A bit of an unconventional learning experience this week, but I'm quite steamed about the whole situation and learned quite a lot. To make a very long story short my mom broke her leg this week and I finally got to make a long trip to the ER that wasn't for me. The whole ER process is always frustrating, but this time even more so. After filling out tons of paper work I was told the wait would be 1 to 2 hours as they were limited on staff. I noticed quite a few people already waiting and thought that was a generous estimate. Well magically we were taken back not long after arriving while a waiting room full of people ahead of us still sat there. As I was trying to figure out why we were taken so quickly I thought about the people waiting and noticed out of all of them my mom and I were the only two white people. I asked the nurse why we were so lucky to be brought back so soon and she told me high priority patients get moved ahead. Funny because last time I went to the ER with a visibly dislocated shoulder I waited 3 hours to see a doctor. I'd like to hope we were high priority for reasons other than race, but when we got done and left I still saw many of the same faces waiting to be seen.

I learned a lot from this experience especially about what I can only think of as white privilege. I wanted to prod the nurse more, but I couldn't while trying to get my mom taken care of. I think there is a lot that we still need to work on in the area of race relations and perception. Not all things are equal and we really need to look at the macrostructure to get to the root of the problem.