Holding Space for Facilitated Dialogues on Antiracism in Academic Medicine

The year 2020 brought unprecedented challenges and renewed focus on racial disparities and inequities in the United States. For racial and ethnic minority groups, and in particular African Americans, racial disparities have been a constant presence and threat from the time of slavery through the present day. These racial disparities, sanctioned and maintained by institutional racism, manifest in all aspects of life for African Americans-segregated and unequal education and housing systems, health and mental health care disparities, disproportionally elevated incarceration rates, and, as painfully highlighted this past year, continued vulnerability to acts of violence at the hands of law enforcement. In addition, most recently, there has been a renewed focus on the increased suicide rate for Black youth and its relationship to these racial disparities.¹ In a large urban environment, our academic Child Psychiatry Department recognized that progress toward addressing racial disparities would be impeded without raising awareness and taking individual and collective action to identify implicit bias, power, and privilege differentials, and systemic racism inherent within academic medicine and our own lived experiences. This letter describes the development of such examination through facilitated dialogues on race and antiracism in our department.