499: Dr. Jennifer Hutton: How to be an Ally

On this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy and Smart Podcast, I welcome Jennifer Hutton on the show to discuss Anti-Racism & Allyship. Dr. Jennifer Hutton, aka Dr. Jpop, is a pediatric physical therapist from Nashville, TN. As a Black woman, Jennifer knows what it is like to identify as different, and it has helped in her quest to be an ally for children with disabilities inside and outside of the clinic. Now she is educating others on how to be effective allies to BIPOC and furthering her desire to create a diverse and inclusive space she calls Dr. Jpop’s Neighborhood.

In this episode, we discuss:

-How racial trauma impacts the biopsychosocial determinants of health

-The difference between an ally and a white savior

-Implicit bias in healthcare

-The lifelong process of Allyship

-And so much more!

 Resources:

Jennifer Hutton Facebook

Jennifer Hutton Twitter

Jennifer Hutton Instagram

Jennifer Hutton Website

Anti-Racism & Allyship for Rehab and Movement Professionals

 

A big thank you to Net Health for sponsoring this episode!  Learn more about Four Ways That Outpatient Therapy Providers Can Increase Patient Engagement in 2020!

 

For more information on Jennifer:
Dr. Jennifer Hutton, aka Dr. Jpop, is a pediatric physical therapist from Nashville, TN. She became interested in PT when her youngest cousin was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Jennifer spent time observing him in different therapies, and subsequently determined that she would work with children in a similar capacity.

She graduated from Loma Linda University with her Doctorate in Physical Therapy in 2008, and moved back to her hometown.  She spent two years treating in an ortho setting before finally transitioning to her dream job with children. Jennifer enjoys treating the developmentally delayed population, as well as children with neurological and orthopedic diagnoses, both congenital and acquired. While the world reminds children with special needs of their limitations, she believes they are all capable of the impossible and helps them see that their special gifts will help them be their best selves. Jennifer loves to showcase her “pop stars” and share creative treatment ideas on Instagram. She is also an instructor for RockTape and is currently working on her own educational content for pediatric movement specialists.

As a Black woman, Jennifer knows what it is like to identify as different, and it has helped in her quest to be an ally for children with disabilities inside and outside of the clinic. Now she is educating others on how to be effective allies to BIPOC and furthering her desire to create a diverse and inclusive space she calls Dr. Jpop’s Neighborhood.

 

Read the full transcript below:

Karen Litzy (00:01):

Hey, Jennifer, welcome to the podcast. I am so happy to have you on. And now for those of you who are, maybe don't know you by your full first name on Instagram and social media, she is Dr. J Pop and last week you gave a wonderfully informative thought provoking webinar, and we will have the link to that in our show notes. Cause people can still watch the replay to that, correct? Yes, the replay is up and it will be for the foreseeable future. So what I'll have you do quickly because I don't want to put words into your mouth, but I would love for you just to tell the audience a little bit more about what that webinar was about and why you did it.

Jennifer Hutton (00:58):

Yeah, so it was anti-racism and allyship for rehab and movement professionals. And I went through from the beginning, literally started with the history of white supremacy in healthcare, through slavery. The Jim Crow era talked about racial trauma and the effects that it can have psychologically and physiologically. Then I went through the stages of allies and all of the things that you can do in each stage. And then I have portioned it out for the examination phase and for the action phase and kind of let people know in their different settings, be it education, be it healthcare or fitness, the action steps and the questions that they can ask themselves to be a better ally. I just, I wanted to do it. It's been a passion of mine for awhile talking about cultural competency and diversity, and I could tell people were awake in a way that they've never been awake before, so they were ready to receive the message.

Jennifer Hutton (01:57):

So when everything happened with, you know, Brianna Taylor, I'm not arbitrary and George Floyd, it was kind of like the cherry on top that everybody now is ready to listen. And so I found this was a great way to just get my thoughts across.

 

Karen Litzy:

And obviously we're not going to have you retell that entire thing because people can go and watch the replay. Like I said, there'll be a link in the show notes but for me after watching it and I also watched the replay, so I sort of like went through it twice. Just because, you know, I want it to be really clear on what I didn't know. And good. Yeah. And so we're not going to go through all of it, but what I do want to touch upon today is, and you mentioned it in your description just now is racial trauma. And I also want to talk about allyship. So what can people specifically in healthcare do to be allies to our BIPOC community in healthcare?

