scholarly journals Birthing #blackboyjoy: Black Midwives Caring for Black Mothers of Black Boys During Pregnancy and Childbirth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keisha L. Goode ◽  
Arielle Bernardin
Keyword(s):  
Black People ◽  
Professional Organizations ◽  
Black Boys ◽  
Reproductive Justice ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Psychosocial Experiences ◽  
Pregnancy And Childbirth ◽  
Black Life

Abstract Background Structural racism mediates all aspects of Black life. The medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth, and its detrimental impacts on Black birth, is well documented. The Black Lives Matter movement has elevated the national consciousness on all aspects of Black life, but significant attention has been directed toward the murder and dehumanization of Black men and boys. Black midwives, caring for Black people, using the Midwives Model of Care© which consistently demonstrates its efficacy and better outcomes for Black people, are uniquely positioned to witness the physical and psychosocial experiences of birthing Black boys in America. Methods Between 2011 and 2013, the first author conducted interviews with 22 Black midwives to understand their perceptions of, and experiences in, predominantly white midwifery education programs and professional organizations. Convenience and snowball sampling were used. This paper investigates previously unreported and unexamined data from the original study by focusing on the witness and insight of nine midwives who provided care for Black mothers of boys during pregnancy and childbirth. Findings The data presented three themes: It’s a Boy: On Restlessness and Complicated Uneasiness; Desensitization of Black Death; and, Physiological Impacts of Toxic Stress. Conclusions The findings demonstrate that caring for Black people must be simultaneously theorized and executed within an anti-racist, relationship-centered, reproductive justice framework. Black midwives are uniquely positioned to do this work. Greater attention, in practice and in research, is needed to investigate the birth experiences of Black mothers of boys.

The Black Lives Matter movement: A call to action: Acts 10:11–16, 25–28, 34–35

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Alfred Smith
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Black Life ◽  
Black Christians ◽  
American Society ◽  
Justice Movements

The Black Lives Matter movement is one of the most dynamic social justice movements currently emerging in the USA. This movement led by young Blacks unapologetically calls out the shameful, historical legacy of American racism and White supremacy while asserting the humanity and sacredness of Black lives, particularly those of unarmed persons senselessly murdered by police officers. While Black Lives Matter is a new movement, it is also an extension of the 400-year struggle of Black people in America to affirm Black dignity, equality, and human rights, even while the major institutions of American society have propagated doctrines and enforced unjust rules/laws to denigrate Black life. Black Christians have found hope and inspiration from the Gospel to claim their humanity and to struggle to gain justice for Black lives and for the lives of all oppressed people. In addition, the Black Lives Matter movement provides a helpful critique of many Black churches, challenging them to confront their biases, which label young Black males as “thugs” (the new N-word) and which cruelly demonize the LGBTQ community. The story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10 provides a scriptural basis for Christian introspection and responses to God’s vision for beloved community, and for the call to action from the Black Lives Matter movement.

Screening for Substance Use Disorders during Pregnancy: A Decision at the Intersection of Racial and Reproductive Justice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kravitz ◽  
Michelle Suh ◽  
Matthew Russell ◽  
Andres Ojeda ◽  
Judy Levison ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Social History ◽  
Drug Screening ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reproductive Justice ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Legislative History ◽  
Screening Policy ◽  
Screening Study

Objective: Improve racial equity with routine universal drug screening / Study Design: Commentary on the medicolegal and social history of the United States and the field of obstetrics and gynecology regarding drug screening policy / Results: Critical aspects to inform an equitable drug screening policy include (1) racial bias and stigma related to substance use, (2) the legislative history surrounding substance use during pregnancy, (3) the relationship between substance use and mass incarceration which disproportionately affects persons of color, (4) propensity toward punitive measures for Black mothers with substance use, including termination of parental rights, (5) the role of the medical field in fostering mistrust among our patients / Conclusion: new practices in screening for substance use during pregnancy are needed. Key Points

scholarly journals Fighting for America’s Paradise—the Struggle against Structural Racism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel R. Hardeman ◽  
Simone L. Hardeman-Jones ◽  
Eduardo M. Medina
Keyword(s):  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
Policy Suggestions ◽  
Fundamental Cause ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Many

