A Black nurse kept telling a patient she was from Georgia, until she finally said what the woman was really asking: ‘I didn’t come from Africa’

A black nurse who goes by Alisha on TikTok (@therealrnbarbie) says a patient wouldn’t accept Georgia as her answer to where she was from. The clip has hundreds of thousands of views. The patient isn’t identified, and Alisha’s account hasn’t been independently verified.

Alisha films herself walking down a hospital hallway as she tells the story. The patient first asked where she was from, then where she was from “originally,” and then how she got here. She answered Georgia to the first two. For the third, Alisha told the patient her mom and dad had sex and her mother gave birth to her at South Fulton Hospital. One more question followed, about whether she was born in Georgia.

Alisha says she answered “Yes, ma’am.” She then says racism is still alive because “we originate from everywhere.” The video ends with her speaking to the patient directly. “Ma’am, I didn’t come from Africa,” she says, adding that she knows that’s what the patient was asking. Her comment section filled with people describing the same question from patients and coworkers.

Healthcare workers say patients ask them the same thing

Many commenters who said they work in hospitals wrote that they hear the question regularly. Black Americans in the replies said patients assume they’re from Africa. Latino nurses wrote that patients assume they were born in Mexico, and several said patients follow up by praising their English.

One commenter wrote that every other patient assumes she’s from Africa, even though she’s from Florida. Another said a patient told her she had a Nigerian accent. “I’m from NC bro,” she added. A third wrote that patients ask about her parents, and she replies by asking what that has to do with their “384 blood sugar.”

Some viewers say the question wasn’t racist

A smaller group of commenters said the patient may have simply been curious. A few suggested she might have been asking about ancestry rather than birthplace.

One viewer wrote that it sounded like “a harmless question” and that tone would make the difference. A commenter who said patients often ask about his nationality wrote that “it doesn’t point to racism” and is sometimes just a way to start a conversation. Another replied that the patient may have meant “your genetic ancestry” instead of nationality.

Alisha doesn’t say where she works or whether the patient said anything after her final reply. Dozens of commenters wrote the answers they would have given, from asking the patient the same question to naming Wakanda. Hospital encounters involving race have spread online before, including a North Carolina hospital video.