The doors of the church are open. Good morning, Saints.
Beloved children of the sun, let’s get into the Word on this rainy Sunday. Did y’all hear the news this week about a white doctor who is suing FindABlackDoctor.com because he couldn’t get listed on this website, which is built to help people find… wait for it… Black doctors?
Now, Saints, I want y’all to sit with this evilness for a second.
The site is called Find a Black Doctor. Not Find Any Doctor. Not Find A Doctor Near You. Not Find a White Doctor Who Feels Left Out. Not Find a Dermatologist with a Grievance. Not Find a DEI Lawsuit Looking for a Plaintiff. Not Find a Colonizer with Board Certification. It says, Find A Black doctor. The assignment is right there in the name.
But this Colorado dermatologist named Dr. Travis Morrell has teamed up with Do No Harm, a conservative organization that publicly opposes DEI, to sue Find A Black Doctor in federal court. I should let Y’all know that the site was founded by my wonderful former New York City dermatologist, Dr. Dina Strachan. I would still be her patient if I was still living there.
This white man’s complaint is that the site limits its listings to Black physicians and dentists in active clinical practice. He says he applied to be listed back in December and didn’t get a response. He followed up months later and still got silence. And he now claims he was “constructively rejected because he is white.” The lawsuit says the directory robs non-Black doctors of advertising exposure and deprives patients of the chance to find doctors “without regard to race.”
Now Saints . . . Let’s pause right there.
This man saw a Black health directory built to help Black folk find culturally competent care in a racist medical system, and his spirit said, “But what about my advertising exposure?” This white man looked at a Black survival tool and said, “But what about me?” And then he decided the Lord had called him to litigation. Not prayer. Not reflection. Not Hooked on Phonics. Litigation.
Turn to your other neighbor and say, “Neighbor, this is a colonizer in a lab coat.”
That is a man standing outside a lifeboat built by people who have been drowning, asking why his name is not painted on the side. That is somebody hearing Black people say, “We need somewhere safe,” and responding, “But have you considered my access?” That is somebody walking up to the Underground Railroad asking if it has an equal opportunity policy for slave catchers.
Saints, this is not about healing Black bodies. This is not about listening to Black pain. This is not about learning why Black people walk into doctor offices and hospitals with our shoulders tight, our blood pressure high, our questions rehearsed, and somebody on standby ready to advocate for us because we already know that a white coat does not always mean safety.
This ain’t about healing and keeping Black folks alive. This is about access and extraction. This is about a man looking at a Black survival tool and asking, “How can I benefit from this too?” Not, “How can I repair the harm my profession has done?” Not, “How can I become worthy of Black trust?” Not, “How can I confront the racist medical history that makes a site like this necessary in the first damn place?” Not, “How can I help dismantle the bias that causes Black pain to be ignored, Black symptoms to be minimized, Black mothers to die, Black babies to be lost, and Black patients to leave medical offices feeling unseen and unheard?”
Nah Saints. His question is, “Where is my listing? Where is my visibility? Where is my advertising exposure? Where is my place in the thing Black folk built because people who look like me have harmed them?”
Or Saints, maybe, maybe, MAYBE I’m being too generous.
Maybe he don’t really wanna be in that directory at all. Maybe this ain’t about inclusion. Maybe this is not about some deep desire to serve Black patients with humility, care, and cultural understanding. Maybe he is not standing at the door of Find A Black Doctor saying, “Please let me help.” Maybe he is standing there saying, “How dare this exist without me?”
Maybe the point is not to get listed. Maybe the point is to make the directory disappear.
Ohhh, Y’all don’t wanna hear me preach this morning. Brotha Willie play your organ, Sir.
Maybe the goal is to punish Black people for building a resource that helps us survive a system that was never built with our safety in mind.
Maybe the offense is not that he was excluded. Maybe the offense is that Black people found one another.
Maybe the offense is that Black patients have a place to go where the search does not begin with proving our pain. Translating our fear. Defending our mistrust. Or hoping somebody in a white coat sees us as fully human.
Hallelujah.
Because let’s be honest, Saints. If this lawsuit succeeds, then what happens?
