The Village Prenatal

A couple weeks ago, I was in Seattle and spent time with a Native woman who had made a good life for herself.  She had a lovely family and home, a satisfying career and is well respected by her peers. She is a good deal younger than me and very accomplished.  When we were alone together, I asked her a very personal question, one I was dying to hear her answer too.  "Why didn't you get pregnant?" "What set you apart from me and many of your own peers whose life plans were altered by an unplanned pregnancy?"  Despite having married the guy she dated in high school they did not have children until many years into their marriage.  I really wanted to know what made the difference.  I have her permission to share her answer.  She told me, without hesitation, that it was two things: excellent school-based sex education, and a supportive parent willing to have the birth control conversation without freaking out.  Wow.  For the price of those two things, the world gets an accomplished individual who is making a positive difference in the world and in her community. Now, I'm not saying that an unplanned pregnancy ruins you- after all I had TWO kids when I walked across the stage at my high school graduation.  But I spent most of my life catching up from that and only now have the productivity in my fifties that I longed for in my thirties.  I was so entranced by this woman's story that it made me angry.  Angry, that I live/work in two states that will only allow 'abstinence only' education in the public schools.  Angry, that I see young women everyday who have little to no access to the knowledge and the birth control that would give them a fighting chance in life.  Angry, that our state lawmakers have not expanded Medicaid.  Angry, that our society can't wait to condemn unplanned pregnancy, but keeps effective birth control out of reach.  Angry, that we set women up to bear the brunt of consequences from unplanned pregnancies.  Angry, that we can't have simple conversations with our daughters and sons about basic physiologic functions.  Angry, that we don't want women to have abortions, but we don't want them to use birth control either.  Angry, that contraceptives aren't free and available to any and everyone who seeks them. Angry, that an unplanned pregnancy can send a family into a financial and emotional tailspin from which it may take years to recover.  Angry, that we compromise our children's future by keeping them clothed in ignorance as if it were a virtue.

Interconception care (care BETWEEN pregnancies) is designed to get you healthy BEFORE you get pregnant and to help you space your pregnancies out.  This is a luxury ideology when you don't have healthcare coverage BETWEEN pregnancies as our current system of Medicaid ensures.  About half of pregnancies are unplanned (either due to a lack of use of contraceptives, or contraceptive failure). It varies from state to state from a little under half to a  little over half, but here about half of pregnancies are covered by Medicaid.   Medicaid does little to nothing to prevent or delay the next pregnancy, since women are promptly dropped from insurance at six weeks postpartum.(Just in time to resume sexual activity.)  It will cover birth control obtained up to that six week mark but not thereafter.   Providers don't help with their contraceptive bullying techniques (bullying women to get the shot or implant because its convenient for the provider- never mind what it does to milk supply or that it is not compatible with her goals or lifestyle). There is little about this system that actually serves women- especially women of color.  It is designed to control and subjugate but not to facilitate health and wellness and informed choice.

I propose a new course.  A way to circumvent an educational system and healthcare system that seeks to keep us uninformed  and ignorant.  Let's educate ourselves about birth and breastfeeding and contraception.  Instead of approaching our births with drugs, fear and ignorance, lets teach ourselves what we need to know.  Let's go door to door, house to house, community to community reclaiming our right to understand how our bodies work.  Let's teach one another rather than depend on those who don't have our best interest or the best interest of our communities at heart.  I propose that we start connecting through 'learning parties' that center around learning about our bodies, pregnancy and birth control. But it isn't just about learning new knowledge, its also about nurturing the pregnant person.  This idea was created by my mentor, Sr. Morningstar.  She calls them Village Prenatals. They bear no resemblance to clinical prenatals and there are no clinical activities.  A pregnant person or persons is simply surrounded by their community in an intimate setting.  A number of activities take place.  First of all there should be good nourishing food and drink.  There should be someone to take the lead.  There should be a comfortable space for the pregnant person or persons to lie down. There may be drumming, singing bowls or other instrumentation. There may be incense or flowers.  The rest of the party should form a circle around the person leading the Village Prenatal and the pregnant person. I have developed a 5 point itinerary that is specific for my community that can be followed or modified to your own needs:

