First, state your credentials. It’s okay to be a woman, but not a black woman. Their lived experiences are immaterial and can be dismissed as merely anecdotal. Make it clear that you are not racist or sexist, you are merely concerned about their plight. What plight? Well, pick one. Or several. Marriage, children, lack of the above, too much education, not enough education, welfare, whatever you think will sell. It only matters that you highlight their troublesome natures. Whatever it is, you must be sure to make it clear that they aren’t like other women. They are failing to perform in some way that affects the whole of society, even if you can’t quite explain how or why their personal lives are public property. Further, rely heavily on the idea of research that shows the problem is a problem. Never mention exactly when that research was done, or who were the subjects of it. Too much context may unnecessarily complicate the conversation.

Utilize stereotypes whenever possible, preferably ones that tie into the Mammy, Jezebel, or Sapphire tropes. Describe black women in ways that play up their sexuality and remove their humanity. After all they are Other, so their skin is a food stuff, the space between their thighs is mysterious, and they have never ever been innocent. No need to mention virginity or purity, even when speaking of black female infants, your focus must be on their sexuality. If you are speaking of black mothers make it clear that they need guidance, financial support, or salvation. What salvation? Well that all depends on whether they work too little and thus are on welfare, or work too much and thus are neglecting their children. There is no point at which they can balance work and family, because again they are Other and that is not possible for them. They are emasculating and thus unworthy of relationships, or the key to being masculine with their all knowing sexuality that is present from birth. Unrapeable, they can be trusted to raise any children but their own, and are sexually available until they become sexless.

They exist to be support systems, whether for men of all colors or women of every color but black. No need to mention their needs, hopes, dreams, or concerns. They have none, even if they do occasionally speak of themselves as real people with feelings. Their voices are too loud, too uneducated, or simply too aggressive. They are always angry about something, but their feelings aren’t real so they don’t matter. Be sure to specify how reasonable you are in the face of their unreasonable behavior. Write of how you studied them at a safe distance, while proclaiming that some of your closest friends are black women. No need to know anything about those close friends, but their names since all that matters is that you have them as proof that you know your subject, and are not racist or sexist.

Contrast them with women of other races, always making sure to highlight that other women are real women, while black women are simply black. Feel free to make blanket statements about their religious beliefs, educational levels, income levels, and family dynamics. All of it is true because you say it is, and you are the expert in black women, not any actual black women. If they are offended by your words, remind them of your credentials and refuse to engage in a conversation with them until they can be less emotional. Point to their tone as a reason to doubt the veracity of their experiences. After all they are only black women and thus they know nothing, own nothing, and are worth nothing but what you say they are.

How To Write About Black Women -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I’m about to get in my feelings as a black mother about this bullshit unsolicited advice to Blue Ivy Carter. I freely admit that I do not give even a tiny bit of a fuck about whatever literary conceits are about to be defended as part of justifying it. Because this letter was not written in a vacuum. This letter was not written out f any genuine concern for her health or safety. This letter was little more than a stunt that used a child of color & her parents to bolster a career. Yes I am sure she will say she meant no harm or disrespect. That she was trying to say good things to Blue Ivy, because she wants to help. Some will likely even say that her message was positive & for the best. Guess what?

We do not exist in a world where mothers of color can walk around without someone passing judgement on their right to be mothers simply because of the color of their skin. We do not live in a world where a woman of color becoming a mother is supported or respected. We do not exist in a world where white women who think they know best have not harmed families of color. We live in a world where white women often decide to “rescue” children of color by taking them from their homes, their cultures, and their mothers. So when a white woman decides she is “helping” by addressing a child of color she does not know as though her words will have any value to that child? I am already wary.

The fact that she is speaking to a newborn about topics that are emphatically none of her damned business & are in fact the province of that child’s parents just makes it even more offensive. It is a curious sort of racist White Woman’s Burden logic that allows you to engage with mothers of color in ways that would be patently offensive to you if the tables were turned. I have seen white mothers of children of color get deeply offended when conditioner and oil are suggested as remedies for the “unmanageable” hair of their child. Often that suggestion comes while they stare at the hair of our children and want to know how we get it to behave.

