Pain

Race Reflections AT WORK

In today's episode Guilaine reflects on Black and brown people's relationship with pain, particularly Black women's relationship with pain and distress. And from this also the relationship between pain and associated issues such as accessing health services and self compassion.
She begins with a personal disclosure that one of her younger sisters recently nearly died and considers how pain played into this. She then uses this as a case study and jumping off point to move away from an individualised analysis to a consideration of systems, structures and power.
She thinks about internalised toxic discourses, narratives and expectations that exist around the idea of the strong Black woman, thinking about ideas like strength, self-reliance and relying on others. And wonders whether Black people (and to a lesser extent brown people) allow themselves to seek help, support, rest, or attend to their suffering when required. How does this impact late diagnosis of conditions such as cancer, and feelings of self compassion? And outside of the self how does this systemic lack of acknowledgement and recognition of Black women's pain influence these dynamics.
She then links all this to the workplace considering two elements:
1. How pain/distress of a white person in conflict with a black or brown person is seen, centered, and acknowledged and how this is linked to the colonial construction that black people are immune to pain. How Black distress or vulnerability is seen as inauthentic, not real or even contrived, and how that connects to Whiteness and white fragility.
2. How Black people internalise these elements which may also make Black people (particularly Black women) present in a way that hinders people reading them as being in pain/distress.
She concludes with some questions for employers and employees to consider when approaching conflict and distress in the workplace.
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