Jennifer Hutton (03:00):

Right? So we'll get to that. But first, what I want to talk about is racial trauma. This was a very, very powerful part of the webinar for me. And it is certainly part of our social determinants of health. And as physical therapists, if we are treating under a bio-psychosocial lens, social is part of it. We need to be aware of what racial trauma is and how that may affect a person mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Jennifer Hutton (03:47):

Racial trauma is basically the cumulative effects of racism on an individual's mental and physical health. And I thought it was really important to highlight because we do a great job of talking about healthcare disparities. We do a great job of, you know, singling out the races and what you will see in the trends and the diseases. But we don't really look at the root cause of why this may be something that is more prevalent in different communities. So I kind of explained that racial trauma is likened unto PTSD. The only difference is we cannot separate ourselves from that toxic environment. So you start to see the manifestation of that stress. The weathering is one of the terms that you will hear when it just breaks down the body because of all of the stress that you are feeling and seeing. So you start to have increased suspicion, sensitivity to threat you know, physiological symptoms using other mechanisms like alcohol and drugs, increased aggression no thoughts of future.

Jennifer Hutton (04:54):

And I also have looked at research that where they look at the Holocaust survivors and how they actually saw changes in their DNA from the stress that they went through. And that's what they're starting to look at with our DNA as well, seeing that we pass these things down through generations, which is why it's called generational trauma. So to just say, Oh, well this, the African Americans are most likely to have these diseases. It's like, well, what are they dealing with outside of your clinic walls? That would cause this. And it was funny cause the students loved that part. The most, those were actually in professional school. Cause they're saying this would be extremely helpful to relate to patients when I actually go into the clinic or healthcare setting. So I focused on that and I also kind of showed way that you cope with racial trauma and all of the ways that you'll see in the communities is racial storytelling.

Jennifer Hutton (05:58):

So being able to tell you some of the experiences that I've had in this America validation, naming the trauma, understanding that the microaggressions that you're feeling are a part of the racial trauma that you're experiencing it. And the problem they're finding, even with some of these coping mechanisms is great for the moment. But what happens when the next event comes around, they're going right back through those stages of grief and stress. So I think it's important to see in every facet of life, there are the effects of racism, the effects of white supremacy. And so if you're hitting that on every facet of your life, you're more likely to present with physiological issues.

Karen Litzy (06:44):

And as a, let's say, as a clinician who might be treating someone who let's say does have high blood pressure or heart disease and is part of the African American community or BIPOC community, is it part of our job to then educate our patients on this? So cause they may say, well, you know, it runs in my family, right. I don't know why it runs in my family. So where does our job come in as the healthcare provider? What is our duty to those patients to address? Is it our duty to address that and to help with coping mechanisms? Or is it just a referral to someone else?

Jennifer Hutton (07:25):

Right. I think it's definitely our job to consider it when we are approaching different patients to consider that this may be something and a lot of times you'll hear it in their rhetoric. I think I had a student in the chat during the webinar say I have someone who said, he's afraid that if a cop actually comes and he can't put his hands up, that they'll feel like he's resisting. And it was because he couldn't get enough external rotation. Did you read that one?

Karen Litzy (07:56):

Yeah, I read that too. Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Hutton (07:58):

It was like, see that, that right there. That is something that probably wouldn't have come to your mind when you were thinking about his plan of care, but now maybe you need to change your approach because you're actually tapping into something that makes him feel outside. You feel something that just about the pain that outside and his wife. So I think we definitely have to keep it in mind and consider it. I also think we have access to and knowledge about so many different ways that we can take care of our body. So even if you were to start incorporating some of those into the treatment plan so that they can understand, these are things that you can use and you don't have to name it for them, you don't have to say this is because of racial trauma or give them all of the facts. But you, as a clinician recognize it might be something that's beneficial to them. So that's why I say to my Pilates instructors, to my yoga instructors, you know, you're a key to coping. You're a, something that could be helpful for them. And if they don't know that it, yeah, it is your job because you know about these things. So you can give them as a resource.