Meanwhile you often feel entitled to speak to us of everything from religion to sex as though we do not have our own morals to impart to our children. I have had my own share of “helpful” white women who do not know me, but who feel quite comfortable questioning my parenting decisions on every front. Over the last 12 years I have had unsolicited input from those women on everything from what I feed my son with food allergies, to how much responsibility I give to my son with special needs. These are not white women who are my friends, not women who my children know well, these are not even white women who have set foot in my house.

Instead they are little more than strangers (or in some cases employees at a child care facility) with little direct contact with my children. But they feel their input is worthwhile because I am black and a mother, and clearly I can’t know what I’m doing. Here is a thought for those white women who feel the need to approach mothers of color, or their children with unsolicited advice. Don’t. Really, just strangle whatever urge it is that drives you to behave so offensively, and practice the fine art of minding your own damned business. You are not our elders, our partners, or in fact in part of our lives. You do not know what is best for our children, or how we should raise them to survive in a racist society that allows your children safety & security that our children will never know. Spend more time teaching your kids (and yourself) how to engage with people of color as people, and less time finding ways to stroke your egos by attacking ours.

Dear White Women Who Think You Mean Well, -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

One of the things I think progressives who ignore history don’t understand is that just like racism is taught, so is distrust. Especially in Af-Am households where our parents & grandparents who have lived through Jim Crow, Cointelpro, Reaganomics, & the War on Drugs (better titled the War on Inner City Communities) talk to us early & often about how to stay out of trouble.

My grandmother had a “I won’t let the white man get you” speech that would curl your hair. And sure, it’s easy to claim that she was teaching reverse racism or whatever. But the reality is that she was a black woman born in 1924 who lost a brother to lynching, lived through segregation, & who had to get off the sidewalk for white people. I mean literally, get off the sidewalk and walk in the street because white people didn’t think they should have to share the sidewalk with black people. Think about having to do that for years.

My grandfather was less verbose, but one of the reasons he came North was his bad temper & complete inability to stay in his place in Arkansas. He sent money down home when they needed it, & we visited a few times when I was a kid. But a running theme in the conversations during those visits was that he left to keep from bringing trouble down on everyone. How would he have brought trouble home? By not being willing to be called Boy & for looking too many white men in the eye.

These are the people that raised me. And sure I went through my “racism is over”, “no one acts that way any more” phase. Then I got old enough to be outside by myself & I learned quick, fast, & in a hurry that racism is alive and well. But I stuck to the idea that it was isolated for a while longer. Long enough to marry a white man from East Texas & have a child with him. Somewhere around my ex defending his grandmother’s use of the word “Darkie” at our child’s second birthday party I figured out that racism is alive & well and perfectly capable of inhabiting people who claimed to not be racist. He had a black wife, a biracial son, & not a lick of concern about how the word darkie could be upsetting to me. Now we’re divorced & he hasn’t made an effort to see his son in years. Not since the last set of pics made it clear that kiddo can’t pass for white.

So, when progressives stand up & insist that race has nothing to do with anything because it’s a social construct, like a lot of Af-Am people my life experiences already have me side eying them. And then when you factor in coded language like “You people need to get off your couches and help us fight”, ” “Bringing up race is divisive”, or “Arrest the crack dealers & leave the protestors alone” I know it’s time to step back. Because race impacts our lives every day & in every way. From educational access to medical care to jobs to housing, our race is always a factor. It’s not just the history that we were taught by our parents & grandparents. It affects us in the here & now, and until it is addressed it will continue affecting everyone.

A War on Poverty, that is a class war, but that isn’t a War on Racism isn’t going to draw too many Af-Am folks out of the places they’ve already built to allow them to weather the storms that are inevitable in a racist society. We’ve learned from slavery, Jim Crow, Tulsa, Rosewood, the Red Summer of 1919, the Watts riots, the Civil Rights Movement, & America’s belief in the lie of the Welfare Queen that we cannot trust in people who are not explicitly anti-racist. That when we fight for our rights, we are fighting for our lives & the lives of those we love in communities that have always been the first to be attacked. So to be called to fight for the health of communities that have benefited from that history of oppression? Not a call that matters overmuch to us. Solidarity can never be a one way street, & until there is some recognition that fighting racism is fighting capitalism, I don’t see any hope of it developing between African American communities & the Occupy Movement.

