Race and Racism Discourse in US Nursing: Challenging the Silence.

AbstractRacism has historically been entrenched in both US nursing and nursing education, despite deliberate efforts aimed at raising awareness on how racism can cause health disparities in ethnic minority patients. This paper aims to deconstruct how language to address racism in US nursing has been used historically, explain why using this language has not been successful, and make recommendations for stronger ways to use discourse to directly address racism in healthcare and nursing education. To date, approaches to racism in nursing have followed Leininger’s Theory, and have focused on teaching cultural competence skills. This has had the unintended consequence of discouraging discourse about racism in nursing through white silence and colorblindness ideology. This article proposes to instead teach skills in norm-critical thinking and discourse, starting with nurse faculty, to empower them to identify institutionalized racism in US nursing and nursing education, engage in discourse about it, and dismantle it.<br> <br>Keywords: Nursing; Racism; Communication Barriers; Education, Nursing; Nursing Care; Race Factors; Healthcare Disparities; Professionalism; Organization and Administration; Nursing Education Research; Socioeconomic Factors; Policy.