Thank you all for your love and kindness. It is encouraging even as I am resolved and aware that I will lose my employment long before Ubuntu is close to being financially solvent as a source of billable healthcare and is now mostly a place of succor for the vulnerable families
A place they can come to just know they are heard & loved. A place where they are empowered to be whole and well. A place of community. I am who I am because of the women in that community that loved, nurtured and raised me.
But know this. There are only 2 ways that the medical establishment can be a place of safety for Black mothers and babies. And neither Medicare for All, artificial technology nor all the research will fix it.
It will be A:when as a society we admit the horrible wrong that has been done to Black and Indigenous people for four centuries and as a country we agree to a process of truth, reconciliation and restorative justice
And B: when we finally end the toxic culture of medical education that is based on hazing, self neglect and not just tolerating, but teaching of disrespect and racist behaviors by the people who are supposed to be their educators and role models.
Millennials are the one most universally socially conscious generations we’ve seen in an age. You are going to change the world in ways the Billionaire philanthropist won’t simply through your unwillingness to tolerate injustice. See @RepUnderwood @RepAOC
PLEASE reject the hateful slurs and lies you’re being taught that we Black folks, especially women are defective physically, intellectually and morally. That is not the reason American Black mothers and babies die at higher rates that in some developing countries.
“Race” has no biological basis. See @DorothyERoberts Not a single gene in your body codes for race. It is a social construct created by European empire makers to justify the atrocities they committed on every continent except Europe; unholy acts of slavery, theft, genocide
I’m sorry we are failing you as mentors & I can’t wait to see you do better.
They come to us often because they have nowhere else to go. It is up to us to earn their trust. Their health, their fertility, their babies and their lives are in our hands. That is a duty. Do not take that lightly.
I hope you believe that it is a privilege and an honor. I hope you understand the great responsibility being placed upon you because you’re tasked to care for are the most vulnerable because we’ve been neglected & disenfranchised not just in healthcare but in life for 400 years.
They come to us often because they have nowhere else to go. It is up to us to earn their trust. Their health, their fertility, their babies and their lives are in our hands. That is a duty. Do not take that lightly.
Be the allies your community needs you to be . Not the trainee that needs their bodies to learn on. Take what you’ve been given and make it better and more humane. Reject the status quo, I beg you. You’re the future not only of medicine but medical education. #BlackMamasMatter
