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It’s my body and I’ll do what I want to! Voices lifted high: Our Bodies! Our Rights!

A COLLECTION OF POETRY AND QUOTES: BLACK FEMALE EMPOWERMENT

IN MEDICAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AS A TOOL

OF LIBERATION FOR ALL WOMEN

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“Our bodies are never public property under any circumstance”

- Gloria Steinem

Part I – Black Objects/Black Bodies

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Black Jezebel

Jungle Bunny!

Mammy!

Ghetto! Welfare Queen!

Black Jezebel!

A valued woman, lover, daughter, sister, mother, wife

yanked from the lands of Africa as a tool (HOE) for cheap labor

Objectified into a WHORE to HOE and plow the fields

Dehumanized, no longer human, my destiny, my future in the hands of racists

Made me WORK with my steady hands by day in the kitchen and fields

Made me WORK by night with my womb

unwillingly filled with the semen of Massa and Black Bucks

birthing new life that could never call me Mama children born of me that were not mine and sometimes yanked away

only to fall into the same objectified fate of the one who gave them life

Black Jezebel!

Why o why do you give me this name? this label? Me?

A valued woman, lover, daughter, sister, mother, wife

yanked from the lands of Africa as a tool (HOE) for cheap labor

My body cultivated and bred precious babies on demand

And then “the man” claims this got out of hand

Eugenicists and forced sterilization Marketing of contraceptives to slow down population growth of brown and black babies

Continued commodification of Black bodies to create

Neoliberalist agendas and policies that affect us ALL across the world

But I proclaim to you

No longer will you be allowed to kill and objectify my Black body! I stand strong…I stand together in solidarity with all women to push forth

Knowledge!

We hold strong in our quest for Reproductive Freedom and Justice! We are NOT objects-We are Women on a mission!

To kill the Black Body is to kill human life!

Forward!

Freedom for us equals Freedom for all!

Signed,

Black Jezebel!

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Ain’t I a Woman?

I give water to the savagely thirsty only to dehydrate self

The “Father of American Gynecology” rips apart my insides and it gives life and fertilizes his medical

breakthrough

He pokes, prods, shoves and pulls inside my private intimate parts

on public display- me, a spectacle to the crowd amused at his field of study and of the cries of the body in excruciating pain

because in their eyes she is property

she is an object

an object with no rights and no say so an object with no feelings

an object that this “Father” says does not feel pain in the same private parts as my pale colored

counterparts

My God! I give water to the savagely thirsty

only to dehydrate self

My fistula hangs as a result of early child rearing and hard work

My vagina, my insides, bears the scars of pain

Only to be subject to more pain from this “Father” looking for a medical breakthrough

These scars shall travel through time into the lives of my great great grandchildren

As they find themselves objects examined, their private lives on public display, as spectacles, as examples

of policies set into place based on ignorant judgments that do not heed

the cries of the object in excruciating pain

I gave water to the thirsty

My pain, my cries, my sacrifices fertilized and paved the way for a medical breakthrough A medical breakthrough that benefitted all women

Ain’t I A Woman?

Does not a Woman give birth and life and feed the thirsty and hungry? My water planted the flowers that gave life to a technology that benefitted womankind

So again I ask, Ain’t I a Woman?

Yes-I AM!

Publicly I proclaim to you! My private parts, my birthing hanging, scarred and overworked body parts gave life and that life gave

another life and life is life is life and continues to be life

I am a Woman, I ain’t your puppet to experiment upon I am Woman!

I am the planting ground for

LIFE!

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And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Sojourner

Truth

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-as quoted by Audre Lorde

Without community, there is no liberation.

We are powerful because we have survived.

We welcome all women who can meet us, face to face, beyond

objectification and beyond guilt.

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Throughout history, Black women have been dehumanized from past to

present. Part I of this book is a discussion of women being objectified and used

as objects for experimentation. The poem, “Black Jezebel,” captures this

dehumanization and the false labels placed upon Black women from past to

present. At one point, women had absolutely no rights and were forced to do

the will of others. A legacy of mislabeling and dehumanizing has been created

and follows the Black woman through the sands of time into the present.

There is still a persistent paternalistic attitude to push forth policies in

regulation of the female body, but thankfully-many women are not having that.

There is recognition in the fact that there is power in numbers and women,

Black, White, Native American have stood together to fight against unjust laws.

This is groundwork in the fight for reproductive justice.

“Ain’t I a Woman,” captures the pain of women subject to medical

experimentation. This touches on the medical breakthroughs of J. Marion

Sims, which are celebrated, but many do not know of the pain without

anesthesia and the unwilling bodies of his slaves that were used. During this

era, women were not considered fully human, thus enabling these cruelties to

happen to them. The powerful words of Sojourner Truth and Audre Lorde-both

staunch advocates of Black female rights and the rights for all closes out Part I

in the affirmation, legitimization, power, and affirmation of the strength of

women and the role they play. Humanity instead of objectification is made

manifest.

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“Being oppressed means the absence of choices”

-bell hooks

“The acceptability of birth control has always depended on a morality that separates

sex from reproduction. In the nineteenth century, when the birth control movement

began, such a separation was widely considered immoral. The eventual widespread

public acceptance of birth control required a major reorientation of sexual values.”

