Across my years of studying race and culture in academic and psychological spaces, I have learned that: 1) words matter and 2) words will change. How we talk about social identities will change over time. We need to redefine and evolve our language to fit the changes we want to see in the world as well as address and label the current problems that we are seeing.
When I encounter the term cultural humility when training providers, I always pause for a moment. I’m worried I’m going to waste everyone’s time & attention getting stuck in arguing the semantics of language rather than actually help people make changes that will improve their care and their self-knowledge.
I was in graduate school when the concept of cultural humility was beginning to become popular. We were shifting from the term multiculturally competent towards cultural humility (removing the addressing the unnecessary need to prove plurality in “multi” and challenging the impossibility of “competence” when it comes to understanding culture). I expect the terms will continue to evolve to how we address equity and social oppression in healthcare (and beyond).
But, I do keep getting stuck on humility. I realize the true definition of cultural humility is powerful and much more complicated than at first glance. Cultural humility is a term developed by Dr. Melanie Tervalon and Dr. Jann Murray-Garcia, derived from their experiences working in the medical field.
The term refers to a committed practice of learning and self-examination in order to address privilege, power, and oppressive dynamics evident in provider-patient relationships. Practicing cultural humility across your years as a practitioner is a worthy endeavor, and much more challenging as it sounds.
So, why do I still get tripped up?
One of the first definitions of humility that comes up in a web search is “having a low or modest view of oneself” which I think can be a bit dangerous in the space of culture and race and the way that Whiteness works.
One of my biggest concerns with White healthcare providers (and many other professionals) is that they 1) may not understand they too have a race and 2) tend to not take responsibility of their power and privilege in their encounters with clients/patients. We need to understand what it means to have this area in our life so underdeveloped (especially in our professional roles) and how to grow our racial identity.
Sometimes I feel as though the term humility is ripe for Whiteness to devour. I worry “humility” justifies White providers remaining passive, asking clients/patients to teach us about their culture, or worse, asking clients/patients to teach us about our own privilege and power.
Of course, the true concept of cultural humility does not support White professionals to remain passive in the process of self-reflection and the development of critical consciousness. And possibly, Whiteness will always find a way to hide the privilege and power dynamics no matter the terms we use.
But, what terms would I want to add into the mix?
Maybe privilege-responsible? Power-accountable? Actively reflecting on privilege and power into healthcare encounters?
Nope, still working on it. Of course, I like the term racially responsive quite a lot.
My goal for White healthcare providers would be to notice your yearning to rest in the space the term humility seems to offer.
What can we do to take the passivity out of humility?
How can we take our power and privilege seriously in the context of providing quality care?