This week we present two stories from people who had experiences with strangers.

Part 1: Even though he's an excellent student, and later a doctor, Dale Okorodudu finds that strangers perceive him differently.

Dr. Dale Okorodudu was raised in League City, Texas just outside of Houston. He completed both his undergraduate and medical training at the University of Missouri then relocated to Durham, North Carolina were he did his Internal Medicine residency training at Duke University Medical Center. Following his time at Duke, Dr. Okorodudu returned to Texas and completed his Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellowship here at UT Southwestern Medical Center. His clinical practice is at the Dallas VA Medical Center. Dr. Okorodudu has a passion addressing healthcare disparities which he has done via promoting diversity in the medical workforce. He is the founder of DiverseMedicine Inc. and Black Men In White Coats. Dr. Okorodudu is also the author of multiple books including How to Raise a Doctor and the Doc 2 Doc children series. What he enjoys most is spending time with his wife, 3 children, and church family.

Part 2: Laura Bulk, who has been partially blind since she was a baby, struggles with strangers' attempts to "help."

Laura Yvonne Bulk (@LYBOT) is a friend, learner, woman, teacher, disabled person, occupational therapist, Christian, artist, scholar, advocate, and activist. Her work focuses on enhancing understanding across and within diversity, and promoting human flourishing. As a public scholar, Laura aims to benefit the wider community and the academic and clinical communities, making purposeful social contributions and employing innovative forms of collaborative scholarship. She works in the areas of quality of life in palliative care; belonging in academia; being blind; inclusion of disabled people in healthcare professions; and the use of creative methods (including research-based theatre and audio theatre) and cross-sectoral partnerships to do research for the public good.

Episode Transcript

Part 1: Dale Okorodudu

The year is 2005. I'm a junior at the University of Missouri. It's where I go to college. I'm an out‑of‑state student.

Being an out-of-state student, things are a little bit different for you because you see your friends having fun when you don't have fun. So homecoming weekend, your friends’ families come in town. Your family doesn't come in town because your family is back out of state.

Three-day weekends, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Easter, they get to go home for three‑day weekends. You don't get to go home. So you're there by yourself.

So this particular weekend, I was really excited because I finally get to go home to my family. I get to go home to see my friends. I get to go home and eat in my favorite restaurant, so it's going to be a perfect weekend. I’m going to go to the airport, have a great time. Everything has to be perfect.

So I leave Columbia, I rush to St. Louis where I fly out of St. Louis to Houston, Texas. I’m at the St. Louis Airport and it's wintertime, so I'm just like anybody my age, anybody of my culture, my generation would be dressed. I'm wearing baggy sweatpants and a hoodie. That's how I dressed back in 2005.

I get on the airplane. I fly Southwest. I like open seating and I'm a window guy. I get on the airplane, I sit next to the window, grab my seat. And in order for this trip to be perfect, I have to make sure that I have leg space.

So what does that mean? You guys have all done it. I know you've done it. I grab my laptop bag and I set it in the seat right next to me to reserve that seat, okay?

But that's not the important part. The important part, after you reserve the seat, you got to make sure you stare straight down at your feet, avoid any eye contact with everybody, so I'm sitting there just staring and staring and staring. And here's the deal. You can't look up until the captain comes on and says, “Prepare for takeoff.”

So I'm staring. Just staring and staring and it's not coming. I'm like, “What's going on? Let me take a quick glance up real fast and let me see if the aisles are clear if I can look up.”

So I glanced up and it was like slow motion. I was like, “Nooo,” and I see somebody lock eyes with me. Like bam, she got me, she got me, she got me.

Dale Okorodudu shares his story with the Story Collider audience at Wild Detectives Bookstore in Dallas, TX. Photo by Fallon Stovall. — Dale Okorodudu shares his story with the Story Collider audience at Wild Detectives Bookstore in Dallas, TX in April 2019. Photo by Fallon Stovall.

Then she does a little, “Tsk, tsk,” I know what that means. That means that's my seat.

So I said, “Okay, whatever.” I'm a nice guy.

I take my laptop off the seat, slide it under the seat in front of me and, “Have a seat.”

We exchanged pleasantries, “Hey, how are you doing?” “Hey, how are you doing?”

The plane takes off, we're in the sky. I'm, “Okay. It's going to be a great flight.”

And then she decides to have a conversation with me. But it wasn't a conversation. It turned out to be a verbal assault on me.

So she takes a look at me, she says, “What are you wearing?”

“I'm sorry. I don't understand the question, ma'am.”