What Happens When Class Warriors Ignore Race? -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

I’ve seen a lot of posts talking about OWS, police brutality, race, gender, & intersectionality. Many of those posts include links to the famous stories of police brutality. And those stories are important & should be told. But, by only talking about those stories I worry that we’re giving the impression that police brutality is relatively rare in communities of color. I’ve posted in the past about the cop who called me a nigger when I was 12 & the time my (then) 13 year old husband was beaten up by a cop. But, those weren’t our only run ins with abusive police officers. Experience has taught me to worry about the cops. I think of them as a risk to navigate more than I think of them as people who are here to protect me or my family. My husband & I have already had the talks with our oldest son about how to act when he’s stopped by the cops. Notice I said when he’s stopped.

That’s because I have been stopped while doing everything from taking a walk to grocery shopping to helping someone move. My father in law runs a Medicar service that primarily caters to the elderly who need help getting from their homes to doctor’s appointments. My husband used to ride along to help him out, since it’s a family business. One day they were stopped by the police because some cop decided a white van leaving a hospital on the West Side of Chicago fit the description of a tan truck that had been involved in a robbery in the Loop. They forced them out of the vehicle at gunpoint while a bunch of elderly people watched & worried. When it became clear that they didn’t fit the description? The cops told them they were free to go and left. That’s it. No apology, no consideration for all the people in the vehicle, but then everyone involved was a POC.

Matter of fact, let me tell you about Kourtney Wilson. I’ve known her since she was a teenager. She’s a nice young lady who unfortunately has lupus. Two years ago she had a seizure, her roommate dialed 911 & when the paramedics came (despite being told about her health status), they manhandled her & had the police arrest her.  As if that wasn’t bad enough they took her all over the place (two different precinct houses & two different hospitals) so that she was denied medical treatment for 9 hours. Think about that for a second. NINE HOURS after she had the seizure she finally got the help she needed. And that’s a case that only made the local news & the blogosphere before vanishing into the Wayback machine to be dug up by people like me with a reason to know her name. Imagine being afraid to call an ambulance when someone you love needs one because they could be arrested for being sick. Imagine being killed in your own home like Kathryn Johnston or Aiyana Jones. Imagine being harassed or having a gun pulled on you just because you’re going about your day while being of color.

We don’t have to be at a protest, or actually fit the description of a suspect to have a negative interaction with the police. Officers like John Burge have tortured POC into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit & gotten away with it for decades. We know the police cannot be trusted. So, to see the police using pepper spray on protestors, or going out dressed in riot gear to evict them from encampments? Not at all a shock. I know some will say “Well now we know, & we’re trying to fix it for everyone” but you’ll pardon me if I don’t buy that the changes OWS is fighting for will extend to POC. Not when every time someone brings up race and OWS there is invariably a “It’s not about race, it’s about class. Why are you being divisive?” response from multiple people. POC of every class have to be concerned with the possibility of police brutality, & until OWS addresses that reality, how can it represent the entire 99%?

On Police Brutality, Living While Of Color, & Why Brutality At OWS isn’t Shocking -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

So I’ve seen more than a few posts lately from people who are in positions where food is scarce and so is money. And I’ve been in more than a few financially insecure situations myself, so I’m going to talk to you about poverty in America & making it work when you’re broke as hell in the United States. First off, apply for food stamps. Yes, even if you don’t have any children. If anyone tells you that only people with children, only people of color, only people of whatever background that is not yours, will qualify? Don’t believe it until you look up your local laws. Protip: Race is never a factor in qualifying for food stamps. It is down to income, and far more people qualify for assistance than realize it. So, apply. The worst that can happen is that you’re turned down.

