When I was in elementary school, my best friend had brown skin. She came from Martinique, one of the French Territories in the Caribbean Sea. To me, she was everything I wanted from a friend - laughing, sharing dolls, playing hide and seek. She was more than a neighborhood friend; she told me stories about the volcano Mont-Pelée (which, for the longest time, I confused with the soccer player!), growing sugar cane and bananas, and what island life was like. I never made anything about the color of her skin. But what if it was telling a unique story deeper than her skin?
As histologists, you probably know that we all have about one melanocyte for every 36 keratinocytes in our skin, regardless of its color. However, we all have varying types and amounts of melanin, giving each of us a unique skin tone. As anatomists, you also witness that once you remove the skin of a donor, their organs may seem equally similar regardless of their skin color. Yet, research has shown that their physiology may be vastly different.
As we celebrate Black History Month, I spoke with many people with different perspectives on what this month means to them. For some, it is a way to celebrate the accomplishments of Black people. We should remember Daniel Hale Williams, an African American cardiologist who performed the first successful open-heart surgery, or William Montague Cobb, a graduate of Howard University and the first African American with a Ph.D. in anthropology, after whom one of our AAA Early Career Investigator Awards is named. For others, it is a time for service in an effort to make the world a better place. For me, it is an opportunity to learn about Black history and culture, particularly in the United States. It has become clear to me that if the wound of segregation was officially closed 60 years ago, its healing is slow and its return to harmonious community has just started.
My reflections on race, ethnicity, diversity, culture, and communities make me appreciate how far we have come. In the past years, we have made great strides to recognize the cultural value of each and every one of you. At AAA, we made the strategic decision to prioritize cultural diversity in everything we do. I am proud of past leaders who started this initiative and amazed by where we are today. We have developed the Anatomy Scholars Program to accompany underrepresented junior scientists into their first independent academic positions. We have developed awards to financially support undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented groups to perform summer research and complete their doctoral dissertations.
There is no doubt that the collective perspectives give us depth of field and wide-angle looks that a single lens could not provide. For AAA, the membership of trainees, faculty, bench scientists, and educators originating from small and large communities scattered throughout the United States and the world allows the organization to benefit from the unique worldview of each member to build a diverse community passionate about anatomical sciences. For me, diversity is everything and everywhere– at work, where I work with scientists who use a variety of models to develop innovative ideas – at home, when traveling the world fulfills my thirst to understand diverse communities and enrich my perspectives – and I will always cherish friendship with someone different than me, as I did in elementary school because a unique story will be shared, deeper than the color of the skin.
As we approach our annual meeting, I can’t wait to see the pallet of skin color in the attendance as a testimony of our cultural diversity and celebrate together our successes.
Best,
Martine Dunnwald, PharmD, Ph.D., FAAA
AAA President
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA