Despite the almost sacred nature of end-of-life care in hospitals, hospice programs, and nursing homes, there is every reason to think that racism and the racial system are often present in black-white relationships in end-of-life care in the United States. This speculative essay explores expressions of the racial system that might occur in end-of-life care, from the perspectives of Euro-Americans and African Americans as patients, family members of patients, and care providers. The racial system operates in ways that bruise some people and that make it difficult for those who are advantaged by the system to understand the system and their place in it; and so, ideally one way for end-of-life care facilities to deal with potential difficulties in black-white relationships is to provide contexts for dealing with bruises and obliviousness. Even at the end-of-life, there are possibilities for healing and personal growth.
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