Now, the actual process of applying for food stamps can be tough if you don’t have access to all the bits of proof that they may want. The most important paperwork is proof of identity & your bank statements if you have an account. Most states have applications available online. Fill it out & if you can print it? Do so & take it into the office with you along with your proof of identity, residence, & income. If you are missing any of the above paperwork, that is okay. If you need a copy of your birth certificate or social security card & you cannot afford the fee there are usually ways around that requirement, even if you have to talk to a supervisor to get it done. Also, there are alternative methods of proving identity, income (or lack thereof), & the caseworker will discuss those with you. If you are homeless/couch surfing? Tell them that. Ask for an emergency food stamp interview. When you are being interviewed, let the caseworker lead the way. They know what they need from you & they will tell you what paperwork you need to bring in.

Go into the office early. Whatever time they open? That’s when you should be there because that increases your chances of being seen by a person in a position to help you. If you get there early enough & you have birth certificates, social security cards, leases etc. on hand? There is a good chance they will interview you that day. It can take up to 30 days for a decision to be made, but in my experience it’s usually more like a week if you have proof of identity with you. Also? You do not have to be a citizen to qualify for benefits. The rules have changed & changed again so here’s a handy guide. Minors are always eligible regardless of immigration status. If for some reason you don’t qualify for federal assistance, you should check with your county since some places have back up programs for those who do not qualify. Also, if you are eligible for food stamps you are usually eligible for other services like a free cellphone with 200 free minutes a month, & assistance with utilities. Local offices can also point you to resources that will assist you with finding housing or rent assistance programs. The safety nets are imperfect, but they are there & don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for using them.

Foodstamps 101 -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

One of the great things about the internet is how it lets people do things like exchange information. In many ways it has replaced things like the Green Book or word of mouth for transmitting info about places where stopping for more than gas (or stopping at all) wouldn’t be safe, where hotels will be welcoming, & where to avoid after certain times/at certain points of the year. Folks pass around info about where to find food/clothes/cocoa butter as well as what job markets are likely to be more welcoming and/or to require you to be a token in fact if not in name. This is important information. And yes, this information may make you feel something…unpleasant when you have to confront our view of the towns where you like to spend summers or where you grew up or whatever. Guess what? I feel something unpleasant when I can’t stop to pee for 50 miles because even though Jim Crow is over, no one in my car wants to risk a fight/jail/death because I forgot to tinkle in the last place we saw brown people walking around. Sundown towns had to put away their signs, but that doesn’t mean they had to put away their attitudes.

So, as you’re seeing these conversations roll across your screen, you may feel a need to jump in the middle & explain how that one family in that one town isn’t like that so we shouldn’t lump them in with the 35 other families in that town that are like that. Unless that one family in that one town is going to provide me with an armed escort? I don’t care about them. I care about the motherfuckers that might think it’s a fun game to run me over. And if you think that could only happen in the South? You haven’t been paying attention to where all those police brutality cases come up. Or what happens when POC go missing. Here’s a hint: Except for our friends & family no one really seems to bother raising a hue & cry over our disappearance.

Now, I know there are about to be some more feelings splattered all over the place because I wrote this post. Feel free to have them. You can even share them with me if you must, but do please give us all a break from your need to get in the middle of other conversations to insist that because your white self is safe in these predominately white spaces all other bodies are safe too. I’m sure you’ve never seen any racism in that all white neighborhood/town/region. That doesn’t mean it’s not there, that just means no convenient target has presented itself when you’re around.  Now, if you want to do something to change the impressions of these places? Don’t waste energy arguing with us to go against all common sense. Go talk to your neighbors/cousins/friends about exactly why POC avoid the places where they live. You know why I advise you to do that? Because it would actually be a step toward resolving the problem, instead of continuing to ignore it in favor of hoping that we’ll make it go away. Pro tip: The people who are the targets of bigots aren’t the ones with the problem.

Dear White Privileged People: This Post Is Not About Your Needs -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

1. If your biggest complaint about American black women & their activism is that they are so focused on their fight that they aren’t willing to fight your battles? It might be time to examine your internalized Mammy issues.

2. If you think we owe you admission to our spaces & silence while you’re in them? It might be time to examine your internalized Mammy issues.

3. If you think we owe you our time, energy, & passion and you owe us nothing? It is time to examine your Mammy issues.

I’m not here to clean up your mess, carry your spear, hold your hand, or cheer you own while I suffer in silence. I’m not here to raise your children, assuage your guilt, build your platforms, or fight your battles. If you don’t like the spaces that we’ve carved out for ourselves, or the way we run them? That’s fine. BUILD YOUR OWN SPACES! DO YOUR OWN WORK! You want a partner? I’m down. You want a Mammy? Get away from me before I really hurt your feelings.

