Black doctor blasts claim 'systemic racism' influences poor health: 'Makes my blood boil'
The assertion that racism is the driving force behind Black people’s health issues rather than individual choices infuriated Dr. Marilyn Singleton.
"This sort of thing really makes my blood boil," Singleton said to Fox News Digital. "My parents and I grew up in segregated neighborhoods and we did all right for ourselves."
Dr. Uché Blackstock claimed on MSNBC on Saturday that a recent study from Dr. L. Ebony Boulware revealed that individual behavior was barely a factor in health compared to "systemic factors."
"[I]ndividuals are only responsible for about 20% of what makes them healthy. The other 80% are these systemic factors that Dr. Boulware and her colleagues studied in this very, very important research that needs to inform how, you know, communities and resources are given," Blackstock said.
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Singleton called out both Blackstock and Boulware for not only pushing politics but, she argued, using an incomplete study to do so.
"This sort of proclamation based on a study with admitted limitations is itself racist," she said. "This attitude infantilizes Black people and robs us of our personal agency. Structural racism does not make a person drink sugary beverages, smoke cigarettes, or eat fried and processed food. The study authors admit that they did not look at individuals, but one city in the southern United States and that ‘causal inferences cannot be drawn.’ Dr. Blackstock’s assertion reeks of politics, not medical science."
"While we have a legacy of slavery, we also have a legacy of strength and resilience. After all, escaping from slavery required creativity and perseverance," she added.
Singleton was one of multiple California doctors who filed a lawsuit in August against the state's medical board for mandatory "implicit bias training" in their education.
"The implicit bias requirement promotes the inaccurate belief that White individuals are naturally racist," Singleton said in a news release. "This message can be detrimental to medical professionals and their patients as it creates an atmosphere of suspicion and animosity, which goes against the fundamental principle of doing no harm."
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In a column for National Review, Dr. Richard Bosshardt warned about the dangers of forcing critical race theory or diversity, equity and inclusion ideology into medical schools.
"There is a finite amount of time in residency training to mold a competent surgeon from a fumble-fingered intern. To assume that we can continue to turn out excellent surgeons and simultaneously burden surgical education with the degree of time-consuming indoctrination in anti-racism and DEI demanded by the ACS tool kit is, at best, foolish and futile, and, at worst, dangerous to our patients," Bosshardt wrote.
Singleton also denounced any efforts by the government to try and "cure systemic racism" as a way to promote healthy living.
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"The government’s ‘obligation’ to cure systemic racism has only served to perpetuate separation and stunt the social and economic growth of black people living in ‘redlined’ communities with policies in the 1960s that discouraged family values," Singleton said.