Village Prenatal Template

1.An acknowledgement of past failures or harms.  (Infant and maternal mortality) I like to start with an acknowledgement of past harms or an honoring of lives already lost- I might do this with a pouring libation, a moment of silence or a guided meditation)

2. Replace the fear with knowledge. (Knowledge is power) (the pregnant person is asked to give voice to their concerns first then their joys.  I address those fears with knowledge (this is where teaching occurs) and we stand in agreement in any joys or rejoicing

3. Our bodies are amazing- restore trust in that.  (Understand how your body works) (Next we celebrate the body with some sort of body work; body painting, or a belly or foot massage, or belly casting or necklace beading or waist bead making or some other way to honor the body)

4. We are what we need-sisters supporting sisters. (we can be one another's best support) (the next part allows the group or circle to interact by each gifting their own word of wisdom, or presentation of a gift, or participating in some way to honor the individual who is the focus.)

5. Restore community through conscious healing (focus on our corporate good) (I like to end with a closing circle in which everyone offers parting words or wisdom- they can say what they learned, they can offer a thought to the pregnant person.  It can end with a song, or with dancing or as it began with drumming or other instrumentation. 

 

This is my template and you may modify if for your own use, and it may be used even if there is not a pregnant person being focused upon.  Here is a template for doing a Village Prenatal with a group of teen girls:

1. Acknowledgement of the past: Begin with foot washing.  A bowl is brought forth with water, essential oils, herbs, flowers, and there is a ceremonial washing of feet by the elder women of the younger women

2. Replacing fear with knowledge: As the young women sit in an inner circle and the older women in an outer circle around them, teaching can be shared on menstruation, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, motherhood, whatever the selected topic is. 

3. Our bodies are amazing: The girls can be led in creating menstruation bracelets or waist beads or body painting.

4. We are what we need: share songs or drumming together.  Elder women can weave a thread from girl to woman as they share their own stories of initiating menstruation.

5. Restore community: Each elder commits to support a young woman in her journey, to become a source of support and encouragement.  Each young woman commits cultivate self love and trust.

Here is a template for a gathering of pre-pregnant young adult college or career age individuals:

1. Acknowledgement of the past- Participants can write notes to their mothers stating what they are most grateful for about her mothering.

2. Replacing fear with knowledge- The education can be on the topic of "What you need to know about pregnancy and birth"

3. Our bodies are amazing - The group can watch a birth video of a natural homebirth with explanations of what they are seeing

4. We are what we need- There could be a round robin on how what they have learned will shape their birth experiences or how they will support one another

5. Restore community- Participants can make care packages to donate to a women's shelter as their closing activity.

Those are a few ideas off the top of my head for gatherings.  They can be done in homes, churches, clubs, civic groups,  schools, or just a gathering of friends.  The theme is birth, breastfeeding or sexual health.  I am committed to leading five of these over the course of the summer to kick them off in my community.  You must be a woman of color.  Contact me, I'll help you plan it, and then come to your location (in my city) and help execute it. You must be willing to have photos and videos taken to upload on a community page I'm going to create called Village Prenatals so that we can all see and learn from other's examples.  If this resonates with you, you are a woman of color, and you live in the Kansas City area, please contact me in the comments section of this post or by email at sherry@uzazivillage.com

I believe we can change our community by educating and nurturing in this way.  If you think so too, contact me and we'll talk.  I hope you will try this in your own community, whoever and wherever you are.  Let's start a revolution.  

All Hail the Queen

(This story shared with permission.) No, not that Queen!  But mad props to the Duchess of Cambridge for being delivered by Black Midwives! While that historic birth was happening, another was going on right here in Missouri outside the view of cameras and media.  A Black working class  woman, appropriately named, Queen, gave birth to her third child in her own house, UNASSISTED, save one quiet witness- me.  Queen labored all alone in her home, keeping in touch with me by text from the time her water broke at her job on Friday afternoon until I joined her in the wee hours of Saturday morning.  I arrived at her home at 2:30am to find Queen laboring naked in her living room.  Signs of active labor were clear.  She was alone in the house, her other two children were spending the weekend at their father's home. The lights were dim, and smooth mellow jazz blasted from a CD.  A shower curtain covered the carpeted floor.  Pillows and cushions were piled on the floor near the sofa to make a resting place. Bottles of water and juice loitered about the room.
She labored on her feet and on all fours.  She moaned quietly through her contractions which came with efficient regularity.  I sat on her sofa and said nothing and did nothing as she continued her labor just exactly as she had been doing before I arrived.