Karen Litzy (09:02):

Excellent. Thank you. And now, let's move on to the concept of being an ally. So before we start and get into how to be an ally certainly within the realm of healthcare, I would love for you to just, can you just define what an ally is?

Jennifer Hutton (09:25):

Yes. So an ally is a person group or nation that is associated with another group or others for a common cause or purpose. So that just means no, this is not something that affects your daily life personally, but you see that it does affect the way someone else's life is and you want to help make it better. So where you're using your privilege and your position to help further the cause.

Karen Litzy (09:51):

And how is that different than white savior racism?

Jennifer Hutton (09:56):

Yeah. So white saviors and still comes from the perspective that you are superior, that if you were not doing the work, then it would not be done and that you are absolutely needed. And I agree your voice is needed, but if you're still approaching it from a superior mindset, because you haven't done the work through those stages of allyship than it actually is a hindrance and it's not as effective.

Karen Litzy (10:25):

Got it. All right. Good, good change. They're good. Because I think oftentimes we maybe think we're an ally, but maybe we're not. And the concept of white saviorism, is that something that someone is consciously thinking or could that be an unconscious thing? Like you really think that you're there to help and you're trying to do your best, but you're may not be helping in the way you think you are.

Jennifer Hutton (10:58):

Right. And that's, to me, that's where the self-examination comes in. That's where those questions that you ask yourself about your upbringing, what you believed about black lives matter before all of this happened, what you thought about the killings that were happening in the people that were speaking out against them. How you viewed other races, the things that you said, the things that you've heard, because now you are able to see, yeah. Maybe you're not a racist, but you may have biases that are affecting your thought process, affecting your decisions. So I always say, check your intention. Like, don't just say, well, I intended to do good. Look at the impact that it had. If the impact does not measure the intention, then maybe we need to go back and do some homework on that intention. Because if you're doing something only to make yourself feel better, like, okay, I'm doing it. I'm that good person, not the best intention if you're doing it because like, Oh, they need me, like I talked about thinking that you have to give scholarships to all black people. Like they don't have the money to pay. That's why saviorism that is still coming from a bias mindset of, they are poor. They have less, they don't have the resources and I need to step in and save the day. But I don't think it's ever intentional. I still think it's just coming from your perspective and you really gotta check your perspective.

Karen Litzy (12:19):

Yeah. And I think we also hear the word implicit bias thrown around quite a bit. So do you want to define that and where that comes into play within this conversation?

Jennifer Hutton (12:29):

Yeah. So the official definition would be attitudes and stereotypes that affect your understanding, your actions and your decisions in an unconscious way. And I talked about thought viruses. And the way that I give a great example is the older person who only saw whites only signs and colored only signs everywhere that they went can, do you really think they couldn't have made some type of decision or thought about how black people are, how white people are based on what they experienced in their environment. So everything that you were taught and the things that you saw, the things that you heard, it forms your biases and that's on all sides and it mobilizes you. And it's how you act. So if you were surrounded by people who were racist, even if you think of yourself as a good person, you still may have things that were thought viruses that were planted that you have to check.

Karen Litzy (13:28):

Yeah. All right. Great. Okay. Now let's get into the stages of allyship. So stage one awareness. What does that mean? Does that just mean, Oh, I'm an ally. I'm aware. I'm sure it's much more complicated than that. So I'm just trying, I'm pointing out like the total ridiculous side of it, because that might be like what people think like I'm aware I watched the news. I know what's going on. I'm going to be an ally done. Yes.

Jennifer Hutton (13:57):

So awareness is that you see that there is a problem. You see the problem and you acknowledge the problem. You also acknowledge as an ally, your privilege in this world, the fact that you are viewed as different and sometimes better in your spaces. And then you say, I want to make this better. So the end of awareness is still an action step of committing and deciding and holding yourself accountable to learning and unlearning all of the things that have made you think this way so that you can be an effective ally. So the awareness, isn't just, yeah, I'm an ally. It's Oh, there's a problem. We got to do something about this. How do I help?

Karen Litzy (14:52):

Yeah. And could an action step in this awareness phase, be, you know, watching your webinar or watching 13th or reading a book or having conversations. And does that, would that fall into this category or is that sort of weave through?

 

Jennifer Hutton:

I think awareness is probably the step that you will visit the most. That would, that's the thing because you, the more that you educate yourself, so webinars, podcasts, Ted talks, documentaries, those are part of your education. Just like any, I think I said, create your own curriculum. Just like you would learn anything. You have to go through all of the information, but as you learn, you'll start to see these things in other spaces and that seeing those things is still your awareness. So I always say, don't think that you're going to escape the phase I'd be done and not come back to it. You're going to start to see these things in all the facets of your life on it. So not just awareness on, like I took a week off and now I'm more aware it's being aware on a daily basis of what you're seeing in your community, within your family, your friends, your peers, your colleagues, and then just do so are you aware of it? And you just make a little mental note, or it's more of a high and it sticks because if you're educating yourself, then what you see will help you process. If that makes sense. The scenario that you are placed in the things that you watch, you'll be able to refer back to. Oh, I remember when I watched, Oh, I remember when I read, when I heard this person say, now you're connecting that after you've educated educator in the process of educating yourself.

Karen Litzy (16:02):

Yeah. Yeah. And then we sort of jumped the gun. So you've got awareness and education. Is that kind of second stage or do those just sort of inter sort of weave together? They can't have it. Can't have one without the other, right? Yeah. You cannot. Okay. And then next, so kind of moving through these stages here, here comes this, this is a tough one.

Karen Litzy (17:00):

Here comes the sticky one self interrogation. So can you explain that and also explain why it's sticky it can be difficult.

 

Jennifer Hutton:

Yes, the reason self interrogation, this is when you really start to ask yourself a question, cause you're now trying to strip yourself or unlearn the things that have caused you to think the way that you have. So you really have to put your ego aside. And I always say, tell yourself, you're not a bad person. You just have thought viruses that you're trying to change. So you're asking yourself those questions. What were you taught about black people and people of color? Were there any times that you were in, you know, scenarios where there was racism and you didn't speak up or you feel like it was important to speak up? Have you allowed your privilege to mobilize you, but maybe not help someone else?

Jennifer Hutton (17:56):

Do you have friends of color? My favorite is, well, what were your thoughts about black lives matter 10 years ago in 2012, maybe when Trayvon Martin happened, what were you thinking about these same protests and these same people speaking out? Because if you can truly answer those questions, then you'll see that's where my bias is. That's where that was my blind spot. That is something that I didn't realize it was coming in, but it has affected me. So those were the personal questions and those are hard because it is really, you have to strip yourself of what you consider a part of you. A part of who you are a part of your upbringing. And if you're having those conversations with family members, I mean, I've heard people say, I didn't expect my parents to say the things that they said.

Jennifer Hutton (18:47):

I didn't expect my best friend to feel the way that she did about me posting my black square. And the conversation that we had was extremely uncomfortable for me and hurtful because I thought we were on the same page. So that's where the discomfort lies. And then it's in deciding, is this that important for me to continue? Even if other people don't continue with me asking yourself, that question is hard. Because you can't, you can't let go of family. That's not how it really works. I mean, of course, if it's toxic, I understand, but you really have to say, I might be doing this by myself and it is a tall task, so are you really ready for it? So that was the personal self interrogation.

Karen Litzy (19:34):

Yeah. It's sort of this cleaning out your cupboard, if you will, you know, and trying to see if you are ready to change your thoughts and your beliefs and what if you go through these questions and you're not ready. Okay.

Jennifer Hutton (19:59):

It's always comes back to the question. Once you get to that point of discomfort, you have to ask yourself why you're uncomfortable. You can't just escape the situation because you're going to end up coming back to it. If it was a part of your awakening, once you're awake, it's hard to not see things. It is really hard. So I always say, it's fine if you're not ready, but maybe the reason you're not ready is because you had an upbringing that taught you something that you can't shake. Maybe you need a therapist. Maybe you need to talk through some of those other things to actually help you get past this stage.

Karen Litzy (20:34):

And was there a point for you growing up where you had your first encounter with racism?

Jennifer Hutton (20:50):

My very first that I can recall it was mother's day out where you went like three days a week and I wanted to play with like, it's a daycare. It's kinda like daycare, but you don't go every day and you still learn things. So it's like a preschool thing pre K through year four or whatever you call it. But I wanted to play with the kids and I think there were two black kids and the entire mother's day out or my class. And I was told, no, we don't play with Brown kids

Jennifer Hutton (21:29):

I had another four year old. And so apparently went home. I remembered the act. I remember the kid. I could actually see his face even now, 30 something years later. But apparently I didn't want to tell one parent because I thought that parent would get upset and do something at the house. So I told my, I think I told my mom and that was when they first had to have that conversation of people are not going to like you because of your color and explain it. You imagine having to explain it to a four year old, like they're still processing how to count, pass a hundred, like, and you're telling them it's going to be a problem. Something that they identify with, that they see in the mirror everyday, they cannot shake is going to be a problem for people. So I think that was definitely the first time that I remember.

Jennifer Hutton (22:24):

And then I also remember the first time I said, Oh, this is unacceptable. And at that point I was like 14. And I had had an incident with a cop where I was profiled. And it was evident because I had white friends around me that were not treated the same for the same regulations I was given. And it was at that point that I said that I'm a fighter, it's time to go. I'm not going to accept this. And I'm not going to not be in these spaces because you don't like it either. I'm going to show up and you're going to see me and I'm going to speak and be loud about how I feel. Because I think my voice is extremely important.

Karen Litzy (23:05):

Yeah. Wow. I mean, I grew up in the most non diverse town in Pennsylvania and I went to a very non diverse school for college. It's much more diverse now. And when I moved to New York, so I'm in my twenties and it's the first time that I had a friend that I worked with. And he's awesome. But that's beside the point. And we were at work and he had said something about like he had to drive. He hated driving back out of the city at night. Sometimes I said, well, why I was like, is it, I was like, see, it wasn't a drinker or anything like that. It's like, he's drinking and driving. And I couldn't understand. And I was like, well, why wouldn't you, like, why would you worry about driving out of the city at night?

Karen Litzy (24:05):

And, and he was like, well, I wouldn't want to get pulled over. I'm like, why would you get pulled over? This is how like, night and I was not doing it. Like I was seriously wondering, why would you get pulled? Like, do you have a broken tail light? Did you do speed? And he was just looking at me and he was like, no, I'm like, well, why would they, why would the police pull you over then if you're doing everything right. And he was like, well, you know, when I was like, I don't, I don't know, like tell me why. And he was like, well, you know, because I'm black. And I was like, what? Yeah. And that was the first I was in my twenties. And that was the first time. And I was like, it's funny. I had a talking about, so that was the first time I ever had a conversation about that type of, about racism and how it affects someone who I only knew as like these. Awesome. I love him. He's my great, he's a great friend. He, to this day is still a great friend. And I just was like, I don't,

Karen Litzy (25:08):

I don't get it. I don't get it. Yeah, yeah,

Jennifer Hutton (25:10):

No, I didn't get in there. And I think part, my brother said it perfectly sometimes when you're in the same spaces with people, you think your experience is similar. So even if you had a black friend that was with you through all of those, you know, non diverse schoolings and situations, scenarios, and things that you were part of, you would still think our perspective has to be the same. Cause we're getting to do the same thing. So it kind of makes it harder for you to look outside of your experience.

Karen Litzy (25:43):

What a world. So that's a little bit on the self interrogation and what those questions when I asked myself those questions, I remember that incident. So clearly now and looking back on it, I was like, Oh boy. Yeah. I was just didn't know, I didn't know what I didn't know. And now I do. And now I do. Yeah. Period. Now let's go on. So we talked about self interrogation serve as a person, but let's talk about it now under the lens of being a healthcare provider. So how does that work?

 

Jennifer Hutton:

So the self interrogation as a healthcare provider, to me, just like I said, we're educated on health disparities, but not with them. What was your professional opinion? How did you form your professional opinion based on the things that you were taught?

Jennifer Hutton (26:44):

And this can even a great example is when you hear the word Medicare, what do you do mentally physiologically? Do you grown? Because it's like another Medicare patient. If you're a clinic owner, or even if you are a clinician Medicare, Medicaid, workman's comp, like, what are your thoughts when you see that come through the door, chronic. So that kind of pain. What do you think about chronic pain? People like that? These are you've formed a bias. And how does that bias actually shape how you treat shape the way that you develop plans of care? Are you able to actually change things based on what you see? Just like that student said, well, how do I work on external rotation? There's a million ways that you could actually work on it without it triggering them. So those are the things that you really have to ask yourself and then privilege in outside of just the clinic.

Jennifer Hutton (27:34):

What is your governing organization look like when you are a part of these masterminds and part of these panels and these groups and discussions, do you see other voices? Do you see other people that don't look like you in the room? Are there ways that you could leverage your privilege to actually open the door so that there are more voices in the room? And then how do you view the table? Like there was one person I was talking to last week and she said, you know, even the thought of saying, let's give them a seat at the table said that you own the table and you don't, none of us do. So you want to create a diverse perspective or diverse group of people in all of your spaces. And so you really want to ask yourself, how can I do that? And then patients like nonverbal communication, when you are working with them, when they are hearing conversations that might be triggering or how do you respond? Do you want to just go in a corner and not say anything? Do you want to just ignore it and shift it to the side? How does discomfort in your coworkers look when you are talking about certain things. So that's some of the self interrogation you can do as a clinician.

Karen Litzy (28:43):

And, you know, you sort of mentioned, well, if you're having conversation with patients, what happens when let's say a patient in a clinic, whether you're one-on-one or you're in a gym with a lot of people, if they say something that's just not right. Right. And if they sit there talking racist talk, or even saying things that maybe aren't blatantly racist, but still you're like, yeah, no, that's not right. What do you, what do you say? No, we spoke about this a little bit before we went on the air. And we said, it's a little different because we can, we were talking about coronavirus before we got on the air and how, you know, cases are going up in some parts of the country. And it's not just because of more testing it's because more people are sick and you can point those facts and figures. So someone says to you cases, aren't going up, it's the testing you can say, no, no, no. Here are the facts and figures here it is. This is the truth with this. It's a little more abstract, right? So how do we handle those situations as healthcare providers?

Jennifer Hutton (29:53):

I think just like you handle your patients, it's going to be a case by case situation. I can't give you a cookie cutter copy and paste way because everybody, even if they present with an implicit bias, it's still going to be different from the next person. So depending on your position, if you are a clinic owner, then if this is something that is explicitly, someone's explicitly racist, then you have to make it clear what your business stands for. That is extremely important first. I think it's important to have procedures and policies in place. And maybe even we tolerate everybody like this. Isn't an open space. This is, we accept everyone as they are. And that's something you can give to them. The first time they walk in the door. Cause that lets them know, I don't know who's coming in here is clearly a diverse population and they are tolerable of everybody.

Jennifer Hutton (30:48):

So it sets the standard sets that precedence before you even get started. And then it's those simple conversations. No, you can't spend your whole session educating them on, you know, the history of healthcare. But you can say, you know, there are some resources that I've read that have helped change my perspective. And if they are open, then give them to them. If they are not, then you need to have something in place that says, Hey, I understand that everybody has different perspectives, but here we respect everyone. And we don't want to trigger anyone in how in our speech. So we would really appreciate it if you would respect that. And honestly, they're gonna be some people who don't like it. And that is this journey. This is literally the journey of being a black person and being an ally. There are not going there going to be people that don't agree with you. And you just have to decide what your stance is and continue to go inside for that every time you face these situations.

Karen Litzy (31:48):

And I love, and I want to point out that the responses you just gave did not, they weren't accusatory, they weren't aggressive. It was more, Hey, I found this for myself or this is what we, as a clinic, believe it wasn't you. Or how could you say that? Don't say, I mean, that is just the wrong way to go about it.

Jennifer Hutton (32:12):

Especially the clinician is not professional. Got to that point. You do, you might have to say, you know what, we might have to end our relationship and maybe able to give you some clinics that would be more suited for you. But this, if you are, if you continue to look at this as person against person, we're not going to get anywhere to me. If you look at it, as these are thought viruses, I'm trying to change, it's a lot easier to have grace for other people as well.

Karen Litzy (32:44):

Yeah. Excellent. All right. Now that was a little bit of an action step, right? So let's talk about a very, very important step in allyship and that's action. So that was one and that's a great action, but what are some other things that would fall into the action category?

Jennifer Hutton (33:01):

So I split them up into immediate action and longterm action. And mainly because we're telling you slow down, educate yourself, and that can be hard cause like, well there's stuff that needs to be done. So your immediate action is you're protesting, signing petitions in the emails informing yourself about, you know, the politicians that are statewide local, all of those. And then speaking up against remarks. If you hear them now, one thing I want to say do not wear yourself out in the comments section of social media, because I'm sorry that anyone who comes into those comments extras, they're really not looking to learn anything and you're not going to teach them. So you have to let the energy out of it.

Karen Litzy (33:45):

Energy vampires, it's not worth, it's not worth it.

Jennifer Hutton (33:48):

It's not worth it. So that's not the action I need you to take. I need you to take that off the dock. Long term action would be continuing to having those discussions in your clinics, in your gyms, in your educational setting, to see where your blind spots are and what you really would like to do to move forward. I think I said earlier, you may get stuck at a step. And if you feel like it's something deep, rooted, get a therapist to actually help you talk through these things recognize it's a learning process, encourage others to do that work that you are doing. And if we're doing it already as healthcare clinicians, we learn things. We believe things. And then we use them in our practice, whether it be something in the biopsychosocial model about chronic pain, about certain, you know, systems that we use, we do it already. And you just have to decide that this is something that's important to you. And that honestly will be your guide when you get to that longterm action.

Karen Litzy (34:55):

And something that you'd mentioned in the webinar that I want to bring up again, is that when you're talking about these, this longterm action that it needs to be authentic and then you don't want it to do, you don't want to subscribe to tokenism. So we didn't really define tokenism. So why don't you define what that is and why we want to be authentic and not subscribe to it.

Jennifer Hutton (35:18):

So tokenism, the long and short is you are going to get that one person to represent diversity. I think I said, when we were talking before we started recording about if you are in an all white community, don't just go get a black person and say, that's our representation that is not authentic and it's probably not comfortable for them. Would you need to be able to identify that? So if you're just picking the black person or the person who's Mexican or Asian to say you have that voice, that would be your tokenism.

 

Karen Litzy:

Yeah. And, I think that we certainly see that in a lot of facets of society. Definitely. Definitely. All right. Any other actions that you want to cover or do you think we've hit everything?

Jennifer Hutton (36:20):

I think, I think we've hit everything. I know I did a lot of steps for examining in the webinar, which if they wanted to see it by setting, they're definitely able to go in there. But my biggest takeaway from this is, I know we're in a manic period still where everybody is happening on this quote trend. So don't burn yourself out. It is a marathon, not a sprint. And so it will, it might be sticky. It might be difficult. It might be uncomfortable, but you have to decide whether this is what you believe in to keep going.

 

Karen Litzy:

Excellent. Well, thank you. I was just going to ask what are your final thoughts and beat me to it. So thank you. Okay. Well on that, I have one last question that I ask everyone. And that's knowing where you are now in your life and in your career. What advice would you give to yourself straight out of physical therapy school?

 

Jennifer Hutton:

Be patient be patient. I came out with the idea, I'm going to be a PT therapist and nothing's going to stop me and I'm going there and I'm doing this.

Jennifer Hutton (37:18):

And I had to take detours from the minute I graduated. My life did not look like what I thought it would, but where I am right now. I'm good. So it worked out how it was supposed to, so I would say, be patient.

 

Karen Litzy:

Excellent. I'm still need to learn that one. I feel like things still need to be done yesterday. Thank you for that advice. And now where can people find your webinar?

 

Jennifer Hutton:

Yes. So if you go to Instagram, dr. J-Pop, I actually have the link in my bio. I am probably by the time this comes out, it will be on my website as well.  That replay is there and it will be there until that platform doesn't exist. So hopefully forever.

 

Karen Litzy:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate this. Like I said, I learned a lot, it was very introspective for me to go through your questions and to kind of understand the privilege that I came from, just for the fact that I was born with the skin that I have. Right, right. And it has nothing to do with, you know, just that one singular thing. It has given me privilege and listening to you and educating myself has really allowed me to, to see that, that very singular fact very clearly. So thank you very much for your webinar and for coming on. I appreciate it.  And everyone else. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

 

 

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