⚖️ Chapter 2: Understanding Anti-Black Racism in Canadian Dietetics
9 2.2 What We Do and Do Not Know
Anti-Black Racism (ABR) in Canadian dietetics reflects broader systemic issues seen across healthcare. Research has illuminated the inequities faced by Black Canadians regarding health outcomes and access to nutrition care. Studies reveal that Black individuals experience higher rates of chronic diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease, largely due to socio-economic and systemic barriers (Seligman & Schillinger, 2010; Public Health Agency of Canada, n.d.). These disparities are compounded by the lack of culturally appropriate care, where Black patients’ unique dietary and cultural needs are often overlooked, discriminated by or misunderstood by healthcare providers, including dietitians (Ng, 2023).
Current research highlights the critical need to confront these systemic inequities and biases within dietetics. However, gaps remain in understanding the full extent of ABR’s impacts on both practitioners and patients. There is insufficient data on the experiences of Black Registered Dietitians (RDs) and how racism within the profession affects their ability to serve Black communities. Moreover, research on the intersectional experiences of Black women, Black LGBTQ+ individuals, and other subgroups in dietetics is limited, leaving an incomplete picture of how these dynamics influence access to care (Ng, 2023).
Ongoing research is vital to address these gaps and promote health equity within the field. By continuing to investigate and acknowledge systemic racism, dietitians can improve their care approaches, ensuring that nutrition and health services are accessible, inclusive, and effective for Black Canadians (Ng, Wellington, & Pabani, 2024). This commitment to research also empowers dietitians to advocate for policy changes and greater representation within the profession, fostering an environment that values diversity and cultural competency (Abdulhamid, 2021).
Key Concepts:
- Race: A social and political construct, with no scientific basis, used to arbitrarily categorize people based on their physical traits, cultural, geographical, social, political, and economic factors. It is a frame of reference used to locate, compare, and differentiate Europeans from other socially-constructed groups.
- Anti-Black Racism: A particular form of racism expressed towards Black people and seen in policies and practices rooted in Canadian institutions such as education, healthcare, and justice that mirror and reinforce beliefs, attitudes, prejudice, stereotyping, and/or discrimination.
The Importance of Continuing This Work
The global push for racial justice, highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement, has brought systemic racism to the forefront of societal discussions. This movement has extended into healthcare fields, calling for more inclusive and equitable practices. The importance of continuing research on ABR in Canadian dietetics is part of this broader call to action. By deepening our understanding of the role systemic racism plays in shaping health outcomes, we can develop strategies to promote health equity and inclusivity (Abdulhamid, 2021; Ng, Wellington, & Pabani, 2024).
In the final section of this chapter, we reflect on the everyday experiences of racism that Black individuals encounter. These experiences often manifest as “brief and commonplace, daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour)” (Sue et al., 2007). Though seemingly minor to those who perpetrate them, these instances, often referred to as microaggressions, have a profound cumulative impact on the well-being and mental health of those who experience them. They contribute to feelings of exclusion, alienation, and a diminished sense of belonging within various settings, including professional and healthcare environments (Cleveland Clinic, 2021).
Learning Tip: Discomfort and Uncertainty As Part of the Curriculum
Modern professional education often teaches that a good practitioner is someone who can identify the problem, select the correct intervention, implement it efficiently, and measure the outcome. That orientation is immensely useful in some contexts. If someone is experiencing severe malnutrition or electrolyte imbalance, uncertainty is not the goal.
However, the same epistemic posture that serves well in acute clinical situations begins to spill over into domains where it is poorly suited: structural racism, food insecurity, colonialism, climate disruption, anti-Black racism. These are not technical problems waiting for sufficiently clever technicians. They are historical, relational, and systemic predicaments.
When nutrition and dietetic students, educators, or practitioners encounter these issues, the discomfort is partly ontological rather than merely intellectual:
“If my identity has been organized around being someone who solves problems…”
“If my worth comes from competence…”
“If every assignment has rewarded finding the right answer…”
“…then what happens when I meet a situation where there isn’t a correct intervention that restores innocence or resolves the harm?”
The discomfort is not only “I don’t know what to do,” but also “Who am I if competence is not enough?”
It’s a profoundly understandable question, and underneath it may be another, largely invisible one:
“How do I stop feeling implicated?”
Sometimes the desire for action is genuinely generous and is also a bid for equilibrium—to restore the internal sense of being a good person. Modernity often rewards action over staying with implication because action can create the feeling of progress, whereas sitting with complicity feels like failure. Uncertainty as a professional disposition: the capacity to remain ethically present in situations that exceed one’s expertise is required in anti-oppression and advocacy work (Machado de Oliveira, 2021).
Below we offer two non-dietetic, but real-world, branching scenarios about anti-Black racism for you to practice taking chances, making mistakes and getting messy, as famously encouraged by the fictional educator Miss Frizzle (The Magic School Bus, 1994–1997). We hope these activities will help reduce the pressure of academic or clinical performance as you engage with the discomfort, loose ends, and unforeseen or imperfect outcomes that are part of the reality of facing anti-Black racism.
Activity: The “Word”
Activity: Make the Call