Page 33 - March 2022 Enlightenment (1)_Neat
P. 33
March 2022 Vol 38 Issue 3
STANDING COMMITTEE
UPDATES
History
Black Women Health Inequity: The origin of Perinatal Health Disparity!
Black enslaved women endured sexual exploitation and reproductive manipulation to produce a
labor workforce on the southern plantations during the Antebellum Period.
Health care inequity has continued from slavery and into the 21st century primarily due of racial
segregation, poverty, access, poor quality of care, eugenics, and the assault of forced sterilizations.
Racial disparity in maternal and infant mortality is an outcome rooted in racial injustice, social
and economic determinants as well as the stresses during pregnancy throughout the generations
of Black births. Affordable, available, quality, and equitable care and narrowing the economic
gap for Black women and families is the most significant barrier in combating racial disparity in
perinatal health outcomes and health inequity.
The greatest solution to surmount obstacles that contribute to disparities in Black women’s
health, is for our country to acknowledge the impact of historic and present-day injustices. Until
we collectively denounce racism and understand its entrenched implications on health,
inequalities will persist, and our pursuit of liberation will be stifled. (Charvonne Holliday,
PhD, MPH, an assistant professor in Population, Family and Reproductive Health)
The Black Woman: She Was! She Is! She Will Always Be Our Anchor!
Golden Soror Audrey Williams, History Committee Chairman
The Enlightenment page 21
