The Rev. Dr. Auntie Michelle Profile picture
Jul 11, 2020 9 tweets 4 min read Read on X
@ElsevierNurse why in the year of our Lord 2020 am I still reading racist assumptions by white nurses 2 of whom are Fellows of @AAN_Nursing about the pain perception of Black & Brown birthing people on Al Gore’s internet and in print? #NurseTwitter come get your girls. ImageImage
When I tell you Nursing Academia isn’t just complicity in white supremacy in healthcare but active offenders Exhibit A. This excerpt from Maternity Nursing being taught to thousands of nursing students in the U.S. and Canada today. If you’re a #nurseacademic teaching this shit...
“Some Cultural Beliefs About Pain
• African-American and Puerto Rican women usually express their pain vocally, while Native Americans are often stoic.”
“Chinese women may not exhibit reactions to pain, although exhibiting pain during childbirth is acceptable. They consider accepting something when it is first offered as impolite; therefore pain interventions must be offered more than once.”
“Arab or Middle Eastern women may be vocal in response to labor pain. They may prefer medication for pain relief.
• Japanese women may be stoic in response to labor pain, but they may request medication when pain becomes severe.”
“• Southeast Asian women may endure severe pain before requesting relief.
• Hispanic women may be stoic until late in labor, when they may become vocal and request pain relief.”
“Native American women may use medications or remedies made from indigenous plants. They are often stoic in response to labor pain.
• African-American women may express pain openly. Use of medication for pain relief varies.”
Here you go: “Every Birthing person experiences pain. Humans aren’t Monolithic. It’s important to ask every birthing person how they prefer you to support their preferences for analgesia in labor & birth. Honor their response without racist assumptions” #DecolonizeNursing
Calling on @VanderbiltNurse @JacksonvilleU @delawaretech @txwomans from whom I hold my degrees in nursing to evaluate their undergraduate nursing curriculum & if they use this text to remove it immediately. You are perpetuating the nursing harm & neglect that kills Black mamas!

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More from @iamn0tthe1

Jul 16, 2021
So I triggered folks yesterday with 2 tweets & as fragile white folks will they demanded to speak to the manager on my job. There’s 2 problems. 1: The manager don’t care what you think about what I say on Twitter cuz 2: I am the manager.

But for the record I said what I said. Image
So not only will I stand by my statements, I’ll explain Karen. The OBVIOUS point of the tweet was that it is absurd to apply causality to healthcare disparities to “race” because race is an artificial social grouping created by Europeans to justify slavery & colonization.
Not only is there no biological basis for race; in fact historically “whiteness” didn’t exist before the 17th century when European Christians had to morally reconcile the slaughter and subjugation of indigenous peoples and enslavement of Africans to build their “empires”.
Read 8 tweets
Jul 4, 2021
Was asked to share & update the list of titles that I gifted the incoming interns (who by the way for the record resented the gift and hated me) back in 2019. I still stand by this being an essential reading list for white OBGYN residents who match into Black serving programs.
In no particular order:

The following from Professor Mother @DorothyERoberts

Killing the Black Body

Fatal Invention

Structural Competency Meets Structural Racism: Race, Politics, and the Structure of Medical Knowledge (With @JonathanMetzl)

journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/struct…
By @haw95 Harriet Washington

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind
Read 28 tweets
Nov 23, 2020
Dear white midwives,
Nurse midwifery is the only modern American profession in the nation besides police which began with slave/Indian catcher patrols, whose existence is rooted in white supremacy: the control, elimination & replacement of the Black midwife with white nurses.
Whiteness was central to the planning, implementation, growth and marketing of the profession. This is not hyperbole this is fact. It still continues today. The 87% white workforce looks exactly like the 86% midwifery directors who determine who teaches & studies nurse midwifery.
CPMs are no more diverse and make up only a tenth of the midwifery profession. So to suggest @ACNMmidwives @MANAcommunity with their white leadership, white educators & white workforce can reduce mortality driven by 🤰🏾🤱🏽isn’t naive it’s white supremacy in action.
Read 8 tweets
Nov 18, 2020
Wrote a little poem. Bet y’all didn’t know I was an artist. Like to here it; here it goes.

Resilience Training is for White Folks

By Michelle “Auntie Chelle” Drew
Dear HR: about that mandatory Resiliency Training:

I’m a have to say nah.
Black women don’t need to learn resilience.
We invented it in the belly of slave ships
Perfected it when we watched our lovers and babies ripped from our arms and sold off the plantation never to be seen again.
Read 8 tweets
Sep 12, 2020
Books/articles that should be required reading for antiracism in MCH
Policing the Womb @michelebgoodwin
Medical Apartheid @haw95
Killing the Black Body & Fatal Invention by @DorothyERoberts
Medical Bondage: Race, Gender & the Origins of American Gynecology @drcooperowens
Birthing, Blackness, and the Body: Black Midwives and Experiential Continuities of Institutional Racism by @keishagoode8 or as I call it: Killing Me Softly Part 2.

A primer on the lived experience of Black birth workers in PWIs

academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewconten…
Follow the work of National Advocates for Pregnant People @NAPW (it’s really “women” but they get me.

nationaladvocatesforpregnantwomen.org
Read 13 tweets
Sep 11, 2020
Now why in the nurse’s note about my new pregnant patient contain only one sentence about her pregnancy outcomes but a whole paragraph that she uses marijuana; was “incarcerated” instead of the fact that she has a condition approved for medical marijuana & needed cash bail? Z60.5
Thanks for all the supportive comments. A few points.

As health professionals our job isn’t to judge patients but to help. There are important things to ask, know, do if you’re really concerned about the health and safety of a pregnant person who discloses social information:
Do you need help?
What can I/we do to get you to a safe place?
Do you know where the resources are to get help/can I help you find them.
If it doesn’t contribute to the patient getting good care why write it in their permanent medical record? Save judgement for courts & Jesus
Read 4 tweets

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