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ARTICLES
How I Discovered I am White, by Janelle Hanchett
“I mean why do they make race an issue? It’s not an issue. I never see it.”
What You Need to Know About Black Birth Injustices and How to Be an Ally
“As a white mom, I know that I will never be able to grasp how it feels for those numbers to be my reality.”
Black Mothers Are Dying at an Alarming Rate—Here’s How You Can Be an Ally
“As a brown person who finds herself in white spaces quite often, it’s safe to say that a majority of white people don’t believe that blatant racism exists in our day-to-day lives.”
BOOKS
Birthing Justice: Black Women, Pregnancy, and Childbirth
There is a global crisis in maternal health care for black women. In the United States, black women are over three times more likely to perish from pregnancy-related complications than white women; their babies are half as likely to survive the first year. Many black women experience policing, coercion, and disempowerment during pregnancy and childbirth and are disconnected from alternative birthing traditions. This book places black women’s voices at the center of the debate on what should be done to fix the broken maternity system and foregrounds black women’s agency in the emerging birth justice movement. Mixing scholarly, activist, and personal perspectives, the book shows readers how they too can change lives, one birth at a time.
Battling Over Birth: Black Women and the Maternal Health Crisis in California, by Chinyere Oparah, Linda Jones, Dantia Hudson, Talita Oseguera and Helen Arega
A new human rights report from Black Women Birthing Justice shares stories from over 100 women who recently gave birth in California, putting the human rights spotlight onto a system that is often unaccountable to black communities.
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, by Reni Eddo Lodge
Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Reni Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge and counter racism.
How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a refreshing approach that will radically reorient America on the urgent issues of race, justice, and equality.
So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo
In this book, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to “model minorities” in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and and the Meaning of Liberty, by Dorothy Roberts
In 1997, this groundbreaking book made a powerful entrance into the national conversation on race. In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, Killing the Black Body exposed America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies.
MEDICAL BONDAGE: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology, by Dr. Deidre Cooper Owens
The accomplishments of pioneering doctors such as John Peter Mettauer, James Marion Sims, and Nathan Bozeman are well documented. It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental caesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. Medical Bondage breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as “medical superbodies” highly suited for medical experimentation.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Please support the people and organizations behind these social media accounts!
Ally Henny, Writer (Facebook / Instagram)
a.k.a. The Armchair Commentary (Facebook / Twitter)
Commentary about the intersection of race, culture, and faith
Black Feminist Collective (Facebook / Instagram)
Black Feminist Collective is an intergenerational online collective of womanists who advocate for the liberation of all Black folks.
Black Women Birthing Justice (Facebook / Instagram)
A collective of African-American, African, Caribbean, and multiracial women who are committed to transforming birthing experiences for Black women
Changing Woman Initiative (Facebook / Instagram)
Native American Centered Women’s Health Collective
The Middle Eastern Feminist (Facebook / Twitter)
Reflections of a Kurdish Feminist
Nice White Ladies a.k.a. NWL (Facebook / Instagram)
Nice White Ladies aims to cure Nice White Lady Syndrome. We offer a space to ask newbie white questions, work out white guilt, and learn how to put our “Nice Lady” impulses to work so that we are supporting the larger movement, rather than getting in the way.
SisterSong (Facebook / Instagram)
Our mission is to amplify the lived experiences of women of color and Indigenous women in order to push for culture and policy change to end reproductive oppression and achieve reproductive justice and liberation.
4Kira4Moms
Kira Johnson tragically lost her life after a routine c-section at cedar sinai. We fight to make sure this never happens to another mother.
Black Mamas Matter Alliance
BMMA is a Black women-led cross-sectoral Alliance working to transform maternal health, rights, & justice!
