(SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING)
I just wanted to illustrate how over the top my daughter is
in every aspect of her life.
-Shamony's hyper. She's crazy. -(LAUGHS)
SHAWNEE: She does everything with force. She's loud.
She brushes her teeth like the teeth did something to her.
Bed-Stuy, do or die.
So we're on a run.
Oh, Lord.
I don't need to warm up. I got this. I got this.
Why you laughing?
SHAMONY: Whoo!
SHAMONY: This crazy man got me running too much.
SHAMONY: How does it feel for me to be moving out?
-JASMINE: Uh, okay. -SHAMONY: Okay?
Same day, different apartment.
I'm making a list or two. She might've made 20 lists before.
The thing is that both Omari and I have pregnancy brain.
-Right, O? -Every day.
Because clearly...
-FEMALE VOICE: I think that's hilarious. -SHAMONY: Oh, goodness.
FEMALE VOICE 1: Your mother was like...
FEMALE VOICE 2: So your baby going to be Moss Maynard Gibson?
-OMARI: No. -No. No, I'm kidding.
-FEMALE VOICE 1: Moss Maynard? -FEMALE VOICE 2: No.
(BABBLES)
-(LAUGHS) Peace. -Say hi.
(LAUGHS)
-Raindrop. -Drop tops.
-Da-da-da-da-da-da-da... -(BOTH CHUCKLE)
SHAMONY: Hey, baby.
Time is flying. Four months already.
'Cause every day is a new process. You wake up like, "Oh, my God.
"I'm that much closer to being a mom again."
Hi, sweet baby. So I am... What?
-I can't say sweet baby? -FEMALE VOICE: Who we're talking to?
-I'm talking to Khari. -FEMALE VOICE: Oh.
So, um, yes, my plan was to have you at home.
So maybe your auntie will record.
And I can still have you at home. We have three hours from now.
But, however, it doesn't always work, right?
So if you were born tomorrow...
OMARI: It's been four months and three days since she passed away.
You know, it feels like it was last week.
(SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING)
Greetings, family.
I didn't know all of this beautifulness was behind me.
I am so blown away and so appreciated and so humbled by your presence.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUD)
So, um, this is my daughter's birthday. She would have been 31 years old today.
And she loved to plan things and to party, so we're having this celebration
on her behalf.
This is a celebration of life, but also it's about how Shamony
has been speaking to all of us in our family and extended community
since she passed.
About a hour ago, I started to falter.
And I won't even call it falter. I'm just experiencing my grief, you know?
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
FEMALE VOICE 1: All right. So, how you want us to line up?
FEMALE VOICE 2: Family first.
FEMALE VOICE 1: Can I get family, age order please?
FEMALE VOICE: (SINGING) If you soar
Over the lowest valley
then you can manifest
All there is to treat your dream
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
SHAWNEE: It's a struggle every day, particularly because
what happened with Shamony was absolutely preventable.
She ended up with a C-section.
My baby. My baby I've been waiting forever for.
NURSE: You did amazing, Shamony.
(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING)
OMARI: So we leave the hospital.
Within the first week, she was complaining
about having shortness of breath when she talked.
JASMINE: She walked down the stairs to get something,
and when she was trying to get back up she couldn't move. Like she was just...
She had to just lay on the floor for a while.
OMARI: We call the hospital, tell them what the symptoms were.
The doctors say, "You know, it's okay. Just relax."
That proceeded for the next two weeks.
We go back to the hospital for Shamony
so that they can remove her staples from her C-section.
Again, tell them what the symptoms were,
asking what are some things that we can do?
And, you know, they answer pretty much was the same every time,
"Just make sure that she rest."
There wasn't much of a sense of urgency on their part at all.
That's the expert. I'm not a doctor, so okay.
I rally people to make meals for her.
Do... I did what we do, just take care of her.
OMARI: Two weeks after, you know, she gave birth,
Shamony was complaining that she had really sharp chest pains.
She says, "I want to go to the hospital now."
Her mom and her aunt were in the back with her.
And as I'm packing the bag, I just hear them screaming and screaming,
"Omari. Omari. Come in here. Come in here."
So I run in there and then I just see Shamony is...
She's just in shock.
SHAWNEE: The ambulance came.
It seems like forever, but it was only minutes.
And I immediately started talking to them about what was happening.
Like, she just had a C-section. I'm telling them the symptoms.
You know, they kept asking me, they kept asking my mother
is she on any drugs or anything like that?
Was she taking any drugs? Like, no, she doesn't take drugs.
Next set of people come in? "Is she on drugs?"
"Does she use drugs?"
I just told your colleagues, I'm telling you.
Then another round of people come in.
"Is she on drugs?" I'm like, "Do y'all talk?"
OMARI: They finally take her in an ambulance to the closest hospital.
That was not the place where I would want my daughter to be sent ever.
There was no money in that hospital.
They didn't have what they needed to care for her.
It had been divested from.
OMARI: They eventually figured it was a pulmonary embolism.
But all they could do there is give her blood thinners
and hope that the blood clot would pop.
We waited, you know? And it was a... I want to say a solid 12 hours.
JASMINE: So many people were showing up at the hospital.
Just standing in the hallway, praying, praying, praying.
Like, you know, putting it out there that she's going to...
Some... A miracle was going to happen.
And I'm watching this while watching my daughter in distress...
and just thinking if they would have listened to her
during that postpartum time, it wouldn't have come to this point.
(MONITOR BEEPING)
JASMINE: My cousin comes in the room and she's like, "She's gone."
Everybody just fell apart.
(MONITOR FLATLINING)
There's just so many levels of frustrations that come, you know?
And just understanding the scope of who we are
and what we look like and where we live, you know,
and the stereotypes that come with that, you know. Um...
having to deal with that on top of watching your partner pass away,
you know, it's...
tough isn't the word, you know? It's more than tough.
(ELIAS COOS)
OMARI: Let's go downstairs.
(GRUNTS)
All right.
OMARI: You ready?
OMARI: Telling Anari that her mother passed away was...
It was hard.
She asks about her mother all the time.
(CHILDREN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)
Good morning. (CHUCKLES)
Okay. You want to give Daddy hugs?
Okay. (CHUCKLES)
OMARI: Shamony definitely was, you know, my muse.
-Omari is going to do my makeup. -(CLICKS TONGUE)
It's going to be money. Go. You got to start in the middle, right?
-(BOTH CHUCKLE) -(SOFT MUSIC PLAYING)
-You went over. -Make sure you put it on nice and thick.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
OMARI: I've never lived in this house without her.
There's times where I wake up and I'm just shocked
to be sleeping in our bed by myself.
(MELANCHOLY MUSIC PLAYING)
(ELIAS CRIES)
BRUCE: What's going on?
All right.
-All right. -(ELIAS COOS)
BRUCE: It's hard adjusting.
I can't believe that Amber is not going to be coming back home.
So, this month we'll be learning about plants.
So today I'm going to demonstrate how to plant.
