Real Nurses and Others; Racism in Nursing

“Most nurses of colour experience everyday forms of racism, including being infantilized and marginalized. Most reported being “put down,” insulted or degraded because of race/ethnicity/colour. A significant proportion of nurses, non-white and white, report having witnessed an incident where a nurse was treated differently because of his/her race/ethnicity/colour.”

These are only some of the conclusions that author Tania Das Gupta arrived at as a result of her survey of 593 Ontario Nursing Association members. Within the framework of the political economy of health care and drawing from the findings of her research, the author develops an intersectional theoretical framework that helps us understand how racism happens and provides a base from which nurses and other workers can fight racial harassment. This book shows how systemic racism persists in the workplace. It shows how fear, lack of support, management collaboration, co-worker harassment and ineffective institutional responses make it difficult for victims of racism to fight back.

Tania Das Gupta is an associate professor cross-appointed to the Department of Equity Studies and to Sociology at York University. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto. Her research areas include race, gender, class, paid workplaces, diaspora, transnationalism and family issues. She is the author of Racism and Paid Work