Newsflash: That Mammy thing? That claptrap about the happy servant overjoyed to leave her family to serve someone else’s? That was just that a convenient myth for racists. Those same racists are still exporting the ideal that we are too loud, too angry, too ugly, & too beastly to be treated as human. We heard it when we were slaves & we heard it through Jim Crow, & we are still hearing it now as we sit at the intersection of racism & misogyny in our own culture.That’s why we’re fighting back on our own terms.

We are fighting a war on so many sides that it isn’t even funny & we already know that many of our so called allies will stab us in the back if it benefits their cause. We have had this fight with black men, white women, the LGBT community, & so many others that I could write three lists. So, if all you have to say to us is more whining about how we’re not making activism easier for you? We don’t care. We’re not going to care. Pick up the tools we’ve already created & use them or go wallow in your misery somewhere else.

Now, please go tell it on the mountain about how I’ve silenced you & let me know if that accomplishes anything for your cause.  I’ll tell you a secret…it won’t do anything, but keep you wasting your energy on supporting the same oppressors you claim to be fighting. Address those Mammy issues, address your own issues, do something about some issue somewhere except look at us to fix it for you.

Of Activists, Feminism, & Mammy issues -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

In the wake of the Fuck You Jim Butcher post a lot of the “It’s fantasy, don’t get offended” rhetoric is circulating again. Nothing new, but I’m a little perplexed by the argument that using real racial slurs (like Injun or Tar Baby) for fictional characters means that those real slurs are somehow neutered. That using real cities as backdrops and rewriting them to erase millions of people of color doesn’t mean anything…because it’s fiction. That including real sexist tropes & real rape culture is somehow a-okay because…it’s fiction. Fiction that is built on real racism, real sexism, & real classism is likely to be real offensive.

No one is saying that authors must write books that please everyone. That’s impossible. Fiction is supposed to be an escape for readers, (that is especially true of genre fiction) and when you use real social issues in your work you need to be aware of that fact. After all when your idea of an escape is a world where those social issues are present and often unaddressed or poorly handled? That says something about you. Don’t like what people think it says or that they’re angry when they discuss it? Might be time to examine your work and yourself a little more closely. Among other things, ask why your fiction needs to be rooted in real ‘isms. And just what are you & your readers trying to escape?

Fantasy, Reality, & ‘Ism’s -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

So, I’m looking at some of the comments and emails that are flooding my inbox demanding to know all the inner workings of my life when I had the abortion that saved my life. And I know I don’t owe anyone an explanation, but there seems to be an ongoing assumption that I had tons of family support, disposable income in abundance, and that my two kids were self sufficient. At the time my oldest was 8 and my youngest was 1 1/2. My friends are supportive, and one of them stepped in to take care of my kids that night but I’ve never had the kind of family of origin that will pitch in to help me (or each other) with more than the most basic things most of the time. It was better before my grandmother passed away, but she’s been gone a while now and without her we’re not a close family by any stretch of the imagination.

When I say my family will help, I’m mostly referring to my aunts or my husband’s family. My parents? They aren’t helpful. They got the phone call that I was in trouble while they were en route to St Louis for a televangelist’s convention. They suggested I call someone else to come get my kids, and then they continued their drive to St. Louis. I did get a phone call from my mother the night after the surgery. She was more concerned with me interrupting her weekend away than anything else as far as I could tell from the conversation. Admittedly I stopped listening after she launched into her latest version of ” This would be shocking, but this is the same woman that didn’t bother to name me and then got mad when I was 13 and filled out my own birth certificate with the name I’d been using at school instead of the moniker she’d always planned to saddle me with so I wasn’t shocked. It was the last straw for our already tenuous relationship, but that’s a story for another blog.

