Texas resident Ethel Easter was recently in need of emergency hernia surgery but a doctor at a local hospital said she would have to wait two months. When she refused to wait that long, Easter says the doctor’s response was:
Who do you think you are? You have to wait just like everybody else.
The unprofessional encounter prompted Easter to hide a recording device in her hair during the surgery. Hidden in her braids, the alleged conversations captured were quite disturbing. According to the recording Easter shared with the media, the surgeon said:
She’s a handful she had some choice words for us in the clinic when we didn’t book her case in two weeks.
Easter also claims the anesthesiologist implied that she was a “big fat black woman” because the recorder caught him repeatedly calling her “Precious”. That portion of the recording was not shared with the media.
This is extremely disgusting and part of the seedy underbelly of our society. Body shaming, particularly of black women, is cruel, misogynistic and plays into commonly assumed stereotypes. And it needs to stop.