In response to the crazy (but unfortunately not so uncommon) situation of white folks straining to believe that black professionals exist—this time in the case of Dr. Tamika Cross—scores of black female doctors took to Twitter to post photos of themselves under the hashtag #WhatADoctorLooksLike.
Cross, a Houston OB-GYN, last Sunday posted on Facebook her ridiculous experience on a Delta flight to Detroit, when a flight attendant refused to believe that she was a doctor and blocked her from giving aid to a man who had become unresponsive. The attendant did not believe Cross but had no problem believing a white man on the same flight who also claimed to have medical credentials.
“I’m sure many of my fellow young, corporate America working women of color can all understand my frustration when I say I’m sick of being disrespected,” Tamika Cross said at the start of her post.
Well, some of those sisters of medicine came to her aid in the simple but powerful form of posting photos of themselves as real, live physicians.
Yes, we have been medical doctors in this country since Rebecca Lee Crumpler earned her doctorate in medicine in 1864.
And yes, we exist to this day.