Organic potting mix, it's usually good for any kind of plant.
You're going to need... I'm using a mason jar,
but you don't need to use a mason jar. You can use whatever you have at home.
This is going to get messy, so I'm sure the kids will love this.
Let them... If you do have soil at home, let them experience it, play with it.
Um, that sensory activity as well kind of...
I can still hear her feet, stomping her feet and running
and she opens the door and jump straight on the bed
and starts jumping on me and pushing me and pulling on me
and waking me up. Then she says that we're pregnant.
-This is a work. -FEMALE VOICE: What is it?
-AMBER: (SCREAMS) It's a boy. -(CHEERING)
BRUCE: Amber had such a pregnant glow to her.
-She was just so excited. -(SCREAMS)
BRUCE: During her second and third trimester, we started noticing
she was having headaches, she was getting dizzy,
and she was having a tough time breathing.
And all of her concerns were being taken lightly.
"Oh, these are just pregnancy-related symptoms. You're okay."
So I took the initiative to search and do research on midwives and doulas
and stumbled across Nubia Martin.
NUBIA: Bruce and Amber reached out trying to switch over to home birth.
-So let's start right here. -AMBER: Okay.
She knew something was off and she was hoping
that switching to midwifery care would get to the bottom of that.
NUBIA: Walk your hand in the middle.
(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING)
NUBIA: When they sent her prenatal records for us to review
the first thing that jumped out was the issue with the platelets.
I said, "This is not right. You need to go to the hospital."
BRUCE: If the platelet levels go lower than a 150, they need to be monitored.
Her platelet levels had been less and deteriorating since December.
We're in April.
This is high risk.
The hospital is not bringing this to our attention at all.
Amber wanted to write a tell-all about the care
that she had been receiving.
Finally, they started paying attention to her
and diagnosed her with HELLP syndrome.
They could have caught it early, treated it.
RENITA: She went into the hospital.
They induced her labor and they rushed her into a C-section.
The high-risk doctor just left my daughter.
There was some a young teen there.
BRUCE: They cut her open. Her blood is water-like at this point.
She just lied open on the table, bleeding out.
They were neglecting her until it was way too late.
We thought Montefiore was going to take care of her.
We had Amber's mother who worked there for 25 years.
RENITA: They gave that statement that they have a mortality rate
of 0.01 percent.
That's all I got from them.
Amber would have been a wonderful mother.
She was working on her masters. She wanted to be an art therapist.
She started teaching and she loved these kids.
(ELIAS COOS)
RENITA: She wanted this so badly, you know?
She's my only child. She's all I have.
I'm grateful that she left Elias for us.
OMARI: Going on, man?
BRUCE: How you doing, man? Yo, I got to give you a hug, bro.
Oh, man.
OMARI: I heard about Bruce and what happened to Amber Isaac.
I just immediately reached out to him to just say, "Hey, man, it's a lot.
"I know exactly how you feel.
"If you need somebody to talk to then, you know, here I am."
I want to specifically just meet you because y'all I know
that y'all know how I'm feeling.
Even if I'm not able to articulate it the way I want to, like I know.
It's like this shit is just so like,
it's surreal at same time... Like, I just be thinking like,
-"Damn, this can't be real life." -OMARI: Yeah.
You know, I still got that... I feel like somebody's foot
-is on my throat. -Yeah. Yeah.
-Like that's... -I know.
I still don't feel like I've grasped the entire concept of her
-not being here physically, you know? -Yeah.
OMARI: And, of course, there's other people
in our position, you know?
-So that's what I feel it too. -Yeah.
We can turn our pain into power and make something of this, you know?
So, I could either chill or I could, you know, do something, you know?
And I'm taking a position and doing something
because, you know, that's what I know that we are here for, you know?
Yeah. I got to take action. Some way. Some way.
-Yeah. -I got to... If I'm not doing nothing,
I, at least, got to study so I know what I'm fighting against then.
OMARI: Yeah.
OMARI: All right.
So, you ready to do this?
-Ready when you're ready. -All right. Cool. Cool.
(SOFT PIANO MUSIC PLAYING)
OMARI: You just got to keep going. That's it.
That's all we got to do. One foot in front of the other.
Come on.
Come on. This is it right here. Right here. There we go.
There's your money at the finish line. Come on. (PANTS)
OMARI: All right, big man.
Come on, now.
Hi. Hey, we matching?
I was aware that this is a growing epidemic...
-Yes. -...in our communities
and that is so upsetting to me.
-An alarm has to be sounded... -SHAWNEE: Sure.
ANITA: ...about this.
SHAWNEE: I never thought that this would happen to my family...
-ANITA: Yes. -...because I do
-reproductive justice work. -ANITA: Right. Mm-hmm.
But, you know, just also, why wouldn't it?
-Were Black and Brown. -ANITA: Right. Right.
You know, she's a woman. She was having a baby.
So, why do we think we would be exempt because we have the knowledge?
Knowledge doesn't save you from this epidemic.
ANITA: That's right. Right.
Omari, I can't speak for you, but I'm mourning...
-growing old with my daughter. -Yeah. Definitely.
-We were 20 years apart. -Yeah.
And the women in my family live a long time,
so I anticipated being 90 and her being 70...
-ANITA: Right. -...and getting on each other's nerves
in that space, you know?
So mourning what could have been is also very real.
I definitely want to partner
with fathers who specifically have suffered loss the way I have
and to get fathers together
to just really talk about how after, you know, you lose somebody important,
how the community helps.
If it's possible to have this space be one of the hubs where men gather
and have these conversations.
I especially want it for Black men because it's a desert out there,
in reference to support.
You know, this is not something that is just specific to me
or specific to just a handful of people.
Like, hundreds and thousands of men are going through the same...
-ANITA: Exactly. -...you know, scenario and situation.
Look, Daddy.
-OMARI: Hello? -Ooh.
-ANTHONY: Hello. -OMARI: Good morning. Is Anthony there?
-I'm one of Anthony's math teachers. -ANTHONY: This is Anthony.
OMARI: So, what's going on, Anthony?
You haven't been really completing your math assignments.
I just wanted to see what was the reason for that?
I want to do the race car.
-ANTHONY: Yeah. -ANARI: Race car.
OMARI: Okay, baby. If you're having some troubles with your math work,
then you're going to get in contact with me
and I'm going to help you out with it, okay?
-ANTHONY: Okay. -All right. Awesome.
You have a great day, Anthony.
(IMITATES MUSIC)
Nope, nope, nope. (CHUCKLES)
You're a little tricky, huh?
You trying to get tricky? You trying to get tricky?
OMARI: As I'm trying to get through day to day, a handful of men
who got in contact with me, their partners also passed away.
It has such an effect on me. I wasn't by myself.
Thank you for all the brothers who came in.
And I'm definitely grateful for what we're able to do
in creating this circle, you know, with Omari's two support brothers,
Mike, Omari and Mustafa, who are in the particular place
-where they sit. -My name is Mustafa Shabaz.
