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Lingering Racism Calls for Reflection and Action
- Ali M. Thomas, MD;
- June M. Thomas, PhD; and
- Richard W. Thomas, PhD
- From Legacy Health System, Portland, OR 97205, and Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824.
TO THE EDITOR:
Congratulations to Nunez-Smith and colleagues, whose work (1), along with qualitative surveys of residents (2), heralds a fresh paradigm in disparities research—a summons for greater individual, as well as collective, action.
We concur with the view (3) that data confirming the pervasiveness of subtle racism are consistent with U.S history and culture. In 1944, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, in his commissioned study on America's “Negro problem” (4), called it “the moral dilemma of the American—the conflict between his moral valuations on various levels of consciousness” and the persistence of social inequity. Strikingly, as recent as 2002, white …
