nursingforsocialjustice

I wondered this when I drove home from a very short shift that I worked on an inpatient adolescent mental health unit last evening. I wondered what conversations and education would be delivered to staff. I wondered if conversations would be had about institutionalization and violence and inequity of access and colonization and the intersections between that and the mental health act, policing of people, normalization of a dominant culture and the pain and suffering this may cause. I wondered about replication of this, and the subtle and blatant messaging about how normalization being “good” and following arbitrary rules are prioritized. I wondered if conversations would be had about three social impact of large political movements that reinforce the power of the dominant group, the bullying, the reminder of who is in charge.

I don’t know how we change things if difficult conversations and calling out systemic racism and a history of racism are not integrated into large social systems like healthcare. And, I don’t know how we change things if we continue to confuse control, assimilation, alignment with a dominant group as good and right and normal.

When I read about mental health services as they happened 60 years ago I cannot help but think, how far have we come…really? Was it society that changed and thus the system was forced to change? Did the change come from within? More and more it is obvious that the world around it was changing, some nurses within it saw the changes and shifted, some nurses hung on to yesterday.

What are you doing this Black History Month?

Love,

Michelle D.