Me and Omari, we are basically going through the same pain right now.
My lady died. Like you said, you felt helpless. I felt the same way.
I watched her take her last breath in front of my eyes.
There's nothing I can do. Nothing.
I had to go and get a DNA test just to take my son out the hospital.
They didn't believe that he was my son. I said, "Why would I be here?
"Why would I even be here if this is not my child?"
I just... Honestly, I just don't think they care.
MALE VOICE: When we stop to think about maternal mortality,
that's a reality that any of us can face.
And as a father with a daughter, that's scary for me.
We have to give ourselves permission to be angry.
And so it's important for us that we have a space where I can go
and create the relationships where we're vulnerable enough
to share in this environment.
It can be any one of us, honestly, man.
Like, the table just turns so fast, you know, when you...
You don't have no... You don't have the control.
You don't have the power.
But with that said you can have the support.
You know, we can support each other,
creating a community that we want to see, in a way we want to see it, you know?
And with that community, I want to create a space
where we can then start to try to change policy, you know,
and have a thousand... Hundreds of thousands of people
backing what we're saying, 'cause that's the only way it works.
(MEN APPLAUD)
(UPLIFTING MUSIC PLAYING)
FEMALE VOICE: Today, we stand in solidarity
with the family of Amber Isaac.
I can't even believe were even here today about this situation.
Amber was just such a divine woman.
All she wanted to do was help people and y'all took that from us.
I actually have some stuff that I had written down
that I want to discuss and that I want to go over
-because my mind... -FEMALE REPORTER: It's okay.
...has been everywhere since this whole situation occurred.
FEMALE REPORTER: You can pull it out.
We're supposed to be the most advanced country in the world,
but the racial disparities are becoming more and more evident each day.
Black women are four times more likely to die
than their White counterparts with the same symptoms.
The maternal mortality rate has doubled here in the United States.
It was safer for our parents to have children than it is for us today.
MALE VOICE: Amen.
Why is that?
(CROWD APPLAUD)
Welcome, everybody. I'm Dr. Neel Shah, and this is Expecting More Dialogues,
which is a new web series we're kicking off
that is exploring the opportunities, the challenges, the hopes,
and the lived experiences of people who are giving birth in America right now.
We've invited three incredible human beings
to be part of this dialogue that we're going to have today,
and to teach me and to teach all of us
about what it is that we can be doing about this problem.
So let's start here, maybe. Bruce, tell us what happened.
I'm not sure everybody out there knows the story.
Amber was facing negligence and incompetence
within the medical system.
Down from the OB to the secretary was being nasty with her.
Down to security, you know?
The day I took Amber in when she was admitted into the hospital,
security at the front telling me, "Oh, it's okay, Mr. Baby Daddy,
"go sit down over there. You can't go up."
You know, everything that Bruce described in his story
is things that advocates like myself
and others have been saying for years, right,
that we have a systemic issue.
And I've said it in packed rooms full of OBs. You know what I mean?
Like patients, ultimately, they want to be seen,
they want to be heard, and they want to know that someone
genuinely cares about their wellbeing.
NEEL: I think of the wellbeing of moms as a bellwether
for the wellbeing of society in general.
And that's why every injustice in our society shows up
in maternal health and in maternal health outcomes.
In 2018, journalists started to tell the stories
of people that were dying in childbirth.
Those stories ended up compelling the federal government
to start to track maternal mortality much more systematically.
So 2018 was the first year we really did that.
I started to read and see all these trends,
including the explosion in C-section rates.
(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING)
NEEL: We intervene with major surgery
five hundred percent more than we used to in the 1970s.
And maternal mortality rates just fly upwards.
And when it comes to Black women, those risks are higher.
C-sections do save lives. I've trained to do them.
I believe in them. But major surgery is major surgery.
Surgical complications like organ injury, hemorrhage, infection
are about three times more likely to happen
with a C-section than a vaginal delivery.
(BABY CRIES)
NEEL: He's very cute. Congratulations to you all.
-MALE VOICE: Thank you so much. -FEMALE VOICE: Thank you.
NEEL: So, Black women have a higher rate of C-sections.
NEEL: Yeah, I would really encourage you to do that.
NEEL: I started to think about my own practice and how it's possible
that really well-intended people can be doing racist things.
For example, when Black people are expressing concern
around pain or other symptoms, they're heard less.
And in medicine, we've literally created algorithms,
where we've conflated race and racism.
You can help somebody understand their odds
having a successful vaginal delivery with a calculator.
And if they're Black, their odds drop.
It has nothing to do with who they are or their biology.
The calculator ends up gatekeeping treatment, care, and support.
So if you're Black, you're less likely to get good support
to have the vaginal delivery that you want.
HELENA: I've been a midwife for 23 years.
I went to Georgetown University. I have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing
and I have a Masters in Delivery Education.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
HELENA: Let's see what this baby is doing today.
FEMALE VOICE: I think he's just wondering what we're going to do.
HELENA: We are trained to let those that can
have births that happen spontaneously the way it's always been.
We care for women in the home, or centers, and the hospital space.
-HELENA: The head is still down. -PATIENT: Mm-hmm.
HELENA: Nice and down.
HELENA: We follow a shared decision-making model
with the patient, giving them a lot of options to choose their path.
HELENA: So, you got everything prepared for the birth?
PATIENT: Mm-hmm.
HELENA: I'm here to practice an allowance for her body to do
what it needs to do to give birth.
Only six to nine percent of all births in our country are by midwives.
In Europe, midwives were integrated into women's healthcare
and they're doing better
than our dismal maternal mortality morbidity rate.
We are higher than the UK, higher than France,
higher than Germany, higher than Sweden.
We have the highest rate of all industrialized nations.
In this country, as technology has advanced,
childbirth has become more technologically driven.
In hospitals, by and large,
it has not been a shared decision-making model.
We call it the medical technocratic patriarchal model.
Pregnancy is a healthcare challenge to manage.
FEMALE VOICE: We have a 9:00 a.m. induction.
It's a 21-year-old G1P0 at 39 and three.
We have two inductions. We have KW, a 34-year-old G1P011.
And the other 7:00 p.m. induction is a CWC fetal specialty clinic patient
who's had of history of one prior C-section.
HELENA: Doctors are trained in active management of labor.
Induce them and get them going and do all this stuff.
You put her on Pitocin via the IV to get the contractions regular.
DOCTOR: The goal is every two to three minutes for your contractions.
PATIENT: Okay.
You break the water and you do things to push her
along the labor curve, as we call it, to get that baby out.
The thing that she's going to remember the most
is what happened during her labor and birth. Every woman does.
-FEMALE VOICE 1: Come on. Slowly. Slowly. -FEMALE VOICE 2: Take your time.
HELENA: Women have to take that back.
CARLINA: Women of color count for nearly 80 percent
of pregnancy-related death in this city.
We are just dragging our feet on one of the most serious issues of our time.
We're going to call up Shawnee B. Gibson.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUD)
I'm a fellow citizen and mother in mourning
over the loss of my eldest child whose death could have been prevented.