Abstract Structural racism is a fundamental cause of racial inequities in health in the United States. Structural racism is manifested in inequality in the criminal justice system; de facto segregation in education, health care, and housing; and ineffective and disproportionately violent policing and economic disenfranchisement in communities of color. The inequality that Black people and communities of color face is the direct result of centuries of public policy that made Black and Brown skin a liability. We are now in an unprecedented moment in our history as we usher in a new administration which explicitly states: “The moment has come for our nation to deal with systemic racism. . .And to deal with the denial of the promise of this nation—to so many.” The opportunities to create innovative and bold policy must reflect the urgency of the moment and seek to dismantle the systems of oppression that have for far too long left the American promise unfulfilled. The policy suggestions we make in this commentary speak to the structural targets needed to dismantle some of the many manifestations of structural racism to achieve health equity.

Urban Social Hauntings: Disappearing Gravestone Murals in Gentrifying Brooklyn

2021 ◽  
pp. 026377582110595
Author(s):  
Amaka Okechukwu
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Black People ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Urban Decline ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Spatial Production ◽  
Black Life ◽  
Visual Record

This article concerns the disappearance of gravestone (or “rest in peace”) murals in gentrifying Brooklyn, New York. Social hauntings reveal the unresolved violence of Black disposability and dispossession, as it manifests in the urban landscape in periods of urban decline and gentrification; gravestone murals are forms of “wake work” that attend to social haunting, accounting for Black life and death in urban place. This article first considers the wake work of gravestone murals, that they are memorials, archives of collective memory, spaces of worldmaking, and resistance to anti-Black violence. Because gravestone murals illustrate how Black people produce meaning in the urban landscape, they are also forms of Black spatial production. The article then explores the emergence of newer, stylized murals as aesthetic commodities that bring social and economic value to urban space, while commodifying Black life and death. The disappearance of gravestone murals, a visual record of the urban crisis, indicates the transformation of Black urban space in the 21st century.

Black Mothering Legacies: Theorizing Lament as a Form of Justice Research

2021 ◽  
pp. 194084472110495
Author(s):  
Nichole A. Guillory
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Black Child ◽  
The State ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Black Life ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
Black Mothering

I feel compelled by the moment to take up these questions: What does it mean to mother a Black child within/against this historical moment within/against the (carceral) United States? What does it mean to mother a Black child when the legacy of enslavement in the United States is still the basis for assessing the “worth” of you and your children? How do I determine justice for my/a/the Black child in this historical moment? How does this justice come to matter? My approach to critical qualitative research is best understood through Cynthia Dillard’s (2006) notion of “endarkened feminist epistemology” (p. 3). Here I trace a lineage of Black mothering praxis that has been enacted in response to injustice across different historical moments and geographical locations in the United States. This lineage focuses on Black mothers who have lost their children to state violence, when that violence is perpetrated by the state or when the state fails to mete out justice for the taking of Black life.

Nathaniel Wells: The Making of a Black Country Gentleman

2020 ◽  
pp. 253-274
Author(s):  
Anne Rainsbury
Keyword(s):  
White Woman ◽  
Black People ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Social Barriers ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Large Estate ◽  
Sugar Plantations ◽  
Black Life

In this chapter, Anne Rainsbury examines the surprising life of Nathaniel Wells whose story defies many of the assumed narratives of black life in 18th century England. Born enslaved in St Kitts, he was freed by his father, Williams Wells, a wealthy merchant who owned three sugar plantations. He was educated in London and inherited the bulk of his father’s estate at the age of twenty-one which included three plantations and the hundreds of slaves who worked them. He married Harriet Este, a white woman (after her death he would marry Esther Owen, also white), and bought a large estate, Piercefield, in Monmouthshire. Rainsbury explains that unlike the limited political rights and social barriers Wells would have faced in St Kitts, he was able to play a prominent role in local public life including becoming a magistrate and deputy lieutenant of the county of Monmouth. His social and political status contradicted the racism blacks faced in Britain, yet the irony that his wealth and standing were built on the profits of slavery and suffering of black people, Rainsbury says, cannot be overlooked.