I had met Queen less than two weeks ago.   She called me asking for an appointment to see because she was referred to me by a city bus driver!  She was clear that she wanted an unassisted home birth.  She showed up at the appointed time and I listened to her story; she had had two hospital births that had left her feeling traumatized and she simply refused to return.  She was knowledgeable about the risks and had breastfed her other two babies.  I sat stunned as I listened to her.  This was the woman I had been waiting for.  I wasn't even sure she existed.  A Black woman from my own community who through her own knowing and knowledge seeking understood and believed that she could birth her baby simply, with ease, in her own home.  I nearly wept with joy.  We have been so beaten down and subjugated in birth that I almost never encounter women from my own community who believe they can birth their babies without medical intervention, guidance, or surveillance.  I was so excited, I almost ruined Queen's birth.  She had not sought out prenatal care.  At first I insisted she see my preceptor midwife, get labs and a sonagram done.  She wanted me to be there for her birth, but at first I didn't know how to do that, except in the context of a midwifery student. She acquiesced.   I was in essence forcing midwifery upon her.  Then I read this Facebook post by my friend Ameena Ali Jones: "Birth workers, please...I beg you....STOP TELLING MOTHERS THAT THEY HAVE TO DO ANYTHING!!!!!!! All she is required to do is Labor and birth...THATS IT!!!"  It was as if she wrote it directly to me.  I took it to heart, repented of my deeply rooted dependence on the birth machine.  Queen was willing to do all that I asked because I was doing the asking but then it hit me from Ameena's post that I was not honoring Queen's wishes for an unassisted birth at all- I was just gently coaxing her into the kind of birth I wanted to do. I had made it about me- about my comfort- the very thing I accuse physicians, and midwives in hospitals of doing all the time to the women of my community.  I apologized to Queen.  I cancelled the appointment with my preceptor.  I told Queen I would be happy to come alongside and witness her birth.  I would not come as a midwife (because I am not one yet) but I would come as a companion and sit beside her as witness to her birth.   Her water broke the next day.

As I sat on the sofa in the tidy little bungalow, Queen labored beautifully.  I had no supplies with me.  I didn't even interject encouragements like, 'you can do it' or 'you're doing great'  She did not need even that.  She did it all on her own.  About 30 minutes after my arrival, she began to bear down.  She was kneeling down with her head resting on the sofa. She stood and began to push.  I moved in closer and took several pictures with my phone.  By the time I moved from the sofa to her side, the baby's head was already out.  I grabbed a nearby towel and gently caught the baby and laid it down between Queen's legs.  She wanted to know if it was a boy or girl, but I told her it was not my place to say.  She scooped her baby up and after five minutes of oohing and ahhhing, she gently unwrapped the towel to reveal the gender.  The baby cooed and later cried all from the safety of her mother's arms. I marveled as Queen never even sat down but began to nurse her baby standing naked in her living room. After 30 minutes her placenta came out, we then burned the cord and tied it with the shoestring Queen provided.  I watched over the baby,  as Queen showered, then tucked them both into bed.

