A Peaceful Evening...

For the first times in a long time, I'm having such a peaceful evening. I left the office earlier than usual...changed into some relaxing attire, and decided to spend some time outdoors with my favorite (and only) nephew. Who knew kicking a bouncy ball around and throwing a 4 year old a wiffle ball could be so relaxing. It was nice to run around a get a little workout in too. So, now...I'm just sitting in the evening sun, watching all the cars drive by, getting ready to grab my guitar and enjoy this cool summer night.

So, I don't post much these days...too busy I suppose, but I'm going to try to diligently post once again. As usual, I'm on a journey in this new chapter of my life. I'm finally settling into my new job and thinking that maybe I did make a good choice after all. This position has forced me to mature as a professional and really allowed me to immerse myself in the public health world like I couldn't do before.

The work I do is simply fascinating...trying to figure out how physicians view their patients and trying to understand the basis for their clinical decisions sometimes seems impossible, but can you imagine a world where we aren't judged by our race on a biological level, rather we are seen as unique individuals. That's what all of my work focuses on. It's the idea that racial is a "social contruct". It's a way for us to connect with people socially, however, it has no biological basis. Your race does not make you more susceptible to certain illnesses and neither does mine, it's our biological composition, lifestyle, and behaviors that increase or decrease our risk for disease. Now to be fair, our lifestyle and behaviors may appear to be related to our race , but ourrace probably serves as a proxy for our social environment which greatly impacts our risk for disease. Clearly, we wouldn't think all of these things if we listened to every news report that says, Blacks are at increased risk for developign hypertension and Whites are more likely to be diagnosed with skin cancer, but that's the culture we live in.

So, if we're not all that different, why does race cause so many issues in our society? At the end of the day, it's because we allow it to. Unfortunately, there are many people in this country, both Black and White, who still judge people based on skin color/racial group. To me, this is absolutely insane. I don't care what a person looks like, I'm more interested in the character of the individual person. I've never determined who I could interact with based on skin color. Truthfully, growing up I always had more white friends than black, because my black peers always felt it necessary to degrade me simply because I was trying to make something out of my life. Fortunately for me, my parents always supported me and surrounded me with positive images of Blacks, so I never became turned off by own race which I'm grateful for. As I've gotten older, I've had the opportunity to befriend a number of young Black professionals, but their being my friend has absolutely nothing to do with skin color, it has everything to do with having similar goals and interests.

So, I know I got off on a little tangent tonight, but it's been a long time since I've just been able to let my thoughts flow freely as I write. I'm always to busy or too worried, but tonight was the peaceful evening that I've needed for a long time.

~DMW