# What should have this Hospital done about a Racist demand in the NICU? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 15, 2013, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-have-this-hospital-done-about-a-racist-demand-in-the-nicu/650429 "2013-02-15T20:14:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 50
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-have-this-hospital-done-about-a-racist-demand-in-the-nicu/650429/50 "2013-02-17T05:46:26Z")
> [@Li\_l\_Pluck](#): > > And, anyway, what if they did it to you? What if your job reassigned you, a highly-trained professional, based on some asshole’s demand that a white nurse (I’m assuming that you’re white–or, at the least, not black) not touch their baby? Would you really be okay with that? What if it happened everyday? What if every patient/baby’s parent didn’t want you working on them based on your race or skin color or etc. Would you be okay with that, too? > > Look, your mother-in-law is free (and you would be, too), as someone else pointed out, to acquiesce to assholes who don’t want her “gypsy” hands on them, but the rest of us? Those of us who actually give a damn about the dignity of other human beings, even if they are–ewww–black? We. Do. Not. Give. In. To. Bigoted. Assholes. Not in the United States of America, and certainly not in the 21st century. > > Your mileage apparently varies. And more is the pity, sir, more is the pity. I am Roma. The skinheads, Neo-Nazis, etc., of the United States do not consider me white. Luckily, the prejudice against my people is not as remotely bad in the United States as it is parts of Europe (where we had the honor of being Hitler’s second most hated minority). I am a reference librarian at a university. I’ve had faculty and students not want to work with me because they believe I can’t possibly be competent at what I do because their preconceived notation based on my ethnicity is that I am uneducated, probably borderline illiterate and a criminal. In such a case, I hand them over to another librarian. If that librarian has a full schedule and doesn’t have time to see them for several days or doesn’t have the background for finding resources in that area of research as I do, they must suffer through that choice. Luckily, the type of library work I do has almost no chance of ever involving physical life or death choices for the patrons. But a child in a NICU (or anybody in an ICU unit) is at risk for death and shouldn’t have to suffer because of their parent’s bad choices. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-have-this-hospital-done-about-a-racist-demand-in-the-nicu/650429)._