This… really… happened:
A Tennessee woman coping with a severe lower back problem endured even more pain when a doctor diagnosed her with “ghetto booty.”
Terry Ragland, 55, could not believe the words coming out of Dr. Timothy Sweo’s mouth during the April appointment at Sports Orthopedics & Spine in Jackson, Tenn.
“He said ‘I know what the problem is. It’s ghetto booty,’” Ragland told WREG in Memphis. “I think I blacked out after he said ghetto booty. I think my mind was just stuck on the phrase because I couldn’t believe he said that.”
Sweo had diagnosed Ragland with lumbar lordosis, but decided “to take a technical conversation regarding your lower back and make it less technical,” he later wrote her after she had complained to the office manager.
To make matters worse, Sweo told her there was no remedy for her condition, even though she could manage it with pain medication.
“It says to me that he doubts what type of intellect I have, how intelligent I am to be able to understand what he conveys to me in a medical term,” Ragland told WREG.
Sweo admitted off-camera to the station that he said “ghetty booty” to Ragland, who has filed a formal complaint with the state’s Department of Health.
“What I was trying to explain to that patient is that she has lumbar lordosis, which is a fancy name for the curve of the lower spine that makes the buttocks protrude more,” the doctor said. “In trying to explain that I said that she had ghetto booty, and she didn’t like that apparently. That was my attempt to explain why she had the back problem.”
The state will determine whether the doctor will be sanctioned, according to the report.
“I think I do understand why her feelings were hurt but I don’t understand what’s offensive about it,” Sweo said.
Said Ragland: “It’s not endearing. It’s not loving. It’s not a compliment. It’s wrong in every aspect and it’s very demeaning.”
Sweo has practiced general orthopedics for 12 years, according to the Sports Orthopedics & Spine website. He writes that “my goal is to provide top quality service to all our patients. To help heal injury and treat the pains of aging, with the appropriate non-surgical or surgical treatments, and to do that with great professionalism and compassion.”[source]
This isn’t, really, about the term “ghetto booty” for me. People don’t think critically about language and the words they say, so I’m not surprised that this flew out of ol’ dude’s mouth.
What this is about, for me, is the fact that this is a variation on a theme I’ve had running for a very long time about doctors and their condescension… especially when, even though they know more than most, they still know so very little.
Sweo had diagnosed Ragland with lumbar lordosis, but decided “to take a technical conversation regarding your lower back and make it less technical,” he later wrote her after she had complained to the office manager.
[…]
“It says to me that he doubts what type of intellect I have, how intelligent I am to be able to understand what he conveys to me in a medical term,” Ragland told WREG.
Ragland says it all – why would you dumb down a medical condition that I have to live with? Is it too much to ask that you sit with me, talk to me about what’s going on with my body, and give me resources (or – gasp – talk to me) about what’s going on in my body? Is that sincerely too much to ask? Why condescend to her by telling her it’s “a case of ghetto booty,” and that there is no cure?
It might not’ve been racial, but telling a Black woman that there’s no cure for her ghetto booty feels like grounds for an ass whipping. It almost feels like street harassment gone awry or something. It’s insensitive.
The weird thing about hyperlordosis – excessive lordosis, or curvature of the spine – is that, for certain people, it can present even when that’s not the case simply because of the size and shape of their behinds. What’s more, the size and shape of your behind can affect how you sit, which affects how much your pelvic bone has to tilt forward when you sit, which affects the curvature of your spine, which affects whether or not you habitually tilt your pelvic bone forward everywhere you go regardless of whether or not you’re sitting. Think of you, holding a bowl full of water. That’s your pelvic bone, as you stand with proper posture. Now, envision yourself pouring that water out of the bowl, tilting the bowl forward so it pours out into the sink. That’s your pelvic bone tilting forward.
If you’ve ever seen or known those people who walk with their entire behind poked out, on purpose? Those people are normally forcing hyperlordosis – and, yes, I’m assuming he meant hyperlordosis since that part of the body is naturally curved that way… it’s excessive curves that causes damage – into their spine to make their booties look bigger. I think Jackie-O colloquially referred to it her “stank walk,” and many of the booty models you see in magazines, when they’re posing like they’re straddling something, they’re forcing their pelvic bone to tilt downward, thereby making their booties look bigger.
As a trainer, you learn about spinal curvature and pelvic tilt because… people who have poor form when they do any kind of squat- or sit-up-based exercise can actually alter the way their spine curves, and the way it functions at the base of the pelvic bone. And, much like how hyperlordosis can be trained into you, I’m not entirely convinced that it couldn’t be trained out of a person, either. Corrective exercise specialists and physical therapists might be able to chime in on that, but if her back was hurting because of excessive curvature, then training for posture or even for basic fitness would contribute positively in ways that “pain medication” would not.
…which leads me to my next question. The only suggestion he had was “pain medication?” Hmmm…so, he’s not going to explain the condition to her, he’s not going to give her any resources so she could, at the bare minimum, go and do some googling of her own… he’s just going to refer some pills to her and send her on her way? Did he even know anything about lordosis prior to receiving the pain pill pushing company’s information in the mail, or no?
My bad.
I’m not anti-doctor, I’m anti-scumbag. This, here, just isn’t fair. See the little bit of explaining I just did, here?
How hard would it have been for him to tell her any of this, condescension-free?