As the sun rose beckoning a new day, I drove home and left Queen with her baby nursing in her arms.  I realized that I want more of this, more dependence on the mother's own knowing and wisdom.  Earlier the previous day I had attended a town hall meeting on maternal mortality.  Talking heads from our state capital were in town to present on current disheartening trends- expert statisticians and epidemiologists who would have believed that the answer to those problems lie in exactly what Queen did NOT do; more medical surveillance, more technological control, more dependence on the cult of expertise.  I began to see things differently on that ride home.  Queen was her own best hope.  Not the state experts, not even me.  Women taking back their births, even from the so called experts is what will save them. Listening to all the experts in the room made it clear: THEY HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO HELP US.  We just die, and they just throw up their hands.  Even worse, they think its our fault we are dying- they don't even see their own culpability.    The answer lies with us, not with them. Self reliance and self management within our own cultural context will save us, not waiting around for dominant others to fix us. Am I saying that unassisted birth will fix health disparities?  No, but I'm no longer willing to rule out that it has a useful role.  Today, all of Queen's female relatives are rethinking everything they think they ever knew about birth... with all my millions of classes I teach, I couldn't work that kind of magic. 

Black But Not Like Me

I had a recent conversation with a woman from Tanzania.  Emelda (not her real name) will be working with Uzazi Village.   It is rare that I get to really have a heart to heart with a Black person who is not African-American.  Emelda came to the US for college, married an American and is raising her family here in the US.  She is on faculty at a local university.   I couldn't wait to ask her something I had long wondered.  What is it like to be raised in a place where Blackness is not vilified and demonized?   Where whiteness is not culturally centered?  Where standards of beauty are not eurocentric?  Where Blacks are not first seen as a problem to solve.  Where every cultural reference, however subtle and intricate sends a negative message about about who and what I am?  What would it be like to grow up free of the weight of those lies?  She answered simply, "I can't explain it, but every time I fly home, I feel as though when I step off the plane, I leave a burden behind me."
I have long been curious about the 'burden' that we as African-Americans shoulder.  A burden made more wearisome by the oft heard denial of systemic racism.  Now that I have started the conversation, I am insatiable to know more.  What would it be like not to have every sensory experience that comes to me, not filtered through a racially white lens?  A lens that reflects back only negativity about who and what I am.  Caucasians adamantly deny that they are taught from the crib to distrust and look down upon African-Americans, but the contempt is palpable in this country. 
I'm fresh off a weekend binge of African and African-American themed movies.  I love getting lost in a world where brown skin is the norm, and where I'm not forced to contend with the relentless elevation of all things White.  I long to experience what Emelda spoke of; a laying down of the psychic, soul-felt and weighty stigma of being brown in America.  There is no escape from it here, where being diminished is a constant way of life.  I must constantly do battle in my mind, not to believe what is relentlessly communicated in ways large and small.  I have to help my children do the same.  I must actively reject lies told about me in this culture- that I am bad, unworthy, unintelligent, less than in every way, nor accept the lies told about Whites, that they are good, worthy to be the focus of attention and elevation.  I have to fight back against the almost passive infiltration of my own  internalized oppression.  I have no history because in the schools of my country, my history is ignored while I am taught the history of the White man as Lord and Master of the Universe. I have no mother tongue, nor tribal affiliation. My values, my esthetics, even my linguistics are undermined. 
I have to wonder, who would I be, if I hadn't spent a lifetime listening to overt and subtle messages attesting to my inferiority? This culture is brutal to people of color, diminishing our own sense of self and human potential if we are not constantly rejecting the lie, that white makes right. 
Then for an encore we are told, we are imagining it all, by the very ones from who the smug superiority emanates.  I hope someday I find out, what its like to be Black without the baggage.

Allies Behaving Badly

Examples of behavior I have seen in the last few months from 'allies':

• A group of mostly White women start a Facebook group for Black Breastfeeding Mothers that the white women admin, and never miss an opportunity to promote their agenda of diversifying a specific breastfeeding support group.  I have pointed out that what they are doing constitutes an ethical breach (admining a group for Black women when they are White AND using the site to promote their agenda of diversifying their own group, which may not be consistent with an agenda of supporting African-American breastfeeding mothers.)
• Watched a for profit company try to invade an urban African-American community to make money while framing it as 'economic empowerment' when it was more like 'economic exploitation'
• A woman of color in another city contacted me to inform me she had co-written a grant with an ally, one that required a woman of color in a leadership role.  When the grant was received, she was promptly removed from her position working with the project.  There are now no voices of color on the project, even though the funds are aimed at programs for Black women.
• I have seen countless groups scavenge for funding aimed at programs for Black women, even though these groups have no ties whatsoever to the Black community.  I have watched them scramble to get any Black face they could find on their committees and use these people mercilessly to push their own agendas.
• I have seen Black run community-based organizations and coalitions quietly step aside in writing for these same grants for fear of stepping on the toes of those in power.
• I have seen individuals of color elected to top ranking positions in clearly White organizations, so that those organizations can claim diversity, when all they really have is one lone person of color floundering in a leadership role in which they alone are expected to do the work of making significant change throughout the organization to promote diversity, when these organizations clearly have no desire to change anything, except how the top leader looks.
• I have seen organizations talk the talk, but refuse to walk the walk.
• I have seen all manner of disparities pimping. 
• I have seen so called allies argue down people of color telling them their ideas for what is best for their communities, and instead pushing through their own agendas.
• I have seen small groups of peoples of color struggle as they were torn between meeting the needs of their communities on one hand and please the White purse string holders on the other.
• I have seen 'allies' write grants so that they get paid to recruit VOLUNTEERS of color into birth or breastfeeding work in efforts that are clearly not sustainable.
• I have seen organization claim to want to be anti-racist without a willingness to invest in the hard work of actually becoming anti-racist. 
• I have seen organizations approach communities of color only when they need something from them such as a focus group for a report to legitimize the work they are doing.
• I have seen so-called allies never question their motives, their tactics, their presence in communities of color or call themselves into account for their lack of progress or change in those communities.
• Shamelessly appropriating and cannibalizing Black culture when it suits the need.
• I see people of color sidelined, marginalized, made invisible, disregarded, silenced, and worse for trying to help their own communities through the vehicle of dominant culture organizations holding dominant culture values.  Their opinions are not sought out, nor are they highly regarded within those organizations for the value they bring.  Far from it.
• I have had groups approach me to talk or do a webinar, as a check off for their diversity to do list, without any interest in actually changing the organization.
• "Helping" Black mothers by attacking aspects of Black culture, and inviting them to question the wisdom of their elders in inappropriate ways.
• I have seen program managers brag about the numbers of low level workers of color they have recruited, when those workers don't make a living wage, receive benefits, or even have fulltime hours or job security.  The managers recruiting them of course, take all those economic niceties for granted.
• I have seen many allies expect people of color to change to come be with them, but have seen none willing to change to be culturally appropriate to enter communities of color.
• Allies will volunteer to do work in their own communities, that they must be paid to do in communities of color.
• I am getting scads of invitations to talk for 'Black History Month'
• Allies will scramble like crabs in a bucket to get monies aimed a communities they know nothing about.

I could go on, but I think you get my point.  All of this amounts to the same thing.  Folks that are supposed to be helping us are instead helping themselves and preying off us.  Feasting on our slowing decaying and disparity-ridden bones.  Health inequities = Social and Economic and Healthcare and Reproductive Injustice  A system such as this could have only evolved in a supremely racist and oppressive society.  An entire class of educated and employable folks make their living feeding off the poor and peoples of color and call it social benefit.  How did we come to this?  More importantly how do we get out of it?  I have an upcoming webinar on February 17, 2015 with Preclarus Press called, "With Friends Like These… 10 Steps to Creating Mutually Beneficial Relationships with Persons and Organizations of Color".  Stay tuned and keep listening.  I'm hoping that allies will want to do better, once they know better.

For my brothers and sisters toiling in the trenches, starting in February, I will offer a monthly conference call that you can join.  Watch my Facebook page for details.  We will problem-solve with one another on how to exist and manifest effectiveness and excellence in racist and oppressive organizations and or systems.  The calls will be limited in numbers of callers, so it will be on a first come, first served basis.  That way we can address one another's issues in greater depth. We will create our own brain trust and self help group to address issues commonly encountered by people of color working in the birth and breastfeeding fields.  If this describes you, please join us.

The Way Forward

Yesterday, I had lunch with a former nursing student of mine.  We met at a local pizza joint and she told me all about her new position at my old hospital.  I loved our visit and am grateful that I often connect with former students who are constantly moving forward in their career trajectories.  This visit felt very deja vu' as she spoke about the highs and lows of working in a teaching hospital.  I know all too well the agonies and ecstasies of working in such a facility and tried to advise her as best I could.  The facility had recently become "Baby Friendly" (that means it is certified by a national body as having policies in place that promote breastfeeding).  But while the practice policies have changed dramatically, the underlying soul sickness of the place remains. 

My 'relationship' with this hospital spans my entire life cycle.  In fact I could say that my story is inextricably entwined with this facility.  I was born across the street from the current hospital at its predecessor, General Hospital N. 2.  Even the name speaks to its legacy of racism.  In my mother's day, Whites were cared for at General Hospital N. 1 and Blacks at N.2.  By the time I was born, both facilities had merged and it was informally simply called, General Hospital. It was within its ancient corridors that I would get my first glimpses of White people, who did not exist in my day to day life.  Little girls my size, except for their pale skin and curious twin braids trailing down their backs.    In 1976, the old General Hospital closed its doors for the last time, and a new upstart hospital, bright and shiny new was built by the city.  It was named for Harry S. Truman, the former US President, from Missouri.  My first major interaction with this new hospital was, when I went there to give birth to my first child. 

I was and am a voracious reader, and I had read everything I could get my hands on about pregnancy and childbirth.  The year was 1978.  I was fifteen- a sophomore in high school.  The natural birth movement was in full swing.  I was fascinated by my own pregnancy and began immediately to amend my orientation toward healthy behaviors. I was fascinated by books I found in the library on homebirth and natural birth.  I somehow intuitively knew that these books were onto something.  Some very deep and veracious knowledge that I had never heard spoken, but as soon as I saw it on the page, knew that it was so.   I also knew that that birth experience was out of my reach.  I knew I would get the 'typical' Truman birth.  I was however committed to a natural birth.  I knew I would not take their drugs.  When the time came, to push my baby out, after a hefty labor of Lamaze style focused breathing, the resident offered to give my 'something for pain' which I declined.  He shoved a large needle into my vagina anyway, numbing me with what I would later come to discover was a puedendal block (an early precursor to the epidural).  I remember my anger at being ignored.  I had worked very hard for my natural birth.  I had endured a Pitocin enhanced labor (that I didn't know they had given me until decades later when I read my old chart), with techniques I had taught myself.  I was left to largely labor alone and then when it was time to push, had my desires completely disregarded.  I was invisible to them.  They neither saw me nor heard me.  I was merely a revenue producing commodity.  It didn't matter in the least that I spent months teaching and preparing myself for my birth.  In the end I was given over to these people for their purposes, their agenda, their learning.  I was completely at their mercy, except there was no mercy to be found in them.  There was nothing I could do as a young Black girl to make myself visible to them. 

When I returned to Truman, some twenty years later as a brand new graduate, labor and delivery nurse, I brought that experience with me, and saw my new patients through that girl's eyes.  Nothing had changed, nothing.  The population of largely Black and Latino women were simply fodder for the mostly White and male resident's learning.  I'd sit in the nurses station and listen to the White nurses talk about 'those' people and judge them by their own imperial standards even though they knew nothing about the world the patients had come from and would quickly return to with their babes in arms.  The doctors and nurses were completely ignorant of that world.  They only passed it in a quick blur as they sped through it in their shiny cars enroute to more prosperous lands.  They learned on  our Black and Brown bodies, learning to despise the very ones they owed their learning to, and quickly went on the their 'real' jobs after residency caring for Nice White Ladies.  White ladies who would reap all the benefits of their doctors having learned to sew up a nice tidy episiotomy after fucking it up on several Black women first.

All these memories came flooding back to me as I sat and lunched with my former student, now a nurse on the very unit that had caused me such sickness of soul. My experiences on that unit, first as a birthing women, and later as a nurse are exactly the reason Uzazi Village was born.   I had been back there recently as a doula with a client during a three day long induction.  I could testify to the policy changes that had put a spit shine on the appearance of the care. The residents had been taught to say all the right things. The nurses sickly sweet.  But upon closer inspection, I could still see the unseemly underbelly of racism, intolerance, white privilege, and discrimination that ruled the culture.  The underlying assumptions were the same.  "Do what we tell you to do and don't ask too many questions.  If you do, we'll label you 'noncompliant' and punish you and your baby."  And they have so many ways to punish. 

It's easy to see that moving to evidence-based care won't change outcomes either.  This is the very essence of a white-washed tomb.  It is the underlying systemic racism that is woven into the fabric of healthcare institutions that must be cut out like the cancer that it is.  Evidence-based care is a clean white bandage over a gaping pus-filled wound that continues to seep.  Change the bandage as many times as you want- that does not fix the problem.  I am more convinced than ever that my path is true.  We must build systems of care for our own.  We will never find the health and vitality and wholeness we seek in the reflection of someone to whom we are at best, invisible, and at worst despised.

Saving Our Communities May Entail Some Hurt Feelings

I can remember as a child, crying inconsolably.  My mother asked me, 'What's wrong?' and I answered, "You hurt my feelings." Her sassy retort?  "I'll hurt more than your feelings, if you don't stop all that crying!"

Since my last post, I have tussled with the most obstinate of allies.  Folks who are literally, 'helping us to death'.  They refuse to listen. They refuse to understand.  They refuse to give way.   All they can see is their own brilliant ideas.  All they can wonder is why we don't get on board with them.  I have used my most eloquent voice to explain what effective allyship looks like. The response? Apparently I hurt some feelings of some 'sensitive' allies. It's time to change tactics. 

Women of Color, we must rise up and lead our communities out of this mess.  No one else can do it.  We must do it ourselves or it won't get done.  I know its not fair, that huge agencies that are outside our community get millions to decrease perinatal health inequity and go decades without any positive effect from all those tax payer dollars.  Our communities continue to suffer.  Our babies continue to die.  With all the odds stacked against us, we must save our communities anyway.  Don't let your shortage of resources stop you.  Be brilliant and innovative.  We must let nothing stand in our way. 

I attended a birth last week that against all odds, ended in a much desired VBAC.  There were trade-offs.  Such as the 12 people that crowded into the mother's room while she was pushing, spread eagle in stirrups, you know, 'to help'.  They mostly helped themselves to observing another birth to help them get their numbers, but were certainly of no use to the mother who had to endure the indignities of all those strangers in her birthing room.  Then there was the 'needed' episiotomy.  Needed I'm sure because a resident 'needed' to practice doing one and another 'needed' practice sewing one up.  These and many other indignities are endured by our mothers daily in maternity 'care'.  The racism and classism is embedded in every brick the buildings are created with.

We already have brilliant examples.  If you haven't done so already, pick up a copy of this month's Essence magazine and read about Aza Nedhari and Mamatoto Village in Washington DC.  She and her team are doing amazing things with bigger plans in the works.  It is possible for us to change our communities from the inside out.  Just look to Jennie Joseph, Kathryn Hall-Trujillo, Shafia Monroe and many others who are creating the change we need to bring our communities back to health and vitality.

At Uzazi Village our goal is to expand Uzazi Academie which will train local women to be birth workers including doulas, lactation consultants, and midwives.  Our prenatal clinic and birth center will serve community mothers in a culturally appropriate and humane way. I implore birth workers of color to do the work only you can do in your corner of the world.  Spread the word person, by person, that birth belongs to us.  We are the experts. 

I interviewed my first homebirth clients as a midwife under supervision-an African-American couple having their first child.  What a salve it was to my soul to hear them talk with a united voice about their desires for a homebirth for their baby.  Informed, enthusiastic, optimistic couples just like them are the best hope for our future.  She will be one less Black woman treated with all manner of indignities and used for someone else's learning, her baby will be one less Black infant subject to needless interventions and needless disruptions to their bonding process, her husband will be one less Black man treated as invisible and superfluous to the process of the birth of his own baby.  My goal is to multiply their numbers until they become the norm rather than the exception.

