A MaineHealth executive hosted an antiracist prayer service in which he had a group of White people apologize for their internalized racism, according to a since-deleted video reviewed by Fox News Digital.
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The executive, Ryan Polly, has served as Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at MaineHealth since February 2021, having previously served as the Maine Medical Center’s Director of DEI, and Interim VP of DEI at MaineHealth since September 2020.
Polly, who holds a Ph.D. in “Transformative Studies,” also refers to himself as a “minister” of a group called the One Spirit Learning Alliance.
In a video that has since been scrubbed, Polly is shown teaching attendees of a prayer service dedicated to “loving spirits who are known by many names” how to be practitioners of antiracism.
“Only then can we become equipped to… challenge the systems that have been designed to give us the advantage and oppress everyone else,” he said about becoming an antiracist.
The MaineHealth DEI leader says that he himself maintains “racist narratives and biases,” which he attributes to his own skin color.
“As the head of diversity, equity and inclusion at a major health system, I think frequently about my role as White person first and as a diversity leader second. I think about the responsibility I have to continue the deep internal work of… understanding my own racist narrative and biases,” Polly said. “I think about the privilege my Whiteness affords me and the choices Whiteness allows me to have… My Whiteness keeps me and my family safe.”
Polly said that White people acquire “ignorance,” “biases” and “racist thoughts” based on their belonging to a “life of Whiteness.”
“This evening has been designed with White people in mind not to take the stage. We have plenty of places to take the stage,” he said at the start of his prayer. “We [need] to… begin the work to join the fight… We need to ensure we… do the work to challenge our ignorance, our biases and the racist thoughts that we’ve acquired through the life of Whiteness.”
In a section of the prayer centered around “dismantling the system,” Polly encouraged the White people attending the service to feel uncomfortable with his messages.
“Let us develop the courage to dive [into] deeply experienced discomfort. Let’s sit with it… knowing that the answers come not from our own conscious thinking because that thinking is shaped by racist constructs. The answers lie deeper,” he said. “Let us leave with the tenacity to become anti-racist and continue the fight, even on the days when we could simply choose not to. Amen.”
Following his prayer, Polly said that all White people bear responsibility for instances in which police officers have shot Black people.
“I am White… You share something with Darren Wilson [who shot Michael Brown] and George Zimmerman [who shot Trayvon Martin]. We share the experience of living in a culture that tells us that our lives have more value just because we’re White,” Polly said.
“I choose to consider these collective wounds as implicating all of us. And that their healing requires my participation because I am White,” he added.
After Fox News sent Polly a request for comment, he deleted his YouTube channel.
Polly’s prayer service was also made private after Fox sent a query to MaineHealth, who defended their DEI executive in a statement.
“Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion stems from our organizational values, mission and vision. This work strengthens our connections with patients and ultimately helps us to deliver higher-quality care. Consistent with our value of Respect and our role as an institution of learning, we welcome and encourage divergent viewpoints and dialogue among our patients and care team,” MaineHealth stated.
MaineHealth has instituted a five-year DEI strategic plan, a project spearheaded by Ryan Polly going back to August 2020, when he sent an email to MaineHealth’s care team members saying that the organization needed to take “a closer look at our own shortcomings” regarding DEI efforts, according to a report from Do No Harm, a group that advocates against radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology in healthcare.
The DEI initiative includes educational programming for MaineHealth leadership and all care team members — in 2022, the initiative resulted in 311 care team members participating in DEI education, 112 DEI ambassadors across the MaineHealth system, and 600 hours spent developing the DEI strategic plan.
One educational resource Polly provided MaineHealth employees in another email is the MaineHealth “Inclusive Language Guide,” which encourages employees to avoid terms like “mom and dad” and “father and mother” in favor of “parents, adults, family,” in order to prevent the assumption of a “heteronormative family structure.”
It also provides a list of “commonly used pronouns” for gender identity, such as “Xe/Xem/Xyrs/Xyrself.”
