It may not be racism, but it's still a largely-unsubstantiated accusation of racism designed to elicit support for their cause. This story hits very close to h

It may not be racism, but it's still a largely-unsubstantiated accusation of racism designed to elicit support for their cause. This story hits very close to home for me. I had my tonsils and adenoids removed 37 years ago at the same hospital in Oakland. Waking up from the surgery is still one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. I was strapped to my bed in the recovery room because they feared 3-year-old me would remove his IV. I tried to make a noise, but my throat was so swollen and in such pain that I couldn't vocalize. I lay there in agony for over 2 hours before a nurse realized I was awake. They sent me home a day later despite the fact that I couldn't swallow food beyond a couple of spoonfuls of ice cream. My mom had to take me back to the emergency room a week later to get an IV because I was basically starving. All-in-all, I also feel I got substandard care there. And while 3-year-old me and the girl in the article likely shared some things in common--I'm guessing we both came from somewhat poor families with insufficient health coverage--race isn't one of those things. So as a white person who went through a not-nearly-as-terrible-but-still-pretty-terrible version of what they went through, I think it's important that we acknowledge that the hospital may have had completely different reasons for supplying substandard care and that jumping straight to race as a root cause isn't constructive.