Thread by @AAPolicyForum

We’ll be live tweeting quotes and commentary from tonight’s #HerDreamDeferred conversation on misogynoir and Black women’s health.

W/ @sandylocks, @doccrearperry, @RJEpiOBWarrior, @hhdoctoralisha, and Dr. Gail Wyatt, co-hosted by @BirthEquity.

Watch:

AAPF Executive Director Kimberlé Crenshaw introducing this week:

“AAPF has convened #HerDreamDeferred to amplify the voices and stories of Black women and girls, and to disrupt dominant and stereotypical narratives around Black women and our wellbeing.”

“Black women's experiences throughout the healthcare system reveal multiple sites of intersectional vulnerability. These sites tell us that absent urgent treatment, they will continue to leave Black women with disparate & negative health outcomes.” - @sandylocks #HerDreamDeferred

AAPF’s Kimberlé Crenshaw reflecting on the mistreatment that led to the death of Dr. Susan Moore.

Revisit AAPF’s statement on Moore’s death: aapf.org/post/aapf-stat…

This conversation “is designed to bear witness, to activate you, our listeners, with the tools you need to be both advocates for yourselves and more broadly to be advocates for our community and for our collective wellbeing,” says @sandylocks.

#HerDreamDeferred

“I realize how much the world hates Black women. I mean, that's honestly how I felt and how much we are discarded & disregarded & seen as subhuman,” says @RJEpiOBWarrior, reflecting on the death of Susan Moore & a similar experience she had as a Covid patient. #HerDreamDeferred

“This was a dying woman, who's crying out for help. And the fact that, the number of people that care for individuals in the hospital, there was not a single person who could advocate for this dying patient,” says @hhdoctoralisha on the death of Susan Moore.

#HerDreamDeferred.

“If a physician can’t be heard by her own peers to save her life, then who will listen? Who will be held accountable?

Read this op ed from @doccrearperry and colleagues on the death of Susan Moore. #HerDreamDeferred washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…

“All these early interactions with the healthcare system that devalued black women— I knew when I got pregnant at 21, I had to have protective factors to help ensure that I was able to survive my pregnancy,” remembers @doccrearperry of @BirthEquity.

#HerDreamDeferred

As Black women, when did you learn that you would be treated differently in and by the healthcare system? What taught you that lesson?

#HerDreamDeferred

“The day of my son’s birth still sends chills down my spine because it was the day that I was reduced to a Black birthing body.”

Read @hhdoctoralisha on pregnancy as a Black woman: kuow.org/stories/the-da…

“It wasn't until I had started to hear these stories again & again, from my patients, women of color, that I realized that there is a silent epidemic here. This isn't something that just I experienced. Everybody has a story” - @hhdoctoralisha

#HerDreamDeferred

Black women experience "weathering"— i.e. their bodies age faster than white women's due to chronic stress linked to social determinants of health. #HerDreamDeferred

Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to die during childbirth or suffer from pregnancy-related complications than white women. #HerDreamDeferred

Dr. Gail Wyatt reflecting on the unethical history of medicine: “They don't know that those first surgeries that were done on women were done on slaves... And they had multiple surgeries. One woman had 30 surgeries without aesthetics, and finally died.” #HerDreamDeferred

“The very core of our field is white supremacy,” says @doccrearperry, citing early eugenics and race science. “The colonization of medicine and healthcare is so deep.” #HerDreamDeferred

“We have no ability to hold doctors accountable. If we think we're going to get to equity and freedom through lawsuits and malpractice, that's never going to happen— we have not created any kind of infrastructure for accountability,” says @doccrearperry

#HerDreamDeferred

On using race as a variable in medicine:

“We really need to be explicit in our medical research & in our scholarship about why we use race & what it's a proxy for, and being explicit about racism as being the cause for these disparities,” says @hhdoctoralisha. #HerDreamDeferred

“Race is more of a verb than a noun,” says @sandylocks. “Race as the factor, as the variable, in turn places the difference in our body, right? And we are the site of the intervention rather than the institution itself being a site of the intervention.”

#HerDreamDeferred.

“And even if we introduce critical race theory, intersectionality, reproductive justice [to meds schools], the actual experts are not even being invited to actually teach the very discourses and scholarships and concepts that they created,” says @RJEpiOBWarrior. #HerDreamDeferred

The Birth Equity Agenda: A Blueprint for Reproductive Health and Wellbeing

From @doccrearperry and @BirthEquity: birthequity.org/birth-equity-a…

#HerDreamDeferred

“I founded an organization called Empower Her Health, which really focuses on empowering our Black women in particular to have healthy pregnancies, and also promoting healthy infants as well.”

Check out @hhdoctoralisha’s website: empowerherhealth.com/about

Dr. Gail Wyatt is the Director of The Center for Culture, Trauma, and Mental Health Disparities at UCLA: semel.ucla.edu/cctmhd

Tomorrow, #HerDreamDeferred continues: "Engendering the Politics of the Black Athlete"

A roundtable discussion on the history and power of athlete activism, particularly as it pertains to Black women.

Register now: bit.ly/HDD21_Sports