“Why don’t your clothes fit you? Why are your clothes so big?”

“Well, ma'am, this is just how I dress. This is what I have.”

“I bet you sag, don't you? That hood, you think you're cool. You’re one of those hip-hop guys.”

“Well, ma'am, it's Missouri. It's cold outside. I'm flying home. I want to be comfortable.”

“Why do you talk like that?”

“Why do I talk like what?”

“You must think you're cool. Yo-yo, hippy hip-hop.”

“Ma'am, I'm sorry. I don't know what you're talking about.”

And this is what really got me. She looks at me and she says, “You're never going to be successful. Nobody's ever going to take you seriously.”

“Am I really? Wow. From the 10 minutes you've known me on this airplane you know that nobody's going to take me seriously?”

And I got off that plane and I went home I remember talking to my mom and my dad and just thinking, “Wow, is this what people think when they see somebody that looks like me? Maybe somebody who dresses like I do? Somebody who speaks like I do? Somebody with my skin tone? Is this what they really think? I don't know.”

So in that time period, I was feeling a lot of doubts. She introduced insecurity in my life.

Whatever. That's in the past. Fast forward three years.

Now, I'm a second year medical student. So little did she know that the kid she was sitting next to was a straight-A student in college. Little did she know that the kid she was sitting next to had already got accepted to medical school.

So I'm a second-year med student and in my med school class, out of 96 students, two of us were black men. Only two of us when I started med school. And we learn a variety of different ways in med school. One of the ways we learn is in small groups. And in our small groups they give us a clinical case.

For example they might say, “Erin Barker is a something-year-old woman who has whatever that diagnosis she said was.” And they give you the case and then it's your job to crack the case and you learn from the case. You pull out as much medical knowledge as you can from the case.

So I'm in my small group session. And we're at it. We’re cracking at it and we're trying to solve this case and then my supervising professor in the room says, “Hey, you guys want to hear a joke?”

“Yeah. Come on. We all want to hear a joke. Let's ease the tension. Let's take a little break.”

So I don't remember the joke, but I remember the punchline. He starts telling the joke and he's building up, building up, building up, getting to that punchline. Drumroll. N-word. N-word, N-word, N-word. N-word, N-word, N-word.

It was this quiet. It was just like this in the room. You know, the first year at med school I was the class president, and second year I had some leadership positions, so I had a little bit of respect on campus. So you can imagine what happens, right? After the joke, all eyes go from professor, they lock in on Dale like a torpedo.

Everybody's staring. “What’s Dale going to do?”

What do you do in that situation? What do you do? You have to think about it. Me, medical student. Him, professor. He has academic authority over my life. What do you do?

I dropped the ball. I didn't know what to do. All I said was, “That's not funny.” I just didn't know what to do in that situation.

And I got really, really upset. I didn't get upset because he said the N-word. That didn't bother me. I've been called the N-word. The first time I was called the N-word I was seven or eight years old. That didn't bother me.

But what bothered me was the fact that I couldn't do anything about it. At least I felt like I couldn't do anything about it. I felt powerless. That's what made me so upset with that situation.

Whatever. That's in the past. Fast forward two years down the line.

One or two years down the line, I'm doing my clinical rotations now. My supervising physician says, “Hey, Dale, why don't you go in the room, see Mr. So-and-So, get the clinical encounter.”

I go, “Sure, I can do that. I've done this before.”

I walk in the room, say, “How are you doing, Sir? My name is Student Dr. Dale Okorodudu. I'm working with Dr. Such-and-Such. She said I should go ahead, come in the room and start the examination.”

“Your name is what?”

“Dale Okorodudu.”

“Oko-what?”

“Okorodudu.”

“Did you say doo-doo?”

“Yes, sir. Doo-doo is in my last name. I understand that. Yes, sir.”

“What kind of name is that?’

“Well, sir, it’s a Nigerian name.”

“Nigeria? Do you guys have medical schools in Nigeria?”

I didn’t have a response for that one.

“Do you know how to use that thing around your neck? Are you sure…” and he looks over to his daughter. “Honey, I'm not sure he can take care of me.”

“Sir, yes, we do have medical schools in Nigeria. And, regardless, even if we didn't, I go to medical school right here where you're being treated.”

“Sorry. I don't know if I want you to take care of me.”

Fortunately, my supervising doctor walks in the room and she gives that man the biggest scolding he's ever had in his life probably, so that was very reassuring for me.

