The hospital gown offered no defense against the cold air or the searing pain radiating through her body. Each breath was a negotiation with a searing internal fire. Lying in that sterile bed, under harsh fluorescent lights, she was unquestionably at her most vulnerable, facing a landscape of agony she could not navigate alone. Her suffering was entirely dependent on the subjective assessment of the medical professionals who walked the polished floors.

When the doctor entered, she looked to him for answers, for relief, for the simple reassurance that he saw her ordeal and would help. She asked if the intensity of her pain was normal.

"Pain is never normal," he began, and for a moment, she felt a flicker of hope. But then he continued, his tone matter-of-fact, as if stating a simple, biological truth. "But you Black people can put up with it better."

The words landed a hammer on her chest. He didn't use her name. Throughout their interactions, he had referred to her only as "the African." Now, he was erasing her individual experience, replacing it with an ugly racist stereotype. He went on to say she should be grateful to be in a German hospital at all, because with her ailments, she would already be dead in Africa.

How do you advocate for yourself when the person you depend on for care denies the very legitimacy of your suffering? How do you trust the hand that is supposed to heal you when it is guided by a mind that sees you as a stereotype? The woman in that bed was not just a patient. She was Mirrianne Mahn, a city representative for Frankfurt, Germany. And in that moment, her title meant nothing. She was powerless.

Mahn's horrific........

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