Episode 32: Monifa Bandele - Empowering Black Women and Reducing Racial Disparities in Maternal Health

Speak Out with Tim Wise

On today’s episode, Tim speaks with Monifa Bandele, Vice President and Chief Partnership & Equity Officer for Moms Rising: an organization committed to amplifying women's voices within the national public policy dialogue and media. Tim and Monifa discuss Mom’s Rising’s campaign to address the disturbing maternal health disparities between black and white women in America, including distressing rates of maternal mortality for African American women irrespective of socioeconomic status. Why are black women dying at much higher rates, and how does racism — implicit and institutional — contribute to the problem? How do stereotypes of black women, often held even by white physicians, endanger their lives? And what policy changes are needed to address the problem? They’ll also discuss last week’s removal of the statue of J. Marion Sims from Central Park in New York City. Sims, often called the “father of gynecology” (itself a rather absurd term given the long history of midwifery), developed many of his gynecological methods after submitting enslaved black women to torturous techniques, against their will, and without anesthesia. Why is the removal of the statue important, and not only at a symbolic level? Finally, this episode includes a commentary by Tim about the implicit white nationalism at the heart of a number of recent incidents, in which black bodies were presumed not to belong in certain spaces, including that Philadelphia Starbucks we’ve all heard about. While many think of white nationalism as something that comes with burning crosses and marching around with tiki torches (as in Charlottesville last August), the presumption that black folks (and other people of color) simply don’t belong “here” (meaning our neighborhood, our school, our businesses, etc) is all too common and ingrained in the fabric of America.