Celebrate black history with local business Socialite Vision + Healthy habits - Eye care
I’m from Haiti, I wasn’t used to black history month, or even paying attention to being black. Haiti has its own sets of problems but one thing i didn’t have to worry about growing up was being black. Well colorism, texturism, colonialist mentality did exist but as far as representation that wasn’t a problem since everybody’s black! At least the majority of the people are black.
My doctor lived next door to us, he was a colonel in the army, I went to a very uppity private school that was a hundred percent women owned and operated. When I was eight when a woman became president and led the country in its very first democratic election.
While there was a lot of other crazy stuff happening, seeing educated black people in positions of power wasn’t something my parents had to worry about.
Raising my two girls in America had afforded us new opportunities and opened new doors but it has also thrust me into a new concept I wasn’t privy to.
Gross lack of diversity!
Every February we celebrate Black history, but black history is not a monthly thing or at least it shouldn't be. Black history should be american history but hélas!
I want my kids to be exposed to black excellence, and one way I do that is supporting black owned businesses.
I want them to see black doctors, black engineers, black business owners…
I believe One of the best ways to celebrate Black History month is to purchase work and services and support missions by Black people that help benefit Black people.
I believe One of the best ways to celebrate Black History month is to purchase work and services and support missions by Black people that help benefit Black people.
Last week was time for my kids yearly eye exams, it was a two bird one stone kinda thing, to take them to the doctor and also expose them to black excellence.
We went to see Doctor Ramsey at Socialite Vision, we’ve been going there for three years now. His office and services is black excellence personified. The minute you walk in you can hardly tell whether you’re in a doctor’s office or a black art museum, he rotates exhibitions of local artists so the art is always new and exciting.The background is 90s R&B song I actually know the words to.
He runs a paperless office, everything is green to the max, he uses reusable forms that once scanned onto the system get wiped down! No paper wasted whatsoever!
He uses real towels in the bathrooms in neat little laundry baskets, I think that’s my absolute favorite part.
The actual eye exams are like no regular eye exams I’ve ever had. regular eye exams just have you reads stuff and make sure you can see and slap some glasses on you but Doctor Ramsey goes above and beyond. He tests for color blindness, 3-D visions, he takes scans, MRIs, pressure, temperature… and he explains the purpose of everything, the nerd in me is as giddy as a kid in a candy factory.
My biggest pet peeves with doctors is when they just talk at you, and treat you like you're dumb and they just do their thing and don’t even address you... like you’re too dumb to understand basic biology. I had one asked me if i went to med school? In a sarcastic tone, because I was asking too many questions… No idiot, I went to middle school!
Anyway, Doctor Ramsey goes above and beyond and all the tests he does are invaluable to me.
Black people are already disconnected from our ancestors, which makes it hard to keep up with family medical history. When you are a black immigrant that disconnect amplifies! I have a whole sets of relatives in Haiti I know nothing about their medical history and how they affect me.
My mom is struggling with all kinda issues with her eyes right now, and I’m wondering if we had family medical history and test records like Doctor Ramsey keeps we could have maybe, just maybe save her eyes.
We didn’t know about the family history of glaucoma until her eye pressure was out of control, and my mom goes to the eye doctor every year for new glasses but no one caught it. Now she is dealing with glaucoma, cataracts, macular degeneration and it breaks my heart.
It’s scary to know that this is something that runs in our family, but doctor Ramsey started taking scans and MRI of my eyes and my kids three years ago, so if anything comes up we’ll have something to compare and take the best course of actions before something bad happens.
Also, I’m now eating all the yellow fruits like my dad used to say when I was a kid. Apparently the man knew what he was talking about when he used to say eat this mango for your eyes, eat this abricot for your eyes, eat this carrots for your eyes… I used to think it was his way of making me eat stuff I don’t want but turns out yellow foods are high in vitamins A that are actually good for your eyes!
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