Understanding Racism as a Historical Trauma that Remains Today: Implications for the Nursing Profession

Abstract

In order to promote health equity and support the human rights mandate contained in the American Nurses Association's Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements, the nursing profession must understand historically the creation of race, white supremacy in the United States, and entrenched racial terror and brutality toward black and brown racialized populations. Considering the limited racial diversity in the nursing profession despite its stated mission to increase diversity, the profession must build a path to understanding antiblack racism as a historical trauma that remains to this day, a path that encompasses antiracist ideology. Antiracism education is critically needed at the pre-professional and professional levels, for nursing students, providers, educators, administrators, and researchers to inform our own understanding of bias within the contexts of our educational and health-care systems. Dismantling racism requires an enduring commitment to the ultimate goal of social justice for ourselves, our patients, and our communities. This article presents antiracism actions that nurses should employ to dismantle racism, focusing primarily on personal-level initiatives, with self-work as the starting point.