Dr. Allyssa L. Harris is the Dean of Nursing at Prairie View A&M University. She has 27 years of professional clinical practice and higher education teaching, research, and administrative experience. We asked Dr. Harris, what was the impact of her participation in the Reckoning with Racism in Nursing Documentary Project?
“Until I was asked to share my story, I hadn’t realized how much racism had impacted me and my work as a nurse. Telling my story, brought an awareness of how much I had internalized and normalized the almost daily/weekly micro aggressions that I experienced. We encounter so many instances (of racism) that we just brush them off and keep moving forward–it was something that I just did, without really thinking about it. For me, thinking about it now, unless the incidents were extremely egregious, I didn’t really think about them. Participating in the project, hearing others’ experiences, helped me- it gave me greater awareness, validated my experiences, and gave me tools to help not only myself but my friends, colleagues, and students”.