When Racism Wears a Badge: A Nurse’s Response to the Robert Wood Johnson Survey

When Racism Wears a Badge: A Nurse’s Response to the Robert Wood Johnson Survey

Nurse checking blood pressure

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s recent survey confirms what far too many nurses of color already know from lived experience: racism is not an occasional occurrence in healthcare—it’s embedded in the culture. According to the report, 80% of nurses reported racism from patients. Black, Asian, and Latino nurses experience more frequent microaggressions and outright discrimination than their white counterparts, and six in ten also report bias from their own colleagues. It’s more than just offensive—it’s making us sick.

Racism Wears a Badge: A Nurse’s Response to the Robert Wood Johnson Survey

When I worked as a registered nurse at a top hospital in Los Angeles, I witnessed and experienced the weight of that bias firsthand. One day, while administering insulin, a white patient referred to me as "the nanny." Another told me, “They have colored folks in good positions here,” as if my presence in a professional role was a surprise or a threat. There were patients who refused to speak to me, preferring to get their information from white care partners. I was moved from unit to unit—not because of performance, but because wealthy white patients didn’t want a Black nurse in their rooms.

It wasn’t just them. Black patients sometimes looked at me and said, “I didn’t know they had LVNs here,” assuming that I couldn’t possibly be a registered nurse. Even among my colleagues, the assignments always seemed to go to white nurses first, no matter the skill level or workload. All of this chips away at your mental health, your sense of belonging, your dignity.

The survey found that 90% of nurses who experienced racism said it affected their mental well-being. That doesn’t surprise me. Workplace discrimination is one of the most severe forms of job stress, producing symptoms of both physical and mental disease. We are told to be strong, to be quiet, to not make waves.

But silence is not safety.

I don’t have a magic solution—but I know what I’d like to see: real confrontation of the issue. Don’t let racism stay hidden behind assumptions. Ask the patient why they’re uncomfortable. Let them say it out loud. Then report it. And then act on it. If a patient refuses care based on race, they should be transferred out of the facility. Full stop. We need zero-tolerance policies that are enforced, not just written into dusty manuals.

More DEI training isn’t enough. We need empowering and encouraging reporting systems, firm accountability for managers, and decision-makers in roles that put health first.

But above all, we need courage—from nurses, from administrators, from allies.

To my fellow nurses: you’re not imagining it. You’re not overreacting. This system wasn’t built for us—but we are the backbone of it. So let’s start demanding better.

Comment below: How would you handle racism at work? What would a true zero-tolerance policy look like in your workplace? Let’s start talking.

Also, I wrote a book called Operation Mental Health: Lessons On Career Burnout and Recovery. It's also a memoir of discrimination within a major US Hopital . Maybe if you read it. You will find your way forward.

Buy it here.

Operation Mental Health: Practical Lessons On Career Burnout and Recovery

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