Today, I act as a vessel and a conduit for the voice of my daughter,
Shamony Makeba Gibson,
and the voices of so many young women of color just like her.
As a reproductive advocate and leader in the reproductive health community,
I thought that I would be spared. I naively believed that my optimism
about how knowledgeable we all were would shield her from this epidemic. Wow.
What I'm seeking are systems in institutions that are committed
to making sure that we address racism and anti-Black racism specifically.
I am here to declare that my work will not stop.
I am here to hold myself accountable and to hold those responsible,
who knowingly and unknowingly keep this epidemic going.
I am here to let you know that Shamony Makeba Gibson lived.
She is alive in this movement and she is alive in this moment
as I speak her name, Shamony Makeba Gibson.
Shamony Makeba Gibson.
Thank you for listening.
(ALL APPLAUD)
NEEL: As a professor at Harvard School of Public Health,
I had an opportunity to travel to different hospitals
across the country, studying maternal health outcomes.
Oklahoma is a place that has a maternal mortality rate
that's double the national average.
When you rank every state in terms of maternal mortality,
they're in the bottom five.
The medical centers we're working with in Tulsa
have some of the highest rates of injury during childbirth in the state.
They take care of a lot of people of color...
and they have persistently high C-section rate.
We're here today because we think that we could get the whole country
to reimagine the care that people should expect
during one of the most important and vulnerable moments of our lives.
This will only really work if each and every one of you believes
that this is possible too.
-FEMALE VOICE 1: This is Triage. -NEEL: Hi.
FEMALE VOICE 2: Awesome.
NEEL: Labor and delivery units in the modern era resemble cardiac ICUs.
The only difference is that our operating rooms are attached.
We take 99 percent of people giving birth in America,
we put them in ICUs, and we surround them by surgeons.
So we see a lot of surgery.
It doesn't take rocket science to figure it out.
We get a lot of laboring patients out here.
-NEEL: And how many ORs do you guys have? -NURSE: Two.
-NEEL: Are they right on the unit? -NURSE: Yes.
-NEEL: Yeah? -NURSE: Yeah.
NEEL: In a hospital, the cost of doing a C-section
is lower than the cost of doing a vaginal delivery.
The shorter that labor is, the less it will cost.
It is also true though that if you do a C-section,
the hospital gets paid about 50 percent more than if there's a vaginal delivery.
You can imagine what kind of incentives that might set up.
-FELICIA: Hey. How are you? -RECEPTIONIST: Okay.
-FELICIA: Edwards. -RECEPTIONIST: I'll check real quick.
FELICIA: Okay.
In this state, Black women represent ten percent of births,
but we're 20 percent of the deaths.
And Tulsa is one of the worst places in the country to have a baby.
I didn't know.
-FELICIA: How are you today? -DOCTOR: Okay. How you guys doing?
-FELICIA: Good? -PAUL: All right. How you doing?
DOCTOR: Well, let's take a look at the baby
-in his mother's belly. -FELICIA: Okay.
-(ULTRASOUND MACHINE WHIRRING) -(HEART BEATING)
FELICIA: I called my mom crying one morning, because the statistics
of being Black having a baby in America like hit me.
Really, I hadn't thought about it until Serena Williams
talked about her birth experience.
And she's like the best athlete in the world
and she had to make them listen to her about her blood clots.
DOCTOR: Hold on a sec.
FELICIA: And then when I started dealing with myself, I was like,
"This is a big deal."
A Black woman having a baby is like a Black man
in a traffic stop with the police.
You have to like really pay attention to what's going on
like every step of the way.
DOCTOR: There you go.
FELICIA: In the hospital, appointments are quick. They're not intimate.
You don't have time to build that trust.
-DOCTOR: Have a good day. -PAUL: You too.
FELICIA: It's going to be hard to find someone I'm just comfortable with.
Very early in my career, I noticed how Black women
were used as guinea pigs in the hospital, um, system.
I became a nurse in a very elite teaching hospital...
and I start to see things
that just really don't go along with my philosophy.
If you have private insurance and you're White,
you have a private physician who's on call for you.
The clinic population, by and large,
tend to be Black and Brown women who have Medicaid
and are treated by resident learners.
Every woman is getting her vagina cut open.
A woman doesn't need it but you cut it, because you need to learn how to sew.
I'm at a place that is literally practicing on people.
(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING)
HELENA: Black women have been experimented on
to perfect the profession of gynecology.
The United States had a population of enslaved people
that they could do what they wanted to, when they wanted to,
how they wanted to do it.
As a woman, your worth is
about what your womb can produce for my plantation.
Black women are having so many children. They're getting fistulous.
Enter J. Marion Sims. He's considered the father of gynecology,
who decides that he's going to figure out how to fix this.
He's fixing it so she can go back and have more children.
So that she, as a commodity,
continues to be useful for her slave master.
And he cut them open however many times.
And then there were modules written about the things that were done to them...
saying, "Well, they don't feel pain," but the woman is literally screaming.
And that's how the United States becomes a superpower
when it comes to OB-GYN surgery.
Black women, by and large, continue to be cared for by learners.
It's the marrying of the overmedicalization
with inexperience.
That's really the foundation
when it comes to maternal mortality and morbidity.
ANARI: Mama.
-OMARI: Who's that? -Mommy.
OMARI: Good. Now, show us your project. Come.
-S. -OMARI: Let's see it
-ANARI: Don't... -OMARI: Oh.
ANARI: ...spill it. Don't spill it!
-Look, Mommy. -(TELEVISION PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND)
-Wow. That's pretty. -(OMARI CHUCKLES)
OMARI: Let me see it. Let me see it. Good.
We have pictures of Shamony up everywhere.
-She's always around. -(SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING)
OMARI: Through my artwork, I'm able to connect with her
in a way that I've never had since she passed.
It really does help with how I process.
One day, I thought, "Right now you paint one of Amber Isaac.
"Paint one of Bruce's partner."
-I wanted to give him this gift. -(UPLIFTING MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUCE: We'll set up over here.
BRUCE: Sanitary juice.
Thank you.
All right. So the front. We got to get the front gate.
NUBIA: Hey.
-How are you? -BRUCE: Good.
Good, good, good, good, good.
-BRUCE: Hi. -SHAWNEE: Hi.
-BRUCE: How are you? -SHAWNEE: How are you feeling?
-BRUCE: How are you doing? -(BOTH CHUCKLE)
-BRUCE: Hey, get in there, trying to... -Sweating bullets. Sorry.
BRUCE: I know. Out here working.
-SHAWNEE: Yeah. -Out here working.
Speaking of, yeah, we were just talking about you.
OMARI: Really? Yeah. I had to... I got here like five, ten minutes ago,
but I had to stop and get some coffee, man.
SHAWNEE: Oh, my God. (CHUCKLES)
-OMARI: I got... -SHAWNEE: I knew he was addicted.
OMARI: You got free hands? I need somebody to hold...