But nonetheless, what that showed me was there will be some patients who just don't want me to take care of them. So it made me feel very, very unwanted. And the whole way through I'm thinking, “Man, if I feel this way, I'm sure there are other people like me who feel the same exact way.”

Fast forward to the year 2013. I am finishing my internal medicine residency at Duke and the Association of American Medical Colleges puts out a report. That report says that the number of black men applying and getting into the field of medicine is actually decreasing. So it's less in the year 2011 than it was in 1978. That's 30 years- plus difference, less in 2011 than 1978.

Everybody goes crazy. It’s a frenzy here. Everybody's wondering why is this? Why is this?

And I'm sitting there thinking, “I know exactly why this is, right?”

Insecurity. Powerless. Unwanted. When you're trying to get into a field that's as difficult as the medical field, these things they're barriers. They make it very hard to be successful in these fields.

Nonetheless, I was hopeful. I was hopeful because I had a little kid then. When I look at my little kid I think, “Well, my son doesn't care about race. My son will play with anybody.”

I was hopeful because I mentored young black boys, young black girls, Asian, white, every race and the future of medicine looks bright.

I was hopeful because I know when I walk into my patient's room, most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time they are happy to see me. And every now and then I get that, “Hey, I'm proud of you,” because they understand what we've been through.

So that hope turns to action and with that action I started an organization called Black Men in White Coats to address this issue. Black Men in White Coats we focus on inspiring and mentoring the next generation of physician leaders from all backgrounds, all diverse backgrounds with a special emphasis on black men.

We make short documentary videos, some of which have gone viral. We do podcasts and, most recently, we had a youth summit here in Dallas, Texas, had over 1,800 people register.

So at the end of the story, all this adversity that builds up, that's fuel, that's the ignition that gives purpose, that gives passion and turns it into action.

Now, I told you guys I have a podcast and I have short documentaries and we have a lot of guests. And I guess I always say the same thing at the end of every episode. It sounds something like this.

“My name is Dr. Dale Okorodudu, and I am a black man in a white coat. Thank you.”

Part 2: Laura Yvonne Bulk

I’m feeling great. I get such a rush out of presenting. I presented four times in three days at this conference. I had great scholarly conversation, critical questions. My intellectualism is just on fire, but I'm exhausted so I'm heading out. But before I leave, I'm going to grab some water because I'm really… well, okay. Let's be honest. I'm going to grab a couple more cookies and put them in my bag for the bus ride home.

I hear someone beside me. She says, “I really enjoyed your talk. That was really interesting.”

“Oh, thanks. I really enjoyed it too.”

She says, “You know, my sister, she has macular degeneration. Is that what you have?”

“Well, no. It's not,” and I launch into my spiel, because you often get a lot of the same questions when you carry a white cane.

No, I don't have macular degeneration. I have something called corneal anesthesia. But there's like one other family in Canada who has it and I think my doctor just gave it that name. Basically, I can't feel my face or my eyes. Kind of like leprosy but only on my face.

And when I was a baby I scratched my eyes and I didn't feel it so I kept doing that because there were soft, squishy things in my head. Why wouldn't I play with them? That led to scarring on my eyes. That scarring blocks my vision so it makes everything more blurry.

I also get ulcers on my eyes periodically. An ulcer is kind of like an open wound. Usually you hear about it in people's stomachs. I get them on my eyes.

“Oh,” she says. “That is interesting. So what can you see?” Also a question I get a lot.

“Well, I can see that you're probably a person because you're moving, but most people just look pretty similar. A bunch of blobs in different colors. I can't really read things that well unless I'm really close to them. Like at conferences , can't cheat and read people's name tags, unless I'm this close to their chest. And generally, it doesn't work out very well.

Laura Yvonne Bulk shares her story with the Story Collider audience at Fox Cabaret in Vancouver, BC in November 2019. Photo by Rob Schaer.

Also different conditions affect what I see. So like lighting when it's not in my face that's really helpful. Or if conditions are really dry that doesn't help. Or if I didn't sleep very well the night before, it makes it worse.

So I'm heading home early because this conference has been exhausting. I didn't sleep that well last night and it's really dry in here. So the sun is shining. I head out into the beautiful May day. The sun is shining. It's so good to be out of that air-conditioned conference. And I started heading across the parking lot.

I hear, “Excuse me?” There's a man standing there.

“Hi, can I help you?”

“Yeah, are you blind?”

“Well, yeah. I don't see that well. That's why I carry this white cane. It helps people know that I won't see them very well and helps me from tripping on things.”

“Oh. Do you want to feel my face?”

