The newly released American Nurses Association (ANA) Racial Reckoning statement is a critical first step in our effort to acknowledge ANA's role in perpetuating systemic racism in nursing through willful exclusion of ethnic minority and indigenous nurses. The urgency to address this issue stemmed from hearing personal accounts of continued physical and psychological harm from nurses of color over the last year.
The National Commission to Address Racism in Nursing, co-lead by the ANA, National Black Nurses Association, National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Associations, and National Association of Hispanic Nurses conducted listening sessions, a national survey, and interviews with past ANA leadership to hear how racism has impacted nurses throughout history and present day. The Commission's Foundational Report is an exhaustive review of how racism shows up historically and contemporarily in nursing education, policy, practice, and research.
The Commission defines racism as "assaults on the human spirit in the form of actions, biases, prejudices, and an ideology of superiority based on race that persistently cause moral suffering and physical harm of individuals and perpetuate systemic injustices and inequities." ANA boldly stands by our statement that we have implicitly and complicity harmed nurses of color and that we must be held accountable before we can be forgiven.
ANA's Racial Reckoning statement outlines examples of how our actions or inactions harmed nurses of color. For example, from 1916 until 1964, ANA barred Black nurses from becoming members. One sentinel incident occurred in 1939 involving Estelle Massey Riddle Osborne, president of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, who was invited by ANA President Julia Stimson to meet with ANA's Advisory Council to discuss the status of Black nurses in the profession. The hotel where the meeting was held discriminated against President Osborne with their policy for a Black person to enter through the service elevator; ANA was complicit by not protesting this discriminatory policy.
ANA's work toward racial reckoning is a journey. This reckoning work is ANA's sole responsibility and not that of ethnic minority nursing associations. We invite nurses of color to share their experiences where ANA failed to include or represent them via our portal (https://bit.ly/3PVeyim). Sharing will help us confront brutal truths. ANA is also meeting with ethnic minority nursing organizations to devise the next steps toward healing and reconciliation. Finally, we intend to evaluate and implement positions, policies, and strategies through an antiracism and equity lens that will reshape ANA and our profession for the better.
ERNEST J. GRANT, PhD, RN, FAAN
PRESIDENT, AMERICAN NURSES ASSOCIATION
LORESSA COLE, DNP, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
AMERICAN NURSES ASSOCIATION ENTERPRISE