-Okay. -OMARI: All right. Cool. Cool.
This is for you.
BRUCE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man.
-BRUCE: Love you, man. -OMARI: I love you too.
We're doing this together, man.
BRUCE: Thank y'all so much for being here. This is our first event.
We're a little nervous, but we need to be here.
We need to keep talking till they're hearing us.
We're tired of saying that we need justice. We need change.
We're done asking. We're demanding.
Nobody's asking for anything exorbitant or extravagant
or out of the ordinary.
We just want to make sure that we have the same as anybody else.
We are dying at a rate, twelve times more in this city.
If these numbers were flipped around and White women were dying
at the rate that Black women is dying, it would be a national crisis.
-Why is that not deemed a crisis? -MALE VOICE: Wow.
SHAWNEE: This crazy behind system is killing us.
And we called it aftershock because Shamony's death
was like a tsunami.
When Black mothers die, there's a ripple effect.
And, yes, the death is the earthquake, but the shit afterwards is overwhelming.
The nights when I get up and it's like,
"Oh, my God. I miss my daughter. I miss her calling me."
Now, I wish she would call me 30 times a day.
After today, take an action.
Shamony lives through me being an activist and a revolutionary.
And the revolution will be tweeted, Instagrammed, Facebooked.
-(CLAMOR) -It will be recorded.
(APPLAUDING)
DANA: Two fathers are sharing their heartbreak
to draw attention to medical disparities in Black communities.
BRUCE: Shamony's death was a direct result of systemic racism.
Within the medical system, there has been this repetitive pattern.
If Amber would have received standard care, she would be here.
REPORTER: And that's what he wants now for every mother of color.
NEEL: Part of what I want to think through with you all
is just about, like, the messaging.
And I think it's really important that we name what the mission is,
-which is equity. -Mm-hmm. It can't be safer for all mothers
until it's safer for Black mothers...
-NEEL: Mothers. Yeah. -...native mothers.
And so, when we talk about equity, there's folks who have to catch up
before that can even like be a thing.
Yeah. You know, you can't fix things that you don't name,
-and I do deeply believe that. -So I wouldn't...
NEEL: We're really, really fortunate to be working with a community partner.
Labrisa Williams, an extraordinary advocate,
for birth justice and birth equity,
is someone we can stand shoulder to shoulder with
as we're walking around the hospitals
and trying to build that accountability to the community
-within the health systems. -...need more information.
(ELEVATOR DINGS)
-NURSE: You guys ready to start? -NEEL: Yeah. Sure.
NURSE: Yeah. So we'll gather right over there. And then...
NEEL: We designed a process that structures communication.
So every person giving birth has a systematic way
of knowing that what they're expecting, what they want to know,
what they want to say is going to get heard.
NEEL: Everything that we're reading in the headlines
about maternal mortality in our country going up,
what people are dying of is not the clinical condition
on the death certificate.
It's a failure of communication and teamwork every time.
What team birth is about, it's doing the things that we already know,
but making sure the people that we're caring for can see it.
LABRISA: We really focus on patient experience and like make sure
-they feel seen and heard. -NURSE: Yeah.
LABRISA: That's awesome.
-FEMALE VOICE: Thanks, Tina. -NEEL: It's a very, very simple idea.
It's a version of the same dry erase whiteboard that exists
in almost every in-patient room in every hospital in America.
Usually that board is primarily for nurses to kind of talk to themselves.
We structured it to have the preferences of the person giving birth.
And then there's a place where you write down the next time
the team is going to get back together again and talk.
FEMALE VOICE: The most important thing is we're being transparent
with the patient about what the plan is.
NEEL: I'm sure you all have seen the headlines around maternal mortality.
You've seen the way that it's been impacting
the people that you're caring for. So this is about better outcomes,
but it's also about building trust along the way.
NEEL: When we walk through Bruce's story,
there's so many examples of that not happening.
Not only not feeling seen and heard, but also not being told
what was happening, right? That should never happen.
-NUBIA: It's Bruce. -BRUCE: Hello, guys. What's up, everybody?
-NUBIA: What's going on? -BRUCE: Look at the couch.
-NUBIA: Yeah. How's the boy? -BRUCE: Oh, he's doing good.
BRUCE: I really started talking to Nubia more about the medical system.
Now that more people are paying attention, we have to band together.
It could bring effective change and help our communities.
BRUCE: My name is Bruce McIntyre.
Us, as a collective, I've been doing a lot of groundwork,
redirecting the course for birthing equity.
I met Bruce and Amber, his partner,
because they were being grossly neglected in the hospital setting.
Amber did not survive.
And one of the things I was talking to Bruce about
was how we continue to just honor who she was as a mother
and make sure this doesn't happen for somebody else.
Like we can sit and, you know, wait for somebody to sweep in,
but it's an SOS situation.
-We have to save ourselves. -BRUCE: Yeah.
I know that what I want in my communities...
-Yeah. -...in my birth communities
for my clients is support.
When I think of the hospital climate, some people are welcoming birth support
-and other hospitals are not. -Mm-hmm. Right.
My belief is that, you know, people need to have safe options across the board.
Safer hospitals, or like I always say, look for alternatives.
You know, you don't have to birth in a hospital if that's not...
-You know, if you're part... -MYLA: If you're low risk, yeah.
...of that 85 percent that's low risk, you know?
But we want to do the best that we can to get people a safe vaginal birth,
if that is their desire, in an environment where they're going to be
listened to, respected, valued, and, you know, at peace.
MYLA: Yeah.
-ASHLEE: Can I touch your belly? -FELICIA: Uh-huh.
-ASHLEE: How are you doing? Yes? -PAUL: Lily Bug.
ASHLEE: What's going on in there?
-FELICIA: There's a lot going on. -ASHLEE: Yeah? (CHUCKLES)
ASHLEE: So this is what we're going to do. We're going to try this exercise.
-PAUL: Okay. -(FELICIA CHUCKLES)
ASHLEE: And this is going to show what it looks like
when you have a contraction, what a contraction does, okay?
So this is your baby.
This is the uterus. We're going to put the baby in the uterus?
FELICIA: I don't know what I would be doing without a doula right now.
She's from Tulsa. She's Black.
I have, like, a friend who's educated in this
that I talk to every two weeks.
-ASHLEE: Keep contracting. Keep on going. -(ALL CHUCKLE)
I don't know if we talked about this, but I would like to touch on it,
like what a normal birth is and what a normal birth looks like.
There's such a wide range of what normal is.
You can think of a normal birth as like the train tracks
and then your birth experience is the train, right?
And then sometimes things happen. We may have to switch tracks
and go around or whatever, and that's okay.
FELICIA: At first, when we did the birth plan, I was like,
"I'm just going to go to the hospital." You know, the normal thing.
And then we talked about like all the choices or the options.
And then I was like, "Maybe a birth center is better."
ASHLEE: We on track.
FELICIA: The main thing for me is, I do not want to have a C-section.
Paul and I are entrepreneurs. We generate our own income.