It won’t make Black people safer. It won’t make medicine less racist. It won’t reduce Black maternal mortality. It won’t make doctors listen better. It won’t repair the long history of experimentation, exploitation, dismissal, and neglect. It won’t resurrect the Black folk who died because somebody did not believe them. It won’t make one emergency room more humane, or one diagnosis more accurate, or one labor and delivery unit more accountable, or one medical school more honest about the racism baked into its training.
Maybe he wants to preserve a system where white doctors remain the default gatekeepers of Black life.
Come on, somebody!
Maybe he wants to preserve a system where Black patients have to take whatever care is available and be grateful. A system where Black people cannot seek out Black expertise without somebody calling it discrimination. A system where white medicine can harm us for generations, and then when we build one small pathway toward safer care, white medicine shows up with a lawsuit asking, “What about me?”
Saints, this is what white supremacy does. It harms you, then objects to your healing. It wounds you, then questions your bandage. It locks you out, then sues you for building your own damn door. It poisons the water, then complains when you dig a well. It burns the bridge, then cries discrimination when you build a boat.
This man may say he wants access to the directory, but the spirit of the lawsuit says that Black people are not allowed to organize our own safety without Massa’s permission.
Somebody say, “Preach, Rev. Dr. Staceypants.”
And I reject that in the name of every Black ancestor who had to survive a doctor who did not listen. I reject that in the name of every Black mama who said, “Somethin’ is wrong,” and was told to calm down. I reject that in the name of every Black patient who sat in an exam room and watched their pain get called an attitude. I reject that in the name of every Black family that learned too late that the system does not always kill with bullets. Sometimes it kills with charts, delays, discharge papers, and disbelief.
We are not confused this morning, Saints.
When a white doctor’s first response to Black self-protection is legal force, he has already told us everything we need to know about the kind of care he offers. Because the oath he took says, “first, do no harm.” But this man looked at a Black survival resource and decided harm was acceptable. He decided that his wounded ego mattered more than our hurting bodies. He decided that his advertising exposure mattered more than our medical fear. He decided that his access mattered more than our safety.
That is a betrayal of the oath and medicine. That is a betrayal of every patient who walks into an exam room hoping the person in the white coat has come to heal and not to dominate.
Because if you will use the law to force your way into a Black space built for survival, what else will you force? If you cannot honor a boundary outside the exam room, why should we trust you with our boundaries inside one? If you cannot respect Black people saying, “This is where we go to feel safer,” why should we trust you when we say, “This hurts,” “Something is wrong,” “I need you to listen,” “I do not consent,” “Do not dismiss me,” “Do not touch me like that,” “Do not send me home yet?”
Saints, he has already answered the question. He may have taken an oath to do no harm, but he betrayed that oath the moment he treated Black survival as an injury to himself. He betrayed it when he made our search for safety into his lawsuit. He betrayed it when he looked at a community trying to protect its bodies and decided the real patient was his racial pride.
And I need Y’all to understand the spirit moving underneath this thing. This man may be one doctor, but he stands in a long lineage of white medicine looking at Black bodies not as sacred, not as whole, not as beloved, not as made in the image of god, but as available. Available to study. Available to cut. To amputate. To test. To ignore. To misdiagnose. To dismiss. To profit from. And now, apparently, even our fear, our caution, our self-protection, our attempt to find one another, our digital map toward safer care, even that is supposed to be available too.
But the devil is a liar!
Why would we want a doctor who responds to Black mistrust by suing Black people? Why would we want a doctor who sees a Black health resource and does not ask, “What pain created this?” but instead asks, “Why am I not included?” Why would we want a doctor who looks at the words Find a Black Doctor and thinks the emergency is his exclusion, not our survival?
Saints, I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t need that man laying his cold hands on me. I don’t need him palpating my abdomen. I don’t need him reading my chart. I don’t need him interpreting my pain. I don’t need him looking at my skin, my bloodwork, my symptoms, my breath, my body, my fear, my fatigue, my family history, and deciding whether I am telling the truth.
If you cannot diagnose the racism in your own lawsuit, how are you gonna diagnose what is happening in my body? If you cannot hear Black folk saying, “We are trying to stay alive,” without making yourself the victim, how are you gonna hear me when I say, “Doctor, something is wrong”?