Black Girls and the Talk? Policing, Parenting, and the Politics of Protection

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Malone Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Black Boys ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Police Contact ◽  
Protective Care ◽  
Depth Interviews

Abstract Black girls are marginalized from mainstream discourses and familial discussions on policing, and little is known about how families conceptualize strategies for mitigating their risk of police sexual assault and harassment. Through 30 in-depth interviews with black mothers, this article explores how social class shapes protective care strategies for reducing girls’ risk of police contact and sexual violence. While the primary police talk emphasizes black boys’ vulnerability to lethal and physical violence, I identify two additional socialization practices, or “talks” for black girls: The respectability talk is a middle-class socialization strategy that avoids direct associations between black girls and police; this talk works to minimize risk through teaching black girls how to be “ladies” by embodying racialized gendered norms that constrain their behavior and autonomy. The predatory talk is a predominantly working-class socialization strategy which aims to equip black girls with an awareness of police sexual violence and the tools for avoiding sexual assault and harassment from officers when alone or at night. The article illustrates how protective care strategies for black girls are intertwined with social class and have divergent consequences for understanding agency and responsibility for police sexual violence.

scholarly journals Psychosocial Experiences of HIV-Positive Women of African Descent in the Cultural Context of Infant Feeding: A Three-Country Comparative Analyses

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (19) ◽  
pp. 7150
Author(s):  
Josephine Etowa ◽  
Hilary Nare ◽  
Doris M. Kakuru ◽  
Egbe B. Etowa
Keyword(s):  
Infant Feeding ◽  
African Descent ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Feeding Practices ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Infant Feeding Practices ◽  
Psychosocial Experiences ◽  
Cultural Expectations ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Living With Hiv

Infant feeding among mothers of African descent living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a critical practice that is influenced by policies, cultural expectations, and the resultant psychosocial state of the mother. Hence, this paper draws insights from a broader infant feeding study. It provides insights into how guidelines on infant feeding practices, cultural expectations, migration, or geographic status intersect to influence the psychosocial experiences of mothers living with HIV. We compared psychosocial experiences of Black mothers of African descent living with HIV in Nigeria versus those in high-income countries (Canada and USA), in the context of contrasting national infant feeding guidelines, cultural beliefs about breastfeeding, and geographic locations. Survey was conducted in venue-based convenience samples in two comparative groups: (Ottawa, Canada and Miami-FL, USA combined [n = 290]), and (Port Harcourt, Nigeria [n = 400]). Using independent samples t-statistics, we compared the means and distributions of six psychosocial attributes between Black mothers in two distinct: Infant feeding groups (IFGs), cultural, and geographical contexts at p < 0.05. Psychosocial attributes, such as discrimination and stigma, were greater in women who exclusively formula feed (EFF) than in women who exclusively breastfeed (EBF) at p < 0.01. Heightened vigilance, discrimination, and stigma scores were greater in women whose infant feeding practices were informed by cultural beliefs (CBs) compared to those not informed by CBs at p < 0.001. Discrimination and stigma scores were greater among mothers in Canada and the USA than in Nigeria at p < 0.001. Heightened vigilance and perceived stress scores were less among women in Canada and the USA than in Nigeria at p < 0.001. The guidelines on infant feeding practices for mothers with HIV should consider cultural expectations and migration/locational status of mothers.

Solve for X: Black mothers+black boys=X

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawson Bush
Keyword(s):  
Black Boys ◽  
Black Mothers
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