Being Seen by the Doctor: A Meditation on Power, Institutional Racism, and Medical Ethics

The following pages sketch the outlines of "a Canaanite reading" of the health system. Beginning with the Black person-African, Afro-diasporic, Aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islander-who is seen by a health professional, the functions and effects of the racializing gaze are examined. I wrestle with Al Saji's understanding of "colonial disregard," Whittaker's insights into the extractive disposition of settler institutions vis-à-vis Indigenous peoples, and Saidiya Hartman and Fred Moten's struggle with the spectacular. This leads me to conclude that the situation of the Black within the health system is a tragic one. The prescription for the path out of this tragedy that I settle on, responding to Okiji's opening call, is found in Vernon Ah Kee's "Unwritten" series.