Emotional Baggage Across Schools and other Communities
I suppose it follows naturally that if communities have discrimination or emotional differences within them, then across communities we will probably see more differences and and the continuation of inter-generational biases. In our Beyond Medicine, Baggage Claim series, we recently discussed baggage between communities. The obvious communities that come to mind are the religious, professional, housing and volunteer communities, which I discussed in the previous post in this series.
However, school communities also need to be mentioned. Within a school community, there is usually some degree of bullying, racial and gender discrimination, sometimes even intolerance of differently abled and neurodiverse students.
Across schools there may also exist discrimination against students from poor families attending an elite school on scholarship. Students from wealthier families tend to discriminate and taunt students from poor families. The latter feel discriminated, may even be tormented or bullied.
Then there’s inter-school discriminations in many ways such as certain facilities or lack there of, rural versus urban, ethnic differences, and religious teachings. Different organizations, especially religious groups, operate some schools in Fiji. Dress code and certain practices differ greatly and when the students meet for sporting or other events, and there maybe remarks exchanged regarding these differences.
Professional discrimination is also not uncommon, such as doctors versus nurses, university lecturers verses high school teachers versus primary school teachers, even among airline staff. Some 50 years ago there was a lot of discrimination between doctors and nurses. In my personal experience, no matter how brilliant the nurse was, she was always reminded by the doctors that ‘she is only a nurse’. I love nurses as they are the true care-givers of sick people – loving, compassionate, caring and almost always available for the patients. This is before people started thinking of these noble careers as ‘just a job’. Nowadays, nurses command a lot more respect from their doctor colleagues.
Similarly for allied hospital staff such as dietitians, physical therapists, laboratory technicians, theater assistants, even cleaners, there was very little respect or value for their services. Without teamwork and input from all cadres of workers, a hospital can not function efficiently. Thankfully now, there is more respect and appreciation. Can we even imagine the loweredmorale and emotional stress of these essential workers back then? They must be very strong mentally to not carry this emotional burden of not being appreciated or respected for their essential services.
Volunteer groups may also carry biases about one group being better than another. One group may boast of raising more funds or having more members. This creates a competition, which may hinder the actual reason for the groups’ existence.
Differences should be respected, appreciated, and leveraged for a resilient society made up of diverse communities. Share with me your own experiences of what is working.