If you are a woman of color doing birth work in your community, join the National Perinatal Taskforce and the National Association of Professional and Peer Lactation Supporters of Color if you do breastfeeding support and advocacy.  We need to begin to create a tapestry across this country of community-led programs and community-based agencies.  We need to know who we all are.  We need to increase the national dialog among ourselves.  Please be on the look out for continuing conversations for our communities online, in Facebook, Google Hangouts.  Join those dialogs, and let us work together for the good  of our own communities.

But I Meant Well...

Listen people.  It is not racist to talk about race.  It is not racist to mount efforts that are culturally targeted and that focus and race-based disparities.  It is however destructive and exploitative to take and utilize resources that could be used at the community level to impact individual lives and outcomes, and use those resources in trivial and useless pursuits that do nothing but enrich 'the helping class' and then say it was for the community's good.  That's a working definition of disparities pimping. Just because you have a great idea, doesn't mean its appropriate for you to act on it.  I got calls from all over the country from folks who wanted advice from ME on how to write a grant that I was also competing for.  These folks often had no connections to the Black community but wanted to appropriate funds intended to benefit the Black community because... well just because.  This is not appropriate.  I don't care how well you mean.

It hasn't been all bad.  I had wonderful midwife mentors who welcomed me to their birth center and treated me like one of their own (ditto with my midwife hostess who let me crash at her house for two days, and the Kansas City supporter who handed over the keys to her car so I could get to St. Louis and back after my car died.)  I so valued my time at a local conference to connect with midwife powerhouses, Jennie Joseph and Shafia Monroe.  I was nurtured and enriched by my time with Jeanette McCullough and Sister Morningstar.  I had a productive trip to Nebraska and loved my time Liz Brooks, an insightful person and a gifted speaker at the podium. I returned home to welcome new members to our Council of Elders at Uzazi Village- all women I love, admire and look forward to working alongside. I can't wait to get to Atlanta, to bask in the radiant glory of women like Kimarie Bugg and Ameena Ali.  I'm headed to training provided by an ally who 'gets it'.  When I return home, it will be to other allies like Diana Casser Uhl who support the work that I and others like me are doing.  However, the following scenes from my life, tell me there is much work to be done.

scenario a) I've been speaking to several communities with no connection to their African-American counterparts. Two local organizations in a city with a 50% African-American population banded together to write a grant that supports African-American women breastfeeding- even though there is no representation within either of these organizations that represents the community where the work is to be done!  We cannot continue to do business as usual like this.  This is disparities pimping at its finest.  Why do these organizations think they have the right to apply for grants aimed at our communities when they have no ties to our community?  To continue to do this is pure and simple colonialist thinking.  They can take money on our behalf under the guise of serving us (while they really serve themselves), but can't make any reasonable overtures into the community to connect with members of the community?  What hope is there for the success of their programs?  Shouldn't the infrastructure come first? then programs they support? We do not need more well meaning people to come into our communities with yet another brilliant idea to save us. But of course, they mean well... (Sent out mass email to those involved at leadership level.)

scenario b) One of my Chocolate Milk Cafe's (TM) was forced to change its name (therefore disqualifying it from being a Chocolate Milk Café (TM) ) when administrators up the ranks found the name to be 'offensive" and issued a gag order to prevent them from sharing their success with the greater organization.  They were given a choice to change the name or keep silent (there's that silence thing again) about it during an annual gathering to share their success with other counterparts in other parts of the state.  So let me get this straight, its okay for culturally incompetent others to come into our community and start their idea of what they think a breastfeeding support group should look like (see a.) but we cannot start our own support groups that are culturally specific and proven effective?  But those who oppose this 'racist' approach, mean well.   (Made some calls to state leadership- and a private vow not to work with these organizations in the future)

scenario c) Sat in Uzazi Village while I endured the visit of two researchers from the local university who had been paid thousands of dollars to do a survey on why our local hospitals are not yet Baby-Friendly and what breastfeeding barriers were posed to first time mothers.  Lord help me.  I patiently explained that with the thousands that were being spent to compile yet another useless report, I could have served hundreds, literally hundreds of childbearing families in my community.  Of course, as the researchers explained it, they meant well... (Just scratched my head in frustration).

From now on folks, lets DO WELL not just mean well.