Polly works at the same institution as Gov. Janet Mills sister, Dora Mills, who is the “chief improvement officer” for MaineHealth.
Dora Mills recently collaborated with the Portland Press Herald in order to encourage Mainers to get more mRNA injections to help fight the newest COVID-19 variant.
Not sharing his uncomfortable self hating about his skin color, perhaps gender confused as well
I was a major donor to MaineHealth. They apparently have not need for additional funds.
This article was reposted in The Gateway Pundit which will undoubtedly make us look like fools to the rest of the country as if we weren’t already for re-electing Mills.
Look at us “virtue signaling”!
ME Health/ME Med should focus on health care.
This nonsense has nothing to do with health care.
I have concluded also for MaineHealth what I have done for my medical school. If they have the funds for these divisive programs, they don’t need mine.
If as white people our inherent cultural structure is responsible for our so-called white advantages, why should I feel guilty about it? My whiteness is the responsibility of my parents, and their parents, and their parents, ad infinitum.
Mr. Polly, please do your homework before dispersing advice, in particular your references to white police involvement in black deaths. Check out the actual numbers and percentages – they are surprisingly low. (I find it interesting that you don’t mention George Floyd, who was dying of fentanyl overdose when the police tried to assist him – yes, assist him – as his lungs disintegrated. Did you do just that much homework so as not to mention him?)
The more we obsess over the color of one’s skin, the less we focus on more important things, like the uniqueness of every individual, family, community. I am white and female, but my family is diverse in color (and other identifiers). I really don’t give a flying fart if someone is pink with purple stripes – I’m much more interested in WHO you are, not WHAT you are. I suspect that I gain more wisdom from the conversations I have with Rick, the homeless guy sitting on Main Street in my town, than I think I would from you, Mr. Polly.
Enough with the labeling, either of self or others! All it does is separate us into conflicting groups vying for superiority. Mr. Polly, if you choose to feel guilty for something you had/have no control over, that’s your business and I have no truck with that. But it isn’t your prerogative to tell me that I should, too. I adhere as best I can to Jesus’s two greatest commandments, the second of which is: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And no, it isn’t always comfortable. But I engage with that discomfort my way, not at your direction. Guilt doesn’t improve relationships.
To say that an entire group of people are racist solely because of their skin color is the very definition of racism.
Although my skin in white, due to the low melanin content, I identify as purple. You’re a racist if you tell me I’m not.
This guy should not be working for Maine Health. He is a racists in his actions towards white people.
Why is Maine Health wasting money on a DEI executive? Looking for a coherent explanation of how this improves Healthcare for anyone. It’s A complete waste of money on ridiculous symbolism.
Why try to make people feel guilty about being white? The future will follow one of two paths – natural integration and acceptance of each other regardless of sub specie; or a race war to settle once and for all who will inherit the future of the planet. It is a false narrative that at some point in time we all will be copesetic with the status of the subspecies within the human race. Evolution will in time settle our physical and intellectual differences. But in a competitive population, natural selection wins out. Equality can not be forced and it seems unlikely that it will happen on its own. The future belongs to those who strive to survive. It serves to eliminate those who whine and expect something for nothing.
This DEI (better DIE) is another way ‘White Liberals’ try to tell white people they are racist. I am white and have friends from all over the world, some are white, some are black others are Asian… Normal people do not see color! Try working in a hospital… everyone bleeds red, the body is the same no matter what color you are..
Martin Luther King summed it up best when he said ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’
Equal opportunity and affirmative action have been with us for decades but somehow there are those who are ‘more equal’ than others and they are NOT White. Maybe Maine Health ought to look at who they are hiring…..
Wow, love all these comments 🤩 . To re -state this, everything he just said is the very definition of racism , and, its going through out our Maine govt. Thank you Janet ,😠 . The main municipal association , who almost ALL SMALL TOWN town offices PAY YEARLY fees to , and get FREE CLASSES AND TRAINING , are now having training classes for selectman, town managers , office help, etc. To train them in DEI !!!!! Your tax dollars paying for it😤