Can't stand your classmates?

[BurghStudent]

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The vibe I get from a lot of you who have such hatred for "SJWs" is that you feel as though these individuals are using their particular causes as a means of either proving their intellect/moral superiority or getting bonus points for things like med school admissions or residency matching.

It seems that a lot of you see the world in a hyper competitive, black and white sort of way. You act as though there is no possible way that the people who discuss and are passionate about these topics and these populations could possibly ACTUALLY care about them. You act as though they are using it as a leg up on you and you are bitter about it because it's the type of stuff that liberal admissions counselors and program directors want to see.

Now stop for a second and try NOT to see the world through your gunner eyes. Use that EQ you feigned back during med school interviews.

People are genuinely passionate about social justice issues. Many of them are actually doing things about these issues, even if they aren't flaunting it for you to see. Most don't have ulterior motives. They genuinely care about these issues and try to live them every day. That's why they bring them up in "every conversation." Because social injustices continue. It's not to make you feel dumb, morally inferior, or bad for being from a majority culture. The purpose is to try and spread the word on these issues so that you can no longer live in your bubble and pretend they don't exist. If I bring up the lens of viewing a particular issue from my cultural view point, it is to try and stretch your mind and think about things differently. This is how you become a better thinker and a better physician. This is why medical schools and residency programs want diverse populations. If you are able to simply create your own self serving bubble and then live in it, when you go to talk to that patient who comes from a "vulnerable" population you won't understand their perspective. That's why people bring these issues up, so you can understand your patients better.

If a patient is acting mistrusting of the medical establishment and isn't willing to sign the consent on a particular procedure, instead of looking at them as ungrateful, uneducated, or misinformed, you can learn to understand the context of that opinion. For instance the Tuskegee Syphilis Study or Contraceptive Trials in Puerto Rico that left many women sterile or forced sterilization of poor white and black folks in the South for generations that was done with doctors' orders. Yes, these things are history but our history continues to influence our present.

And as far as privileged college kids go: talk is cheap, but anybody who is willing to exercise their privilege to bring up and fight for perspectives and issues from those who don't have the same agency and voice, deserves to, at minimal, be respected. There are far too many people who are willing to sit quietly with their privilege and ride that thing out until their dying day. The people who are willing to put that privilege to use (actively, I'm not talking about people tweeting or just posting links on Facebook) to try and amplify the voice of others have my respect.

I agree with the cause, I just find the methods lazy.

Case in point: my medical school had a "die in" to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter. This was to address the very real problem of police violence against black men.

But just look at this response: a group of relatively well-to-do students wore their white coats and "died" on the floor. In a cozy, comfortable building, where you can get a panini in 2 minutes. They then took pictures of themselves and these circulated on social media. This is the element of "look at me, look how just I am." They hijack social problems and make it about themselves: NOT all, but enough to raise this criticism. We live in the era of me-culture, it shouldn't be surprising I guess.

If they really wanted to protest police violence, they would go to the PD and show solidarity. But no, that would require standing out in the cold. That's not very convenient is it.

 

[Dr. In Formation]

EDIT: She's probably on here.

Dear SJWers,

Your safety pins annoy me. If representation matters, do something about it in your own lives. Stop being hypocrites. Stop lecturing me and do something. I am not your personal assistant, nanny, or encyclopedia on all things minority.

That is all.

- Dr. In Formation

 

[Lannister]

A physician friend came to me asking for information about dolls with natural hair for a Christmas gift this year. She went on and on about how representation matters and it's so important to find dolls with the child's skin color with hair she could relate to. I really didn't need a lecture on things I already know.

A 2 minute Google search she could have done herself brought up what she was looking for. Oh, did I mention this doll was for her Black nanny's kid?

After I helped her, I couldn't bite my tongue. I let her have it with the hypocrisy. I told her I was not her personal assistant nor the mouthpiece for all things Black. She really didn't get how representation matters and that she is teaching her son to view Black people as "The Help."

We're no longer friends. This same person honestly believed we were "post-racial" until this past election but didn't understand how having a Black nanny figured into the equation.

Can't stand the selfie SJWers. Their hearts are in the right place, but they drain my kindness and tolerance more than the haters do. The cognitive dissonance and blatant hypocrisy is cringe-worthy. I can ignore the haters, roll my eyes, and keep it moving. I pity them. But it hurts when you see someone means well but is annoying AF and still getting it wrong.

We got into a lot of heated debates over her safety pin too.

I'm confused, what's wrong with having a black nanny?

 

[Dr. In Formation]

I'm confused, what's wrong with having a black nanny?

I have only a finite amount of daily patience so forgive me for not responding. Also, nice signature.

 

[Lua]

The problem stems from taking a hypothetical mental construct like "Social Justice" and trying to apply it to reality. For example, if someone said that they were owed some type of social justice, who would be responsible? Are the people of the former Soviet Union responsible for the fact that my father was a political refugee in 1956, and had to leave his home in Hungary at the age of 16 and hitchhike to Austria? And if they did owe him something, what exactly would that be? Because, you could also argue that Stalin and Khrushchev did him a favor, since he ended up in the USA five years later, the greatest country on the planet. He had no money, and did not speak English, but he was finally free. And I was fortunate enough to have been the first person in my family born in a free country. We were poor, and I had many struggles growing up, but where else could I so easily be planning to be a physician right now? I am 41, have been a practicing scientist for many years, but now I am a premed!

There is much more to this story, many terrible things happened under the rule of Stalin, but I don't think it is necessary to go into my complete family history (you get the point). However, I would like to point out that Stalin, Mao, and Hitler were 3 of the greatest SJW's of the 20th century. You don't know s**t about social justice until you know their history. Not only were they prominent SJW's, they loved political correctness! And if you did not come politically correct, well, you were invited on a short trip to Hell. My grandfather lost everything because he was a writer and a small business owner, including 3 years of life in a work camp (the family did not know where he was all that time).

This is a PSA to all those would be SJW's out there: Please don't do it, you are not helping anyone. In fact, the soft bigotry of these types of ideas only create victim-hood, instead of truly helping those in need. Empower people, don't talk down to them like they were sub-human. We are all at least 99% the same as human beings. There is very little that makes us unique. We all have struggles, we all have joy, we all have pain. And, we all desire (once immediate needs are met) to personally/spiritually evolve. However, if I believe that I am "disadvantaged", or defective in some way, I will not have the internal power to make positive steps in my life. The circumstances of a person's birth are certainly interesting, but it does not make them who they truly are in this world. If that were true, we would not have all the great movies and books describing the lives of many great people throughout history who came from very humble beginnings.

One last thing. Take responsibility for every aspect of your life, and never blame anyone outside yourself. It is the only true freedom.

 

[Dr. In Formation]

To be clear, I am all for social justice and helping those less fortunate. But social justice work has become trendy and part of our ugly selfie "look at me" culture. The altruistic don't broadcast their good deeds. Nor do they try to convert others to their missions. Maybe they mean well and are misguided. Regardless, short of a near-death experience, most people don't change for the better unless they think something's in it for them.