Come on, church.
And I need the church to hear me this morning: Black people saying “not here” is not discrimination. Black people saying “this is for us” is not hatred. Black people saying “we need somebody who understands us” is not racism. Black people saying “we are tired of dying under your care” is not division.
That is survival and discernment and wisdom. That is the old folks sayin’, “Baby, don’t go in there by yourself.” That is the grandmother voice in the waiting room. That is the ancestor tapping you on the shoulder. That is the Holy Ghost saying, “Guard your body. Guard your breath. Guard your blood. Guard your babies. Guard your people.” Hallelujah.
Because our bodies are not mission fields. Our pain is not a marketplace. Our fear is not an advertising opportunity. Our survival is not a diversity problem. Our healing is not a booth at the county fair where everybody gets a table. Some separate spaces exist because harm happened. Some doors are closed because the last open door almost killed us.
And Saints lemme say this, we are living in a moment where certain people see any Black-centered space and immediately start itching like they walked through poison ivy. A scholarship for Black students? Discrimination. A business fund for Black women? Discrimination. A maternal health initiative for Black mothers? Discrimination.
FindABlackDoctor.com does not exist because Black people are trying to hurt white doctors’ feelings. It exists because Black people are trying to stay alive!
It exists because Black women are dying. Black babies are dying. Black elders are being dismissed. Black pain is being undertreated. Black children are being misdiagnosed. Black patients are being labeled difficult when they are scared, noncompliant when they are unheard, aggressive when they are advocating, and drug-seeking when they are in pain.
So when Black folks go looking for a Black doctor, we are not saying every Black doctor is perfect or that every white doctor is evil. We are saying, “Can I please find me somebody who does not need a whole Black History Month PowerPoint before they believe my body is telling the truth?”
We are saying, “Can I please find somebody who understands that my mistrust did not fall out of the sky?” We are saying, “Can I please find somebody who sees me as a person before they see me as a problem?”
We are saying, “I am trying to live.”
And Saints, there is scripture for this. In Mark 5:25–34, the Bible tells us about a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. And the text says she had “suffered many things of many physicians.” She was not only suffering from the illness. She was suffering from the people who were supposed to heal her. She had spent all she had, put her body in the hands of the experts, and instead of getting better, she grew worse.
So when Black people go looking for a different kind of care, we are not being divisive. We are that woman pressing through the crowd. We are reaching for the hem. We are trying to get to somebody who can see us, hear us, believe us, and help us live.
Black Liberation Theology teaches us that god is not sitting somewhere above the suffering, stroking a white beard, asking the oppressed to be patient while the powerful finish killing them politely. God sees the blood. Hears the grief. Knows the exploitation. Feels the bodies bent under systems that were never designed to let them breathe. God moves toward the captive, the crushed, the dismissed, the experimented on, the misdiagnosed, the disbelieved, the left-for-dead. God moves toward the people whose bodies have become battlegrounds.
So any theology that tells Black people to suffer quietly, forgive and put our faith in systems that keep killing us, hand over the tools we built to survive, or make room for the very forces that made sanctuary necessary is not liberation theology. That is the kind of religion that tells the enslaved to obey the master, tells the wounded to comfort the wounder, and tells the dying to be polite about the knife still in their backs.
But Black Liberation Theology says no. Black life is sacred. Black bodies are sacred. Black pain is telling the truth. Black healing is holy ground. And any system that harms Black people and then objects to our survival is not standing in the light of god.
Let us pray.
God of the oppressed, god of every Black body that has ever had to fight to be believed, cover us this morning. Cover our pain. Cover our fear. Cover our breath. Cover our bodies when we walk into rooms that were not built to see us as fully human and sacred.
We pray especially for Dr. Dina Strachan. Strengthen her spine. Guard her spirit. Protect her work. Surround her with community, wisdom, resources, and righteous fire. Let no weapon formed against her prosper, and let every attack on Black healing expose itself for what it is.
And dear lord, give us discernment to know the difference between healing and harm, care and control, justice and colonization. Teach us to protect what we have built. Teach us to honor the boundaries that keep us alive. Teach us that our survival is holy.
Let the church say Amen, Amen, and Amen.
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