On the disposable income front…at that point we were a one income family and just barely getting by on that one income. It was cheaper for me to stay home with our two kids (childcare costs in Chicago are astronomical), but that also meant we had very little wiggle room financially. So, there was no question of my husband taking off work for weeks on end to allow me to stay in bed all day every day. And while his family will help to their best abilities, they have their own households to run and must go to their jobs too if they want to pay their bills. Same thing with our friends. I don’t know where people live that folks can just stop working and keep living, but I don’t live there.

Someone else asked why I didn’t take my kids with me to the hospital. Aside from not wanting to traumatize them, there was also the part where my oldest was at school. We lived close enough to his school that he could walk home, but having him come home to an empty house was not an option. Nor was waiting for him to get home since you know, I was bleeding profusely and all. My friend cleaned my blood off the walls and hid my sheets so that my son wouldn’t be scared. As for the demands that I have a c-section just in case a micro-preemie could have survived? You should go look at the survival rates for 20 week preemies again. Death wasn’t going to be averted, it was just a question of whether we both died. There seems to be this assumption that major surgery was a better idea than a less invasive procedure. Umm..no. The first thing discussed when I got to the hospital was the lack of viability for a child born at that point, then there was the part where I was in active labor & had no amniotic fluid when they did the ultrasound. But hey, go ahead and assume you know every detail of what was going on in my life so you can pass judgment on the decisions made by the person actually living it.

Lastly, no I wasn’t paid by Salon or anyone else to write that post. It’s not fiction, and the title of my blog isn’t an indication that my nonfiction should be taken with a grain of salt. It is an indication that I’m a published author of fiction and non fiction. The idea that this was a publicity stunt is laughable. I don’t know what planet some of the folks making that comment are on, but on no planet that I work on is having a blog post about a tragedy a way to boost attention for a closed company. Yes, I said closed. Verb Noire is defunct and has been for some time. My writing career has been developing for years and really, I know enough people to have a good chance at selling the book I’m working on.

Mind you, I wrote that post after an argument on Facebook with someone who insisted (as many people do) that abortion is not a medical procedure and that no one ever needs one. I posted it on my personal blogs & on a blog that I co write with several other angry black women. Most of my posts are made in a similar fashion. Most do not go particularly viral. This one has, and yes I did put myself out there when I agreed to let Salon re-post it. Not for an agenda, but simply to write what happened to me and talk about the fallacy in “No abortion is ever necessary” arguments. Did we file a lawsuit? No. I had a lot of other things to do (like mourn and heal) and the hospital staff that did eventually treat me encouraged me to go through internal channels so that patient care would be improved. I did that, and then for the sake of my sanity and my family I put away what happened to me and got on with the business of living my life.

Some say I should name and shame the doctor that refused to do the procedure. If I knew why he refused I might have done just that, but since I know that there are many possible reasons that he did not do it? I’ve left him to deal with the internal procedures in place. Same thing with the hospital where this happened. I could name it (funnily enough many people have correctly guessed and more than a few remember me naming it when it happened), but I didn’t write this post to shame the hospital any more than I wrote it to shame the doctor. Hard concept to grasp for some, but this post wasn’t about revenge or money. It was about me coming to terms with what happened and about my disdain for a particular pro-life argument. Believe it, don’t believe it. That’s up to you. My life will go on either way.

My life is not your life -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman

So, there’s this lawmaker out of Kansas who has lots to say about abortion. He’s currently best known for saying that women should plan ahead in case of rape and not expect their regular insurance to cover an abortion if they want one after being assaulted. And we could spend a lot of time going around about the flaws in his logic, or even hashing out when life begins, but really this post isn’t about any of that. This post is about the idea that anyone besides the pregnant woman should get a vote in what she does with her body after finding out about a pregnancy. For a host of reasons we as a society seem incapable of accepting bodily autonomy in women. This is reflected in the existence of street harassment, rape culture, and the million efforts to dictate whether or not women can control their own reproductive health. This attitude that women are shirking responsibility by opting out of having unwanted children has always boggled my mind.

But then I’m a mom, and I would never want my kids to grow up an unwanted child like I did. I love my kids more than I could ever explain & I do my best to give them the childhood I never had. Because I love them I had an abortion at 20 weeks. It was my 5th pregnancy (I had two miscarriages while I was trying to conceive my sons), and as it turned out my last. It was troubled from the start, I didn’t experience any of the normal indicators of pregnancy, so I found out when I was already 10 weeks along. No missed periods, in fact I was seeing an OB/GYN who specializes in treating fibroids and endometriosis in part because of the increased heaviness of my cycle. When we found out (that standard pregnancy test before surgery is necessary after all) I talked it out with my husband and we debated aborting (I got as far as the clinic), before ultimately deciding that we would try to make it work. My doctor advised me right off the bat that she wasn’t certain of a good outcome and that my pregnancy would be very high risk. I did exactly what she said in terms of taking it easy, because I wanted to give that child the best possible chance.  But the intermittent bleeding wouldn’t stop and I knew that there was a high chance that I would not be able to carry to term.

I was taking an afternoon nap when the hemorrhaging started. Laying in bed with my toddler napping in his room, and waking up to find blood gushing up my body is an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone. The placental abruption that my doctor had listed as a possibility was happening and I was going to have to do my best to take care of both of us. Mind you, my husband was at work and my not quite 2 year old sure couldn’t dial 911 for me so I had to make it to the phone & make arrangements for the sleeping toddler as well as his older brother before I could leave the house. I’ll spare you the gory details of my personal splatter flick, but suffice to say by the time I got to the hospital I probably needed a transfusion.

We all knew the pregnancy wasn’t viable, couldn’t be viable with the amount of blood I was losing, but it still took them hours to do anything, because the doctor on call didn’t do abortions. At all. Ever. No one on call that night did them in fact. A very kind nurse risked her job to call a doctor from the Reproductive Health Clinic who was not on call, and asked her to come in to save my life. Fortunately she was home, and even more fortunately she was able to get there relatively quickly. But by the time she got there I was in bad shape. Blood loss had rendered me borderline incoherent, an incredibly ignorant batch of students were fascinated by my case and more interested in studying me than treating me (one had the audacity to show me the ultrasound of our dying child while asking me if it was a planned pregnancy), and then there was the fact that I was on the L & D floor listening to other women have healthy babies while I bled out and the baby I had been trying to save died in my womb.

When the other doctor got there she had me moved to a different wing, got me painkillers (we were many hours into my hospital stay, and no one had bothered to give me anything for the pain despite my screams every time they decided to push on my abdomen or examine me for student edification), and then after checking my labs told us that I would need two bags of blood before she could do anything. Her team (a cadre of students who should all go on to run their own clinics) took turns coming in to check on me and my husband. They all kept assuring me that soon it would be over, and I would feel much better. My husband had to sign the consent for surgery (there was no question of me being competent enough to make decisions), and they took me away along with a third bag of blood to be administered during surgery.

What I didn’t know until much later was that the doctor took my husband aside while they were taking me back. She promised him she would do her best to save me, and then she warned him about the distinct possibility that she would fail. See, that doctor who didn’t do abortions was supposed to have contacted her (or someone else) immediately. He didn’t. His students didn’t either. Because I was their case and they weren’t done with me yet. Or something. Ostensibly there was a communication breakdown and they thought she had been notified, but given the talk about writing a paper on me that I do remember happening over my head? I doubt it. I don’t know if his objections were religious or not, all I know is that when a bleeding woman was brought to him for treatment he refused to do the only thing that could stop the bleeding. Because he didn’t do abortions. Ever.

My two kids at home were going to lose their mother because someone decided that my life was worth less than that of a fetus that wasn’t going to survive any way. Mind you, my husband told them exactly what my regular doctor had said, and the ER doctor had already warned us what would need to happen. But, none of that mattered in the face of this idea that no one needs an abortion. You don’t know what a woman who decides to abort needs, and you shouldn’t need to know in order to trust her to make the best decision for herself.  I don’t care why a woman aborts, all I care is that she has access to safe affordable healthcare. I don’t regret my abortion, and I will never extrapolate my situation to mean that the only time other women should abort is when their life is at stake. Why? Well after the news hit my family that I’d aborted I got a phone call from a cousin who felt the need to tell me that I was wrong to have interfered with God’s plan. In that moment I understood that the kind of people who will judge a woman’s reproductive choices are the kind of people that I don’t want to be.

Abortion Saved My Life -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman