Medicine, like people, has no color

It is all clear and splendid in my blacknessare the intense words of Ansi Nganso, the doctor of the First Aid of Lignano, in Friuli Venezia-Giulia, who on the night of August 17 was verbally attacked by a patient for the color of his skin. The breaking latest news reports the disconcerting news that a man of about 60, taken by ambulance to the first aid point of the Friulian town for multiple injuries following a fight, refused the African doctor’s treatment, insulting him with heavy offenses and blasphemies. Don’t touch me that disease attacks me. I preferred two broken ribs to being examined by a black doctor.

Words hurt like fists

The attacks of this type are added to the physical ones, equally heavy, against doctors and nurses, victims of intolerance and violence of Italians against Italians, whose cases are increasing throughout Italy according to the data of the latest Inail report. Against what is different, often considered by the aggressor to be more fragile and easier to hit, he rages with a feeling that cannot be disguised, even if one is in a state of need. Refusing the help of those who can help you is one of the most insipid scorns.

Racism, as Dr. Nganso stated in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica, is unfortunately like the plague in Italy. He is used, he says, to have suffered similar violence in other Italian cities where he served. The racist slurs on his car are the lightest thing that has ever happened to him. He feels anger and frustration and a lot of sorrow for a country which has decided not to evolve, which does not go further.

I think you can’t get used to racism. I believe that a country that for some time has left the boats of migrants shipwrecked, if there were no NGOs on the sea trying to save these submerged lives, does not really show that it wants to grow. To defend national borders from migratory flows humanity must not be lost. Among those migrants perhaps there is another young man to whom we will give the opportunity to study, to become a good human being thanks to the best living conditions we can offer, to help our people in some way by repaying us the kindness of having welcomed him.

It is only this that makes the difference between men, who has heart and who does not. Who has good luck and who is less. Who does something, who is watching

Racism is a social and cultural phenomenon that sometimes winds its way under the radar. It can be rampant, sometimes it manifests itself with a look on the street or indifference is enough to be recognized. Sometimes it explodes in the most sinister ferocity, if it meets you on a sidewalk of a seaside town, in Civitanova Marche. It crushes you to the ground, you die of suffocation but it is racism that gets you on crutches, because you are a Nigerian. Upset if you talk, if you ask for a few bucks, if you live your days as best you can. If you haven’t returned to Africa, racism is an ideology that crosses all social strata of the population, not just the poorest. It does not depend solely on low schooling or low income. Racism can affect everyone because it arises frominability to see oneself in the other, which is identical to you but you consider it different, foreign, hostile. Strange. It is a doctrine that comes from fear and ignorance, from poor empathy and poor sensitivity. It is an attitude that generates tensions, bitter conflicts. Develop hatred. It is a conviction that arises, in the encounter with the other, from an unmotivated perception of superiority towards him. Diversity is not considered an asset, but an inferior thing to be despised. To refuse. Remove. So it has no value.

He is a proud man, Dr. Nganso. Of his identity, proud of his origins and of his land (Cameroon), which he probably left out of necessity or to pursue a dream, at 19.

Would you leave your land and your mother with the risk of dying at every step and on every wave? It is desperation, it is life that makes you move

Dr. Nganso has Bamileke roots and blood is never denied. It is what makes you walk around with your head held high, whether you are poor or rich and in any part of the world you are lucky enough to be born. He is an intelligent, capable man. He is 34 years old and has a degree in Medicine and Surgery from one of our universities. His mother is certainly proud of that son who went to sea, lost in the distance, but I live with a better life. His intelligence was not lacking. He says that after working for years with the Italian Red Cross, he has chosen to devote himself to emergency medicine. A choice that does him credit considering the serious shortage of doctors in the Italian emergency rooms. He went to a place that many of our interns don’t choose, it’s difficult. These violent scenes are part of everyday life. Not just mine, but of those who live as a black persondenounces with sadness.

Medicine, like people, has no color

Skin it heals, sews, soothes, hydrates. She touches herself. It is not meant to be despised. It is a barrier that defends the human body from the insults of time and the outside world but it should never be a barrier between human persons. We are all in the same vulnerable condition. The skin on him is just a covering that serves to protect what is underneath, bones, muscles, tendons, organs, nerves and vessels. Feelings too.

We should have an extra layer sometimes when we find ourselves too exposed to insults, diseases and words. Those that hurt. Perhaps we shouldn’t have any at all, not even a thin veil, so people would finally be all the same, skeletal and muscular forms crudely bared. You would immediately see that inside, as outside, we are made with the same mold. Or maybe the skin should be a transparent, invisible fabric, so people would stop judging and insulting each other based on the color of the skin.

There are no borders in medicine. Science is universal. The art of healing does not use different hands if they are black. The skill of a healthcare professional lies in the knowledge inside their head, not on the surface of the skin. I worked with a doctor who came from Cameroon, like Nganso. You make me work like a white man, he joked when I brought him lots of white, green and yellow codes to the emergency room or called him to the triage for a consultation. He often worked more than a white man, he only stopped to go to the bathroom. And with patients he knew how to do it, even if they looked at him wrong. He was really good.

Beauty is made, subjectively, of many shades. Colors fill the world that would be quite boring without the rainbow. Even people are colored, as those with darker skin than white are called. Some people, white as snow, despise those made of ebony like wood. Yet, it is curious, they do everything to remove that whiteness from their skin, at least seasonally, exposing their sensitive phototype to the insults of the sun in order to have a healthier and more beautiful complexion. That with pallor one looks sick or worn out, at least in the West. In the East, on the other hand, the whiteness of the face is considered the highest purity, it is powdered to make it even more chalk-colored.

It is undeniable that there are races, each with different somatic traits that make the multiplicity of looks an enchantment. The human race is made up of homogeneous groups of people who, divided into the various continents – from the Caucasus to Mongolia and from Africa to Oceania – resemble each other for some peculiar and common somatic, external and hereditary characteristics. For the cut of the eye, the shape of the nose and forehead, the color of the skin. The rest of the body, as well as intelligence and spirit, are no different among men.

Breed however resembles animals, which in their variety are just as wonderful. Race seems to indicate a non-human identity. For people it is more appropriate and complete to say ethnicity. It identifies a group of human beings who live together for a strong affinity not only of physical and somatic characteristics but also cultural, historical and social. Speaking the same language, that of the fathers, and sharing a common story, to be told and handed down, binds like the blood of descent. We are all made of memory and generations in a certain corner of the world. With globalization the different ethnic groups now coexist, regardless of the geographical areas they belong to. It is a shared beauty, you don’t need to go far to admire it.

It is indisputable that there are no human races that are biologically and historically superior to others. Racism, which arises from this conception, is the man’s contempt for a man, considered different and inferior. It is a distorted narrative of the worth of every human person. It is a sick thought, which arises from prejudice and generates discrimination. If left free to spread, it leads to violence, first passing through suspicion and fear of what is unknown. It is latent, subtle. It is not clear why it lodges with greater force in some people in which it takes roots that are difficult to eradicate, like a weed that infests.

Racism is any irrational and unjustified discrimination against someone. There are as many discriminations as there are infinite diversities that are not respected. Racism, specifically understood as a discriminating nuisance towards skin color, seems to exist only from white to black, above all. I have never heard of racism in the same and opposite directions, such as the laws of physics that regulate motions. It is an all-white problem that believes it is brighter and brighter just because it is white. It makes no sense.

Clarity, unlike the beauty that is in the eye of the beholder, is not always in the heart of the one who thinks. Blackness is something wonderful, like whiteness. And what about the yellow color with those elongated, almond-shaped eyes, typical in the land of silk and mandarins and in that of rice and kimonos? The color has all the shades of the sun. It tastes hot, it tastes good, it tastes like a man. White sometimes needs a splash of paint