We love you (Black Maternal Health Week 2021)
The theme of this year’s Black Maternal Health Week is Claiming our Power, Resilience, and Liberation. We are proud to participate in Black Maternal Health Week, an annual event founded and led by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance. We are also proud to endorse the Black Maternal Health Week Resolution introduced by Congresswoman Alma Adams, Congresswoman Lauren Underwood, and Senator Cory Booker, and earlier this year we endorsed the Black Maternal Health Caucus federal Momnibus legislation. We are inspired by the many national and community conversations taking place this week, and we look forward to participating in the Black Mamas Matter Alliance conference this coming Friday and Saturday.
Unfortunately, as we celebrate and uplift the well-being of Black mothers, we are also grieving for Duante Wright, yet another Black life taken by police, even as we are still seeking justice from last year’s murder of George Floyd. We learned this week that George Floyd’s girlfriend had been Duante Wright’s teacher, and that Army lieutenant Caron Nazario, who recently survived a violent police encounter, called Eric Garner uncle. And we remember that daughter and activist Erica Garner died of postpartum complications. We will not be the first to say that the issues of police brutality, of the murders of Black people in the United States, are not distinct from the issues of maternal health and of health inequity. (See “Stolen Breaths” by Hardeman, Medina, and Boyd in NEJM last summer.) Black people are deserving of life, safety, dignity, humanity, respect, and joy, in the streets, in the hospital, in the birthing room, at home, and everywhere.
This week comes on the heels of news of the rise in violence against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders and attempts to strip trans people of their human rights and health care. And we are still in a pandemic. We are alongside you in pushing back against the hydra of white supremacy that harms us all. We affirm the right to life, liberty, and love for Black, Indigenous, Asian-American and Pacific Islander, Latinx, LGBTQIA+, and disabled people.
At BFF, we have been centering the theme of liberation since our founding less than a year ago, and recognize the resonance with this week’s theme “Claiming our Power, Resilience, and Liberation.” Liberation in birth is inextricably intertwined with liberation in all aspects of our society. A few weeks ago, we revisited BFF’s vision for liberation in birth and midwifery. We returned to these words to center our spring mini-retreat, grounding our strategic planning in this vision. We invite you to join us in re-watching our 5 minute video and envisioning our liberated birth future.
We love you.