11 Comments
Talking about issues of discrimination because of a person's race or ethnicity can be difficult and experiences based on one's race and ethnicity are very personal. If you identify as a person of color, have you ever felt discriminated against in your T1D care because of your race or ethnicity?
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I am a non-Hispanic white but I have two stepsons who are adopted from Ecuador (Hispanic) that I helped to raise. I’ve witnessed much discrimination against them.
Also not race related, but I was ruled by the EEOC as discriminated against by the same employer FOUR TIMES because of my T1D. Each time the EEOC fined the employer but kept the full amount of the fines with me getting absolutely none of it. Got my employment restored 3 of the 4 times, but absolutely no compensation for the income I’d lost due to the employment discrimination.
Last time Pilgrim’s Pride was found guilty of employment discrimination against me, they told the EEOC that they’d agree to pay the added fines but I had already given them over 1.5 million “reasons to refuse to allow me to return to work for them” and when EEOC told me that, they never said how much I had ended up costing Pilgrim’s Pride in total, but the EEOC DID tell me that Pilgrim’s had paid over 1.5 million in fines for the previous 3 cases of employment discrimination they were found guilty of having committed against me!!!
Interesting that 85% say non-Hispanic white. Is that because T1D hits a lot more non-Hispanic white people or because other ethnicities do not know about this website?
This is a great question! It is believed that T1D is more common in people who are non-Hispanic white, but the available research actually lumps together people with type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. So, it’s unclear what the prevalence of T1D is by race/ethnicity on a national or international scale. But, we honestly don’t know too many details of the demographics of folks who make up our Online Community. It’s our goal to be a welcoming space for all people with T1D, so we were very interested to know more about these experiences – even if they represent a smaller portion of people in our community.
As a white person I only in encountered it in one place as a child not as an adult it was brutal experience but it shaped me to be inclusive of different races and abilities I think there are bad apples in all groups so to treat them like they are the bad apples before knowing them makes me a bad apple I have several races in my family and abilities and they are great ppl
I am White European, but I AM a person of colour [color]. I have pinkish skin, blue-green eyes, brown hair, etc. and HAVE experienced discrimination because of my race/ethnicity. This was due to so-called “Positive Discrimination” which was proscribed in order to fill more positions, within the organisation [organization] with which I worked with more people of “ethnic minorities”.
As for my Type Diabetes care, I don’t recall ever being discriminated against because of my race/ethnicity.
I was not going to respond to this question, because I am white, non-hispanic. But I am deeply discouraged by some of the responses that I have read. Some people openly ignore the facts that our country (and the world) have always discriminated against others because of their race, ethnicity, religion, etc. We are the country that had hundreds of years of slavery, committed genocide against the Native American people, hated the Irish, Italians, Middle Easterners, Hispanics, Jews, Catholics, etc. etc. Yes, racial and ethnic discrimination does occur, and we cannot stick our head in the sand, and say that it does not happen.
Discrimination happens against people because of their diseases as well.
As we stated in the post and in a previous comment, we understand that issues of discrimination are personal experiences. We do not diminish anyone’s personal feelings or experiences that they have had in their lifetimes about discrimination. However, we want to remind members of our community that sharing their own experiences can be accomplished without minimizing others’ experiences. We want comments to remain on the topic of health care discrimination. And regardless of anyone’s personal experiences, research supports that people in communities of color have faced systemic discrimination because of their race or ethnicity – and that healthcare settings are no exception to a context in which this discrimination can happen.
We use the term “people of color” as a shorthand to ask about racial and ethnic identity. This comment section is not the appropriate space to argue about the semantics of an imperfect but widely accepted shorthand term. Comments that include arguments about semantics (that is, the meaning of the word ‘color’ and who it applies to) will be removed.
Diminishing the experiences of others in historically marginalized communities because it is different from your personal lived experiences or arguing about the semantics of a term to put the focus back onto a historically non-marginalized group makes this comment section an unwelcoming place and takes the focus away from our goal of understanding and improving the lives of everyone with T1D.
I understand the question, but discrimination as it pertains to a medical setting has far more heads than just our racial backgrounds. A more inclusive question for this group’s interests may have been: Have you ever felt discriminated against for any reason while obtaining your T1 care? Race, sex, age, income, and more. What everyone DOES with their feelings and T1 experiences is the beauty of this place. And I can only imagine some embarrassment to be singled out or excluded on this forum in this way. You have your statistics in hand already. And everyone is personally sensitive for good or bad to our melting pot’s situation. This is only one person’s take on today’s question. I most often love answering these daily questions and appreciate our hosts.
Bea, thank you for your thoughtful comment. We agree that discrimination in healthcare can occur for many reasons and not only race/ethnicity and that it’s important to explore those other areas as well. We have had some similar questions about other areas in the past and we do anticipate having more in the future. Even though these can be sensitive topics, we believe the best way to learn about how specific issues affect our community is to ask.
We’ve had past questions specifically only apply to some members of our community and not others. Thus we were not expecting to receive the reaction that we did by asking another specific question that only applies to some members with regards to race/ethnicity.
To your point about statistics, we actually do not have any numbers on the demographic make-up of our Online Community. When people sign up for the Online Community, they have the option to fill out profile details which include their personal connection to T1D, their gender, and their age; however, only about 50% of community members include these details on their profile. So, much of the information we have on our community is gleaned from the community’s response to previous Questions of the Day. There is nothing that we collect in any systematic way that allows us to know the representation of any group – whether that is race/ethnicity, educational attainment, socioeconomic status, or anything else within our Online Community.
Although I am “White,” I would like to note that I live in an area with a lot of Native Americans and have been mistaken for Native American or Hispanic. My level of care definitely changed in these instances and not for the better. I wish I could do more to change this!