“It’s always a black and
white thing with you!” Randy Patterson of Pro Doula.
I get this a lot. Goddess
Randy said this to me in a parking lot in Kansas earlier this year. In her New
York accent and with tons of love, we fell over each other laughing freely. I’m
a NYC, I immediately understood where Randy was coming from. I knew it
was said in love and she was merely busting my balls. She get's it.
Fast-forward a few months…
As my time in this profession as a black
birth doula evolves, I’m noticing a pattern of rhetoric around my blackness; my
being a doula and my freedom of speech. I have several venues of writing on social media: my
professional, Bold Doula and my personal: The Audacious Black Woman.
As black woman in a
predominately white world of maternal health, I am constantly faced with hyper-scrutiny
that comes along with being who I am in the place I am in. Maternal health is
homogenous in white domination of doulas, teachers, midwives and the like. Education in the maternal health arena is often white driven, the leaders are mostly white and the beliefs reflect
whiteness overall.
In the deluge of trainings,
I’m often told that I must forsake and renounce my master’s level education and
‘just be a doula.’ Hmmmmm. No, sorry. I cannot do that. After almost 20 years
as a MSW social worker, there’s no way I could possibly undo the education, the
ability to assess and the level of professionalism I hold myself to as demanded
by my clients and peers as well as many who have barely completed high school
let alone obtained a college degree. My master’s degree has opened some cracks
for me to slip through. My clients benefit from my education; in no way am I
crossing the boundaries of a doula and that of a clinician.
I am also told not to be an
advocate in maternal health justice. My being an advocate is seen as a ‘threat
to medical professionals.’ Really? I’ve
also been told: “You post too must stuff about blacks on your social media.”
Well I’ll be damned.
I am many things; first and
foremost, I am black, I am a woman. Sojourner Truth begged the question “Ain’t
I A Woman” hundreds of years ago; today I do as well. I simply cannot and will
not forsake black woman and childbirth. I have birthed while being black; there
are some huge disparities.
Here’s the teachable moment.
Imagine if I were to keep you (white
woman) happy by not posting about blacks, I would be denying the essence of who
I am. Many are simply not aware of the
contributions made by black female slaves to gynecological and obstetrical
medicine in the United States. All of the advancements made within these two
areas of medicine, down to the basic speculum are the result of research and
experimentation upon the black female slave without
anesthesia. Let’s also not forget how the United States was built for free from the uteruses of the
black female slave who birthed babies who were immediately placed into slavery.
Every inch of this country was touched, built and developed by blacks.
Washington D.C was built by black slaves. Period. Every single OB/GYN
advancement and instrument used today is the result of a black female slave
being experimented upon for ‘medical advancement.’
Black women lead in
statistics for poor maternal outcomes of stillbirth, prematurity, c-sections,
low weight babies, fetal demise and poor breastfeeding. Why are these stats so
dismal and remain so in the 20 years I’ve been in the health field? Know history
of the black woman, know maternal justice discrimination and know economic
discrimination; you have your answer, if you dare to face the truth.
Still don’t get it?
The black woman is not at the table of birth justice
and maternal resources. Many white birth workers do not reach out to black
women as potential clients. I’ve had a director of a local agency in
Pougkeepsie, NY gleefully inform me: “doula services are the best kept secret
in the Hudson Valley.” I’ve lived here for over 20 years and as a black woman,
I never knew this resource existed. She wanted me to work as a doula in her
agency for free; meanwhile she gets a salary.
I had birth workers tell me
to my face: “Black women don’t feel pain. They were built to birth. They don’t
need the support.” There’s another fugly discrimination in maternal health:
economics.
Economic discrimination
dominates in the birth world. Many white women have spouses who earn
substantial salaries so these women can afford not to work full time and they
can afford the trainings/certifications this field demands. Black women on average earn less than
white and Latino males. Many black women simply cannot afford the
thousands of dollars charged to obtain trainings to evolve their doula
practices. For example: Birth Arts Institute charges $2,500 to train you to be
a trainer, Nick Olow charges $5,949 to attend his 12-month training in
accu-pressure certification and Our Baby Class Teacher training costs $3,000…
there’s many more, the list goes on. I get tons of invitations to trainings and
every time I ask these trainers if they offer any kind of scholarship to a
woman of color to participate – very few do. If they do, it’s rarely
publicized.
So, my counter-questions to
all those who ask why do I post so much about about blacks: do you realize I’m
black? Ask this same question of your Latina and Asian friends. Where’s the
awareness of the huge disparities that exists in black maternal health and what is being done to close them? Until
that Grand Canyon wide disparity is closed, I will be posting as the educated,
professional black woman that I am.
As for my clients, they hire me because
of my intelligence and my professionalism. They hire me because of my loyalty.
They hire me because when its time to push; when that baby is crowning, they want
Bold Doula right beside them. So, I can laugh with goddess
Randy, because I accept the work that is before me.