We don't have a grandmother that can come stay with us.
We don't have the resources for a night nurse.
-FELICIA: It says it's right here. -PAUL: Okay.
FELICIA: Having a major surgery will impact our success
as a new family for the next 12 months.
PAUL: Hello?
-GISELLE: Hi. -FELICIA: Hello.
-FELICIA: Felicia. -GISELLE: Nice to meet you.
-PAUL: Nice to meet you. Paul. -GISELLE: Paul.
-PAUL: Nice to meet you. -GISELLE: We've met before, haven't we?
-ASHLEE: Yeah. -PAUL: Okay.
GISELLE: Ashlee, it's very nice to see you.
ASHLEE: Yes.
GISELLE: Well, I'm going to give you guys your tour today.
Try to talk about the risk versus benefits
of hospital versus birth center births, so...
-Right. Okay. -FELICIA: Perfect. Awesome.
GISELLE: Well, let's go over this way.
We have three birth suites back here. And I'm going to show you the first one.
This is the Gavin suite.
When you come in in labor, you get your room.
We settle you in, check you in.
And then, we just see what feels good to you.
Maybe you want to go for a walk down at the park.
Maybe you want to go to The Y and walk on the track.
Maybe you want to go to the mall and walk around.
Maybe you want to get in the tub for a little bit.
So it's really just up to you.
And we just go along with you and carry our Doppler
and monitor the baby and make sure that you're doing okay
and the baby's doing okay while you work through your labor stuff, so...
This is the Bella suite, A little bougie in here.
FELICIA: Well, it does.
So Mom is like, "Yep, that's my girl. That's right."
This is the room I designed.
-FELICIA: Oh, wow. -GISELLE: Yeah.
-PAUL: This is pretty cool. -ASHLEE: You're taking it all in.
I'm definitely taking it in. I haven't even got it in yet.
Like, this is crazy but amazing at the same time.
-ASHLEE: Yeah. -PAUL: I'm beginning to understand it.
GISELLE: Now, I'm going to kind of walk you through some of our medical things
that we have in place here.
-My kids call this the scary cart. -(FELICIA CHUCKLES)
GISELLE: We're certified nurse midwives here,
so we do follow the medical model
in that we have a suture kit for your bottom.
And I will tell you, we throw more of these away
-because they expire than we use them. -FELICIA: Yeah.
GISELLE: And the reason for that is we give you the most important gift
as a first-time mom, and that is time.
Time to be in labor. Time to stretch.
But if we need to repair your bottom afterwards, we can do that.
And then the medication box. We don't do inductions of labor here,
but we do have Pitocin and a couple of other medications
that will help with hemorrhaging if you were to hemorrhage
after you delivered.
FELICIA: Paul's been working a lot. I've been researching more.
Like I'm really educating myself.
-And I'm like... -REGINA: Okay.
..."I'm going to try to have this baby safely."
REGINA: Let me just... Let me break down just a few
of the statistics for you, okay?
So with birth centers, the C-section rate is about six percent.
In the hospital, the national average is around 30, 33 percent.
But we don't value a vaginal delivery in this setting over your safety.
-FELICIA: Mm-hmm. -Okay? I've had four C-sections.
Medically, I wasn't able to have a vaginal birth.
FELICIA: I'm like totally aware
of how fortunate we are to have this option,
this close to where we live. I know people drive hours here too.
REGINA: I have one family come over from almost four hours away in Arkansas.
They got an Airbnb and stayed the last couple weeks of the pregnancy
and with their family so that they could enjoy birth center care here.
FELICIA: How did you, like, guys decide to open this?
-Like, it's like against the system. -REGINA: Mm-hmm.
Yeah. It was incredibly difficult, but this is a calling for us to do this.
GISELLE: The unfortunate thing is they will not...
Insurance-wise, will not cover any of our care.
Um, so it would be a sole out-of-pocket expense for you to do that.
-FELICIA: Okay. -GISELLE: Now, since you're coming
to us late, the total for us would be 3,000.
-FELICIA: That's not bad. -(GISELLE CHUCKLES)
PAUL: I mean, I'm pretty much sold.
There's nothing I didn't really...
see out of place or anything like that.
FELICIA: I feel like switching over.
I don't really have to worry about anything.
Like, I'm more in control and I know what's going to happen
instead of whatever is going on in that hospital that day.
My grandmother had three children successfully.
My dad was the only one born in a hospital.
PAUL: I mean, it don't matter which one it is.
I'm going to be right there with you. And I have nine nieces and nephews,
so I know about, like, children and...
-Mm-hmm. -...birthing.
FELICIA: (CHUCKLES) Let me tell you, Mr. I Know Everything.
There's two things you don't know and you can't do.
-How to be a woman and how to have a baby. -(BOTH CHUCKLE)
-Yeah. Yeah, you right. -(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
Midwives existed in all nations and cultures of the Earth.
Midwives knew the feminine secrets.
Midwives were abortion practitioners since the beginning of time,
helping women control their fertility and control the use of their wombs.
That's a lot of power.
In spaces where women have power, some men have a problem with it.
In Europe, the Catholic church wants more control
of childbearing women and their choices.
It's the church that first demands that men be a part of childbirth.
Enter the male midwife, who then later on segues
and becomes the OB-GYN provider.
And priests, they're hearing these reports that women scream
and women yell and they become animalistic.
They become this other thing when they're in childbirth
that has not been seen before by men.
We, of course, have the scripture in the Bible and the Lord's prayer
deliver us from evil.
There becomes this identification with being delivered from evil.
You start to see this language that women need to be delivered.
They need to be delivered. And we've carried that into modern day.
When we get to United States' history, when enslaved people come here,
midwives come with them. Midwives are on every plantation,
not just caring for enslaved Black people,
they were caring for everybody.
When the mistress of the plantation and her daughters and White women
are having babies, they're being attended by Black midwives too.
Midwives become some of the most valued enslaved persons.
George Washington himself actually paid his midwife.
She was valuable because he wanted to make sure
that generations and generations of enslaved beings
made it Earth side safely.
After slavery, we still have community midwives.
Over time, these powerful White men,
this new thing called an OB-GYN physician
decide we're going to deem that you should come to the hospital
to give birth.
White male physicians and White public health nurses
bond together and create a whole lot of marketing campaigns
that say Black midwives are dirty, they're unskilled, they're untrained.
White public health nurses would actually run around and hunt
to find out where the midwives were...
(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING)
HELENA: ...forcing them to go to health departments
and turn in their license, saying to them,
"If you catch another baby, I'll report you and you'll go to jail."
And midwifery becomes a book, knowledge, profession.
You become a nurse and then you take this extra training
to work in concert with the doctor.
It is not a profession that you grow into through apprenticeship anymore.
So, White women took over this profession.
Right now, 87 percent of all midwives
certified in the United States of America are White.
-HELENA: Hi, Jorgen. Hi. -JORGEN: Hi.
HELENA: I'm very involved with students around the nation,
especially here in New York.
We need more midwives in the space.
HELENA: Cecilia caught the twins.
-FEMALE VOICE: Yes. -JORGEN: Oh, my goodness.
-HELENA: First twins she caught. -Oh, my God.
HELENA: The United States has to adopt the same modality as all other countries,
and midwives have to be central to women's healthcare.
-NURSE: Goodnight. Get home safe. -HELENA: All right. Night-night.
FEMALE VOICE: Bye.
Midwifery care supports Black women because when it's done well,
it's anti-traumatic care.
It is a way to reconstruct the narrative that childbirth does not have to be
this process that's laced in abuse.
(GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING)
(BREATHES HEAVILY)
-ASHLEE: Good job. -That feels good, good.
ASHLEE: Good job.
Let's see if I can eat one more before more comes.
When the contraction comes, I don't want to eat
'cause I feel like I'm going to choke trying to keep myself together. (CHUCKLES)
(SNORES)
(FELICIA GROANS)
-What are you smiling about? -PAUL: Baby. (CHUCKLES)
I see women take care of you while I was asleep, huh?
Get this set up real quick.
REGINA: 122/70. Rocking it up, Mama.
-(GROANS) -Okay.
It gets deeper now.
(BREATHES HEAVILY)
(GROANS)
You got it. (CHUCKLES)
(DOPPLER WHOOSHES)
-Is she okay? -NURSE: She is. Just perfectly content.
It's just like right now you're in my hand, babe.
(FELICIA GROANS)
So, are we ready? Not yet. She's going to come.
(BOTH GROAN)
ASHLEE: Wash your face.
Good job.
You're doing amazing. You're almost there.
It's the hardest thing I ever did.
Okay. Here it comes.
-PAUL: You... Come on. -FEMALE VOICE: You got this.
-(GROANS) -Yeah. Yeah.
FEMALE VOICE: There you go. There you go. There you go.
ASHLEE: Good job. So good.
So good.
Take your time.
-FEMALE VOICE 1: Reach down. Reach down. -FEMALE VOICE 2: Open your eyes.
FEMALE VOICE 1: You want to reach down and help?
No.
-PAUL: Let's see. I want to look. -FEMALE VOICE: Okay. You can help.
-(BABY CRYING) -REGINA: Oh, my God.
FEMALE VOICE 1: You did it.
-Here's your baby. -FEMALE VOICE 2: Yeah.
-Thank you. -FEMALE VOICE 1: It's so beautiful.
-Say hi, Mommy. -FELICIA: Hi.
-Hey. Hey. -ASHLEE: You did it. You did it.
-Hey. Yeah, baby. -ASHLEE: Hi, sweetheart. You did it!
-Baby, she's here. -Yeah, she's here, baby.
-FEMALE VOICE 1: Wow. -Thank you. Thank you.
-Thank you. -FEMALE VOICE 1: Don't cry.
FEMALE VOICE 1: Yes. Okay, sweetheart.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
FEMALE VOICE 1: There's your mama.
You are beautiful.
-FEMALE VOICE 2: All that hair. -FEMALE VOICE 1: I know. I know. I know.
(SOBS)
Thank you.
-She here, man. She is here. -FEMALE VOICE 1: She's here and beautiful.
Right here.
(LAUGHING)
Oh, my goodness.
-NUBIA: Oh, wow. (CHUCKLES) -MYLA: This is the space. (CHUCKLES)
-BRUCE: I'm excited. -NUBIA: Wow.
So we're thinking about making the first two floors, the birth center.
And then the third floor, the reception, and a couple exam rooms,
and a couple wellness spots.
And then in that corner, that's going to be a small community room
where we can have smaller classes.
BRUCE: We're going to bring a birthing center
over here into the Bronx. We need it.
We have the highest Caesarean rate in this borough.
NUBIA: It's pretty big.
VIDEOGRAPHER: Ready? Action.
We are partnering up to bring a birthing center to the Bronx
to serve our community, to serve our people.
We need to stop working for a system that is not going to work for us,
and we need to take care of our communities. We need to step up.
Within this entire state of more than 19 million people,
there are only three birth centers. This needs to change.
Birthing centers are a happy medium of a hospital birth,
a very necessary option, and home birth,
which is a wonderful option, but not for everybody.
Even if you can't donate, figure out what you can do
to play your part to help us.
-Thank you. -We deserve a birthing center.
-We deserve birth centers. -We deserve a birthing center.
-BRUCE: Yes. -MYLA: Yes, yes, yes.
-BRUCE: Hello. -NEEL: Hey.
-How are you, man? -BRUCE: Doing well, doing well Neel.
-How are you? -It's good to see you.
-BRUCE: Good to see you. -How was the trip?
Oh, brother. It was... It wasn't bad. It wasn't bad.
We so appreciate you coming up to spend time with our students today.
Definitely.
I couldn't imagine when we talked last year that we'd be here...
-Yeah. Me neither. -...doing this.
I was just thinking about that, like how surreal it is.
You know, that's just what moving forward does, you know?
You just got to keep pushing forward and doors open up.
Yeah.
(SOMBER PIANO MUSIC PLAYING)
Amber Rose Isaac was the love of my life.
She passed away due to an unscheduled emergency C-section
that stemmed from medical negligence throughout her entire pregnancy.
After finding out all these information and doing so much studying,
I found out that Amber was as good as dead as soon as she walked into that hospital.
So we need to make sure that this doesn't happen to anyone else.
In 2018, I watched Amber...
NEEL: What people like Bruce have taught me...
is that affirming a person's dignity,
seeing them, hearing them is the way that you make them safe.
It's not a luxury.
STUDENT 1: Thank you so much.
I actually remember being on Twitter hearing about Amber Rose,
and so it is so surreal to me right now to be sitting next to you,
to hear you to tell your story, to capture the things that a news article
will never be able to capture. This fight is not over.
And there are time because this is... It feels like it's so in my face
'cause this the work that I'm interested.
Oh, enough people know about this, but it's not enough, right?
Because it's... Too many people were still dying from this, right?
There will still be another which is one too many already.
As a White provider, I'm going to have a blind spot
that is I don't have any lived experience with racism in this way.
And it's really, really easy to become part of the problem
if you're not actively working
towards understanding these type of stories.
STUDENT 2: I know you say that this shouldn't ever happen again,
but that fact is it will, and so I think it's important
to have spaces of activism and healing to be prepared for that.
You know, we're not going to be able to save everyone but with Black lives,
Black women, it's believed that over 60 percent
of these deaths were preventable. That's more than half we're talking about.
That sounds like a choice to me. That sounds like a system.
And if you're here today, that shows me that you want to reimagine this system.
So I appreciate everyone being here.
OMARI: All right.
I'm down here in Houston to meet the father I've never met before,
but who I am definitely connected to.
After I created a piece for Amber, I created a piece for another woman
and it just started to become like, what I was doing.
(SOFT PIANO MUSIC PLAYING)
OMARI: Creating pieces for other families who have lost their daughters,
their mothers, their partners to keep their stories going.
I started to meet more families that I never could have imagined...
all over the country and build a community that is needed.
Let's go, bro. (CHUCKLES)
Yeah, I'm happy to be out here, man.
-SAM: Yeah. -Good to see you.
All right.
After Maria had the baby in the hospital, they came and told us,
"Hey, we had to, you know..."
"It's time to go. You know, time to check out."
But, you know, she's not even able to walk.
Maybe we can, you know, extend this somehow
or whatever, you know? Can she get more help?
But, you know, when the insurance don't pay for it,
we don't care about you...
-OMARI: Basically. -...that much.
Well, somebody hit me up on IG and they told me, you know,
about you and your story and, you know, Maria.
I felt compelled. Like, I got to speak to you
to let you know like, you know, like I don't know you...
-SAM: Yeah. -...you know, but I know
how you feel, man. Like, I know what you're going through.
I know the pain. I know what it is, you know?
With that said, I want to give you this.
-I'm so happy, man... -SAM: Hey, what's up?
...that I was able to come out here and...
-Yes, sir. -...and give it to you firsthand.
Let me see it.
(SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING)
SAM: You know, man...
I know that Shamony and Maria are up there wherever they are.
They probably in the room right now with us, honestly.
But, you know, they connecting.
You know, they making stuff happen for both of us, man.
It's small... Something small I could do, man.
It's the very least I could do for you, bro.
-Appreciate you, man. -I appreciate it, bro.
OMARI: No doubt. No doubt.
Yeah. It's dope.
SHAWNEE: He's like, "What do you mean?" Look. Look, baby.
-Look at your cake. -OMARI: So on the count of three...
we're going to get this started.
One, two, three.
-ALL: Happy birthday to you -FEMALE VOICE: Cha-cha-cha.
ALL: Happy birthday to you
Happy Birthday, Dear Khari
Happy Birthday to you
FEMALE VOICE: All right.
ALL: Yay! (APPLAUD)
SHAWNEE: Here. Wait a minute. Who wants some?
-Charles. Open your mouth, Charles. -ANARI: That's okay.
SHAWNEE: Bruce? Where's Elias? Here. Let him open his mouth.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER OVER COMPUTER) -(KHARI BABBLING)
OMARI: I want to say thank y'all. I love y'all. We love y'all.
This is a very... It's been a very emotionally driven
and a very emotional roller coaster for me,
especially these last couple of hours.
But, you know, specifically these last couple of days.
And I didn't know how I was going to get through it,
and the anxiety of me thinking
about trying to get through it by myself is...
It's enough to kill somebody, you know?
But the fact that I have all of you as support,
it makes it so much easier to put and keep a smile on my face, man.
So thank y'all again. I love y'all. We love y'all.
-MALE VOICE: Take care. -Peace.
-(KHARI COOS) -(CHUCKLES)
(GROANS) You got me.
SHAWNEE: Let's do our little ritual.
-JASMINE: Yeah, let's do it. -Okay.
Now, I'm starting to feel the butterflies.
-Let your hands be the hands. -Okay.
-Mm-hmm. -(GRUNTS) Mm. This one is purity.
-Your mantra. -SHAWNEE: (CHUCKLES) Yeah.
-I act from pure intentions. -Yes.
So for today, it's not about me. So I'm going to...
I'm getting so emotional.
-That's okay. -Just moving myself out of the way,
so Shamony can speak through me so that women can live, so...
-Yes. -And that anybody that does not know
about this epidemic,
not the pandemic, but the epidemic of maternal mortality and morbidity,
will be able to receive that and walk away with knowledge
and then also prayerfully some action.
-SHAWNEE: You ready? -JASMINE: Mm-hmm.
-Got it. -SHAWNEE: All right. Here we go.
(MELANCHOLY PIANO MUSIC PLAYING)
-MALE VOICE: How are you doing? -SHAWNEE: I'm good.
Pretty good this morning.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER) -(INDISTINCT SPEAKING FROM PA)
ANNOUNCER: Our next speaker is a licensed clinician, author, healer...
spiritual leader and a reproductive justice advocate
and activist,
Shawnee Benton Gibson.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
Black lives matter, but Black wombs create Black lives.
And when we forget that, we forget our humanity.
We want to make sure that our grand babies, our children
have mothers to raise them and their fathers are not left
to figure it out on their own. We must stop this.
Black lives matter because Black wombs matter.
Black lives matter because Black wombs matter,
and a Black womb created you.
(ALL APPLAUD)
SHAWNEE: I want White supremacy to get off the necks of women and their wombs.
SHAWNEE: This momentum, it's like a wave. We keep showing up.
We're not letting the pain stop us.
We are holding people who have the most power
accountable for how they use it.
OMARI: Our maternal health community is really pushing for change
on Capitol Hill, trying to bring about different legislation in order
to make sure that women have the care that they're supposed to.
I can't let Amber be another statistic.
I'm making people aware of what's going on in these systems.
I planned on spending a lifetime with Amber.
I wanted to give her my life.
This way I'm still going to.
Amber Rose Isaac, we hear you, we see you.
Shamony Gibson, we hear you, we see you.
Kira Johnson, we hear you, we see you.
We're taking a closer look at the maternal mortality rate
-of the United States. -This issue of maternal health.
I introduced a bill called the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act.
It's 12th bill to end our nation's maternal mortality crisis.
All those families who have been impacted...
who even in the face of their trauma
and their devastating losses, continue to amplify their voices,
that is really why this work is happening today.
CAROLYN: Our healthcare system, including reproductive healthcare
was built on a legacy of systemic racism, and that legacy continues today.
Madame Chairwoman, as we approach Mother's Day...
my heart is heavy...
as I sit here representing...
the thousands upon thousands of families that have been impacted.
(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC PLAYING)
These are my sons, Charles and Langston.
My wife Kira won't wake up to breakfast in bed this Mother's Day...
because she gave birth...
in a country...
that didn't see her...
that didn't value her.
We must do better.
This is Amber Rose Isaac.
Her son Elias won't have the chance to spend his first Mother's Day...
with his mother.
Elias deserved better.
Shamony Gibson...
should be here with her son, Khari,
and her daughter, Anari. She deserved so much better.
This is a human rights issue.
It should be a fundamental human right
to deliver a healthy child in this country and live to raise that child.
That's my hope.
SHAWNEE: Greetings, family.
The reason why we are gathered here today is because Shamony Makeba Gibson lived.
Gone too soon.
Like a comet blazing across the evening sky, gone too soon.
Like a rainbow fading in the twinkling of an eye, gone too soon.
Shiny and sparkly and splendidly bright,
here one day and gone one night.
Like a castle built upon a sandy beach, gone too soon.
Like a perfect flower that is just beyond your reach...
ANARI: That's my mommy.
SHAWNEE: ...gone too soon.
Shamony Makeba Gibson, we will never ever forget you. Amen.
(UPLIFTING MUSIC PLAYING)