Once in a while, a set of tools or resources comes around that really helps reset the debate, reframe the issue, and is engaging in the process.
"Unnatural Cauuses", a 7-part documentary series that systematically explores the causes of racial and ethnic health disparities in the United States, is a landmark series on public television that is transforming our public discourse on health.
It's playing on public television in the month of April (find out if it's playing in your area, and if it's not, you can write to your public television stations and ask that they play it). As diannah mentioned earlier today, some local television stations are threatening not to play this series, giving unacceptable reasons for not airing it, and you can take action on this.
Mississippi Appendectomy - A phrase made popular by Civil Rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer referring to involuntary sterilization procedures. Beginning during the heyday of the American eugenics movement (1920s and 1930s), poor black women were made subject to hysterectomies or tubal ligations against their will and without their knowledge. The practice was considered particularly frequent in the Deep South, although coercive sterilization practices took place in many areas of the country and also affected other women of color, women with physical disabilities whom physicians judged to be "unfit to reproduce," and poor white women as well.
"She went into the doctor for a cold and came out with a Mississippi appendectomy."
Serena Sebring is a super duper inspiring friend who recently started the website Mississippi Appendectomy to archive historical and current information on forced sterilizations on women of color. I've taken a browse through the site, and each post is jaw-dropping, saddening, infuriating even. Some of the posts are about more recent discourses, which is even more frightening given we're not learning from history. I've got my own stories to share, of what I've overheard when I was a wee medical student, or experienced as a family medicine resident working in various hospitals, but I'll save that for another post because honestly, it can be emotionally draining to share stories from a system that I am a part of even if I do not subscribe to many of its values and practices.
Serena shares her personal story with the medical system, in the about section of the website:
Personally, as a black woman and mother of three children, this work is also a family history. It is a story of how I came to be where and who I am. I was born in 1977. Unwed, at 19 years old, I gave birth to my first daughter. At my first office visit following her birth, my doctor strongly encouraged me to think about long-term birth control -- perhaps sensible enough advice, even if it was offered in a tone ringing with an unmistakable disapproval and with look of disdain and condescension that it has taken me many years to shake.
I can only imagine what the voices of the doctors of the women whose stories will fill this archive must have sounded like, or how they might have felt as social workers coldly ordered their bellies cut open and reproductive freedom cut short. I can only imagine, and this is a privilege. Had I been born earlier, I might have seen my children sold for someone else's profit or whim, I might have had little or no access to reproductive technologies that allowed me the freedom to make decisions about how many children to have or when, I might have been deemed "irresponsible" "negligent" "feebleminded" or "promiscuous" after having a child out of wedlock at 19 -- as many of my foremothers were -- and been tricked, forced, or pressured into the violence of a surgery meant to erase future problems of my kind. I do know that the disapproval and disdain that stung me in that doctor's office were only the remnants of generations of violence and theft committed against black and brown mothers, only the legacy of their children deemed unworthy of birth, only the trace of an unfree lineage.
But my freedom - to choose - to choose among many possible tomorrows for myself and for my family, that is a gift. It is a gift passed on to me by women of color who endured, who survived, and those who did not; passed down to me by women who spoke, who organized, who marched, who wrote, who believed, who hoped, who visioned a future they would never see; black women and brown women, 'third-world' women who spoke unspeakable truths, who testified, who worked, who fought, who loved, who built, and who birthed this world which has offered me more freedom than they ever could have known. I am thankful. This work is for them.
And yet I know that my freedom remains incomplete, that reproductive justice is still a goal and not yet my destination. I know too that I share this legacy of struggle with Sisters who have not had the same freedoms I have and Sisters who continue to face more limited options and fewer possible tomorrows than my own. This work is for them. None of us is free until we all are. So this work is for me and my Sisters - for my daughters and theirs - for our mothers and grandmothers. This work is dedicated with love to those who came before and to those who will come after, and to another world that waits to celebrate their birth.
This question makes the rounds in blogland oh, every three or four months. Invariably, a white blogger is the one doing the asking and a whole slew of white folks are speculating about the answer.
I don't usually make a point of paying attention to those conversations. Knowing that I'm a blogger and I'm right here, makes it really hard for me to pay attention to all the garbage that usually gets spewed out (i.e. they're too poor to blog, they don't care about blogging, they aren't educated enough to blog, they don't have the time to blog etc). But this time I read such interesting commentary from different bloggers of color, I was inspired to try to unravel some of my own thoughts about the "where are they" conversations.
For those of you who don't know, this recent round of "Where are they now" was brought on by the Yearly Kos conference that just took place in Chicago. Apparently, despite attempts to do otherwise, the conference was notable in its lack of "diversity" and "inclusion". Because there was a concerted effort to reach out to the "diverse" crowd (i.e. men of color and white women), organizers and attendees alike walked away feeling pretty baffled and upset.
The thing is, I'm not exactly sure why they were baffled and upset. Why do these bloggers care if there's no diversity in their ranks?
I ask not because I want to spend time speculating about "intentions." I find speculating about intentions to be ultimately unsuccessful in changing things or making things better or different.
I ask because there is a long history in the U.S. (and other places as well), of especially white centered leftist groups going round and round with communities of color about "diversity" and "inclusion".
And yet, at the same time, none of these groups that are so concerned about "diversity" or "inclusion" really have any idea what's going on in any community of color, much less the communities that live one google search away from them. They're not even sure if we exist.
So why do they care if none of us showed up to their party?
What is health justice? How are health & human rights fiercely connected to the wellness of our neighborhoods? How do we reframe policy debates? How do we continue dreaming and building instead of just reacting & surviving? And how do we support each other in our healing?
Cure This is an online space for storytelling, discussion, reflection and building around healing justice. Create an account to write a diary or comment. Questions or thoughts: lotusfeet [at] hotmail [dot] com
News: CureThis was part of an exhibit in Chicago: "Visual resistance in feminist health movements, 1969-2009" [link]
