*Angelina Jolie has teamed with medical student Malone Mukwende to raise awareness about medical issues that affect people of color.
In a recent article for Time, Jolie writes that Mukwende, 21, embarked on this journey after learning “almost all the images and data used in its teaching were based on studies of white patients,” which can lead to “misdiagnosis, suffering and even death.”
Mukwende’s work is outlined in a handbook called Mind the Gap, and an online platform called Hutano.
“Hutano, in my native language, Shona, translates directly to ‘health,’” he said. “It’s a health social platform, where people from all over the world can connect to form communities and really discuss these different conditions.”
Jolie says she has experienced racial bias with her own kids. She and her ex Brad Pitt share Maddox, 19, Pax, 17, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 15, and 12-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
READ MORE: Zahara Jolie-Pitt’s Birth Mother Surfaces: ‘Please Let Me Talk to My Daughter’
“I have children from different backgrounds, and I know when there was a rash that everybody got, it looked drastically different depending on their skin color,” Jolie explains. “But whenever I looked at medical charts, the reference point was always white skin.”
She went on to recall a conversation she had with a nurse last year when her eldest daughter, Zahara, who is Black, had surgery.
“Recently my daughter, Zahara, whom I adopted from Ethiopia, had surgery, and afterward a nurse told me to call them if her skin ‘turned pink,'” Jolie says.
Mukwende said he “started to notice very early on” the microaggressions like those experienced by Zahara.
“Almost the entirety of medicine is taught in that way. There’s a language and a culture that exists in the medical profession, because it’s been done for so many years and because we are still doing it so many years later it doesn’t seem like it’s a problem,” he says. “However, like you’ve just illustrated, that’s a very problematic statement for some groups of the population because it’s just not going to happen in that way and if you’re unaware you probably won’t call the doctor.”
You can read their full conversation here.
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