Doctors Are Being Urged to Recognize the Devastating Impact of Racism On Children and Teenagers

The decision seemed harsh: a teenage swimmer disqualified from winning her swimming meet after a referee thought her school-issued swimsuit showed too much of her backside. A wave of criticism on social media forced the school to reverse course. 17-year-old Breckynn Willis is bi-racial.

A coach at a neighboring school defended Willis and her sisters and pointed out why their suit “wedgie” resulted in disqualification when it happens regularly to swimmers.

Lauren Langford wrote, “They are being targeted not because they are wearing their suits to be scandalous, thus inspiring immorality among other young people, but rather because their ample hips, tiny waits, full chests, and dark complexions look different than their willowy, thin, and mostly pallid teammates.”

Langford added that the “racial facet” cannot be ignored.

Earlier this summer the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a warning that racism is a serious health risk for children and adolescents. The organization urged doctors to look for signs of the detrimental impact of racial bias.

Before a room full of her peers, the polished college freshman recounted a story from her fifth-grade year that still haunts her. Madison, the name we will use to provide some privacy, recalled the day one of her classmates generously applied glue to the desk of another classmate. When the child unknowingly sat in the glue and became stuck, the culprit blamed Madison. She was the only black student in the classroom. It backfired on him because her peers knew her as a shy, kind classmate, and there was proof that she was in the restroom at the time of the mischief.

“Most of the students and I went through middle school and high school together, and I never thought of him as a good person,” Madison said. “I didn’t tell my mom until a year after it happened, and even at that point, she said, ‘Do I need to go to the principal?’”

The Academy of Pediatrics stated that “today’s children, adolescents, and emerging adults are increasingly diverse. Strategies to address health and developmental issues across the pediatric life span that incorporate ethnicity, culture, and circumstance are critical to achieving a reduction in health disparities.”

Around the nation, parents are standing up to combat racism directed at their children. The grandmother of a four-year-old boy in Texas says she was told to either cut the child’s hair or braid it. Randi Woodley and other parents are challenging the school’s dress code, calling it discriminatory.

Meanwhile, Breckynn Willis’s mother is requesting that the referee who sought to disqualify her daughter is removed from officiating female races.