Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Wellbeing

Running head: ABORIGINAL & TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER PEOPLES’ WELLBEING
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Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Wellbeing
Student’s Name
University

ABORIGINAL & TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER PEOPLES’ WELLBEING
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Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Wellbeing
Step 1 third person
a) Compare and contrast personal racism and systemic/ institutional racism
Individual racism entails a situation where the race characterizes individual attitudes and
preferences. On the hand, institutional racism is seen as a form of discrimination where color or
ethnic background are used as indicators for discrimination. Both the two types of racism are
similar since they tend to focus on discriminating the people based on skin color or ethnic
background which creates inequality between the races (Bowser, 2017; Salter, Adams, & Perez,
2018). However, the difference between the two is that in individual racism, people exhibit racist
elements to other people that they feel do not have the same skin color like them. This entails the
actions that the people use like refusing to talk or greet those who seem to an inferior race. On
the other hand, Feagin & Elias (2013) argue that institutional racism differs in such a way that
cultural rules are created and used to discriminate people of a certain race.
b) The power dynamics associated with the concept of whiteness and describe how it
relates to contemporary nursing practice in Australia.
The implications of white and non-white races are categories of domination and control
where skin color plays a significant part in distribution of benefits in the society. Structural and
institutional frameworks are created to define racism and create power differences that make
some people to access better privileges than the rest. Thus through racism and whiteness in
Australia, there are explicit advantages that are camouflaged in whiteness nursing. According to
Marmot (2011) systematic racism creates racial privileges which lead to advantages that are

ABORIGINAL & TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER PEOPLES’ WELLBEING
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organized and stratified in social relations that perpetuate inequality and access to opportunities
in nursing. The outcome is a white nursing system which tends to progress based on the social
stratification of social relations and inequalities that the daily conduct of the nursing
professionals is thus guided by the fluid social routines
c) cultural competence and cultural safety
Henderson, Horne, Hills, & Kendall (2018) suggest cultural competence is the ability of
the individual to understand and communicate effectively with people from other cultures.
Cultural safety entails an environment that is socially, spiritually and emotionally safe where
people are free to be who they are and at the same tome have access to opportunities without
shared respect, meaning, knowledge and experience (SharonYeung, 2016). This means that the
two terms are related in such a way that they seek to create an environment that accommodates
and acknowledges the cultural differences of other people through allowing them to exercise
their cultural knowledge while at the same time ensuring that they accommodate the differences
in the cultures. On the other hand, the two concepts differ in such a way that cultural competence
is individual based where one learns how to relate well with other people through understanding
and accommodating their cultural needs (Woods, 2010). Further, cultural safety is based on
creating environmental conditions that allow the people to exercise their cultural rights while
relating to others.
Step 2: Reflection
Social determinants of health shape access to healthcare and determine how people
access healthcare needs in the society. This reading made me understand the importance of social
determinants of health and how the conditions that people are born in, grow in, work and age