“Ah, no. Thanks. I don't want to feel your face, but I want to go now.”

I walk away thinking, “How do I respond to that?” I was just so taken aback. If I hadn't been quite so taken aback, I might have said yes and slapped some sense into him, but I didn't do that partly because I think I know where he gets that from.

There's this movie. It's also a play. The Miracle Worker. It's about Helen Keller. Well, actually it's kind of about her teacher, the miracle worker. Helen Keller was actually an amazing person. She was a socialist and a feminist and an advocate for women with disabilities long before anyone else seemed to be.

But this movie and play, there's this one scene where Helen is feeling someone's face. I won't get into why she's feeling the face but this has become a stereotype. Every blind person wants to feel your face.

No. We don't want to feel your face. Thank you.

A few months later, it's now a cold February day and I'm heading home from seeing a new client. I'm in an area of town that I don't usually go to and so I'm not totally sure is this my stop or is it the one that's a few meters down the road.

I think, “Well, I don't really feel like digging around in my bag, taking my gloves off, getting cold, trying to find my monocular so that I can use it to read the sign, so maybe I'll do something more efficient. I'll just ask a bystander.”

So I say, “Oh, excuse me, ma'am.” Thankfully I got the pronoun correct. “Excuse me, ma'am. Is this the stop for bus number 99 or is it the stop that's a few meters down the road?”

She looks up at my face. She looks down at my cane. She looks up at me, down my cane and grabs my arm and drags me a few meters down the road and plunks me down on a bench and says, “Oh, there you go. Don't worry. You're now in the right place. This is where the 99 stops,” and then she briskly walks away.

“Thanks,” I think, “but really a simple ‘Uh, actually, the bus stop is a few meters down the road. Do you want me to guide you over there?’ would have sufficed.” But I don't say that. Because if I say something like that, she might think all blind people are really ungrateful and kind of rude. Or she might not offer help to one of my friends tomorrow. I'm kind of just always on. Always the advocate. Always performing a certain blind person, so I didn't say that to her.

A few months later, I'm working at a rehab center. It's now a lovely Monday morning. On Friday, everything had started to get a little more blurry than usual. As the weekend progresses, things start to become more and more hazy and I think, “Oh, shoot. I think I have an ulcer.” But on both my eyes instead of just one, which is the usual.

So Monday morning I've made an appointment to see my specialist at noon, so I just need to get through the morning. I'm trying to do my usual stuff but things aren't quite working the way they usually do, because I can see about like half or less of what I normally do. But thankfully, this morning, I don't have to do too much paperwork because I'm shadowing someone.

She comes to pick me up and we're going to go over to the treatment room. Thankfully, she's wearing a bright green shirt so I can follow a bright green blob, the one thing I latch on to that I can actually see. And I follow the bright green blob through the busy treatment room.

There are activities going on. It's noisy and loud and I'm following the blob back and forth and trying to avoid wheelchairs and activities and balls and people and, “Oh, sorry. You didn't need those toes, did you? I'm sorry.”

Eventually, we do make it to sit down at the table where I'm going to meet one of her clients. I plunk myself down and my colleague goes off to get something. I start chatting with Corey.

First thing I let him know is, “Now, I know my eyes are bright red. Don't worry. It's not pink eye. It's not contagious. I just have an eye condition and it's flared up today.”

He laughs and I also laugh. “They're like the color of my bright red shirt. “

“Yeah, they are.”

We start chatting about what we enjoy in life, what we like doing, the weather. And at one point I see there's a piece of paper on the table and so I grab it thinking, “Oh, I wonder if I'm supposed to have a look at this and what does it say?”

So I look at it and I get it really close to my face and realize, yeah. “Oh,” I say, “that's not going to work today. My eyes are a lot more blurry than they usually are and I'm kind of just trying to navigate the world in a different way, trying to do things differently because my body isn't functioning the way that I'm used to.”

Corey cocks his head and he says, “Huh. Me too.”

You see, Corey had had a spinal cord injury the year before and that's why he's at the rehab center.

Now, Corey and I, we have very different experiences. He's not much older than I am but I'm adapting to changing vision. He is adapting to living life with paraplegia, as someone who used to be a two-legged.

It was this profound moment of connection that I hadn't really experienced reflecting back on those other interactions that I'd had. I reflected on why this interaction felt so different and what I wished would have happened in those other instances. What I had with Corey was this sense of solidarity, of shared experience, of empathy, a shared humanity.

Going home that day, I couldn't help but think how much I wished that could have been true for my other experiences.