because, if you think about it, if I were in Saudi Arabia, the question might be, “Is he Sunni or is he Shiite?”But not Black or White. And that American thinking also lays upon it certain values — ways we see what is better or what is worse. We give things value that way, and that’s an unconscious piece that we have work to do, as a people, to deconstruct. Editor How can we do that work so we’re not getting tripped up by race? You’re speaking to the healthcare industry right now. President Verret For many biases we have, and not just race, I think the only way is by being conscious enough to question our- selves when we’re about to ask that question and being aware of it the same way that we ask ourselves questions about our gender biases ... But this is women’s work, this is men’s work, right? Something in our mind should be asked as if, “Why is that so?” Being conscious of the question helps us ... keeps from react- ing automatically. Do you know what I’m talking about? Editor I do. You see it in the media all the time, “The first Black person to do this, or the first woman to do this.” And I think, until that is not a description of the human being ... President Verret Exactly. Is it a relevant question? Editor Yes. Until we get to that point where that’s not the headline, we’re still getting tripped up by race and sex and creed and all the other things. President Verret Well, to quote that great philosopher and theologian, Bob Marley, “Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is utterly dis- credited or abandoned ...”It takes real effort to get there. And some of us are able to do that by having lived with many people. It becomes comfortable; it becomes less auto- matic. But it’s about living with each other, I think. And I don’t want us to deny the prog- ress that we’ve made from the time that you and I were leaving high school to today, or even the progress that was made before you and I even entered high school; we’ve gone a hundred miles. And we still feel we haven’t gotten there yet, right? Editor I feel there’s work to be done. President Verret It’s amazing how far we’ve gotten because if you think about where we were before ... Editor It’s shocking where we were before. President Verret So, we shouldn’t deny the progress. The fact that we have not arrived means that we are sufficiently dissatisfied with where we are — that we need to make more progress. But let’s not deny, God, we’ve gone a ways. Editor You’re an educator. One of the things that I found most important in car- ing for a terminally ill person was empa- thy — not only the clinical ability of a phy- sician, but the empathy of that physician. As an educator, do you think empathy can be taught? President Verret Oh Lord, I don’t think ... I don’t know if it can be taught. It can be mod- eled. And actually, that is a way of teaching — by example. I think it needs to be seen. I don’t think it’s something that can be taught theoretically. It needs to be seen, because I think we are, unless we are broken — and I must admit, most of us are broken in some ways — but even if we’re not too broken, when we see empathy and we see real love and compassion, it moves us. Now, there are some people who are immovable. That’s true. That doesn’t mean that we’re all perfect, all things, but I think that modeling of empathy and compas- sion does a lot for us. I use the example of someone who’s ever known, or worked with, Paul Farmer [MD, PhD] and has seen how he approached each patient as a human being, as a person. There are clinicians or nurses on the wards caring for patients, and the younger nurses see how they approach the patient. 22 JUL / AUG 2023 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS DIALOGUE