-Linda Gordon, The Moral Property of Women

Part II – Let’s Talk about Sex! “Comstockin’, Birth Controllin’ & That Damn Eugenics”

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1873 – Full COCK Block goes into effect! Anti-obscenity!!!!!

The Comstock Act = No birth control or DIRTY books for YOU!

We support natural family planning methods but do NOT condone

contraceptives! The use of contraceptives leads to our men having sex

outside of the marriage bed with no fear of repercussion. No pure, God-

hearted woman shall give up her sexual purity for the sake of having sex

for fun!

Signed,

Women purity reformers

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Control

And for what reason should I hand authority of my womb over to the likes of men?

I can think of not one as I remember when

Men thrust their penis in

Women…and

children sprung out

Even if they were unwilling, they could not protest, much less shout

Contrary to popular belief, my Granny and other women slaves, decided no more babies

and stirred creams, potions, recipes

and created remedies

to halt the unwilling participation in the tragedies of becoming mommies

I too shall take control of my destiny!

At this time, I have no desire to become a mommy

If not stirred creams, potions, recipes stirred by my hands

I shall hope to see Ms. Antoinette Hon for her remedies

Her advertisement bids her “sisters” to not “suffer” in secret

Her hands experienced with knowledge and how to’s…

I do wonder if, I as her Negro sister, she is someone I can go to?

For we are connected as sisters, different colors but possess the same womb!

So for what reason should I hand authority of my womb over to the likes of men?

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That Margaret Sanger is a champion and advocate for women’s rights in

access to birth control! She worked in a poor community so she knows

alllllllll about the sufferings of the poor! She went to jail as a consequence

for educating the masses about the importance of these rights!!!!

- a voice within the masses

No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can

call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a

mother. – Margaret Sanger

Birth Control – Women’s Empowerment! Or Population Control?

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! A WOMAN DRESSED

AS A NURSE IS DISTRIBUTING “STERILIZERS” THAT ARE

“WHITE AND ROUND” AND ARE CONTAINED IN VERY

SMALL BOTTLES. YOUNG, MINORITY FEMALES IN LA ISLA

DE PUERTO RICO-BEWARE! CUIDADO!!!!

-El Imparcial- local newspaper issued statements during birth control drug

trials in Puerto Rico

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Eugenics

The study of methods to improve the human race by controlling reproduction.

(American Bioethics Advisory Commission) “Selective breeding and sterilization”

“The main reason more black children are living in poverty is that the people having the most children are the ones least capable of supporting them.”

- Philadelphia Inquirer

Reproductive Rights

vs.

Population Control

AND Sterilization

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Haiku

In The Past Wombs Forced

To Produce Babies-Now Laws

Seek To Close The Wombs

Haiku

Open Those Legs Wide!

Those Were His Words-Now He Says

Keep Those Damn Legs Closed!

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Female victims of rape…impoverished/disadvantaged…

labeled as “feeble minded” “imbeciles” “promiscuous”

and

sterilized

“Three generations of imbeciles are enough… We have seen more than once that the

public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it

could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser

sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped

with incompetence. It is better for the entire world, if instead of waiting to execute

degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can

prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that

sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.”

-Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Carrie Buck vs. Dr. Bell – raped and impregnated by her mother’s nephew-but SHE

was the one deemed “crazy”

“I didn’t want nobody looking at me because everybody knew what happened to me.

That’s how I felt inside my heart, I believed this every single day. I’m crushed. They cut

me open like I was a hog.” - Elaine Riddick - Winfall, NC

Raised by grandmother, “Miss Peaches,” in a 2 bedroom house located in a cotton

field…raped at the age of 13 when walking home from school…gave birth then

ordered to be sterilized by the state of NC-deemed “feeble minded” and/or

“promiscuous”

Female victims of rape…impoverished/disadvantaged…

labeled as “feeble minded” “imbeciles” “promiscuous”

and

sterilized

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“Sometimes I can look around me and find beauty in the ugliness and

ugly things that happened to me.” - Elaine Riddick

“No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women...

“Even in the face of powerful structures of domination, it remains possible for each of

us, especially those of us who are members of oppressed and/or exploited groups as

well as those radical visionaries who may have race, class, and sex privilege, to define

and determine alternative standards, to decide on the nature and extent of

compromise.”

“To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to

undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate

domination.”

“Women need to know that they can reject the powerful's definition of their reality ---

that they can do so even if they are poor, exploited, or trapped in oppressive

circumstances. They need to know that the exercise of this basic personal power is an

act of resistance and strength. Many poor and exploited women, especially non-white

women, would have been unable to develop positive self-concepts if they had not

exercised their power to reject the powerful's definition of their reality.”

-as quoted by bell hooks

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Part II examines SEX. It touches upon the legislation of sex,

contraceptive use and Eugenics. The Comstock Act came into place to legislate

sex. This banned the sale of lewd materials thought to cause immorality and

along with Purists of the day, only sex within marriage and the use of natural

family planning was acceptable. The poem, “Control,” shows a woman claiming

her control over her body from men putting her trust and hope to be welcomed

into the home of Antoinette Hon in order to obtain contraceptives for her

personal use. If one was found with lewd materials or offering contraceptive

devices and means-they could be arrested. Margaret Sanger was a woman who

championed for women to be able to control whether or not they desired

motherhood and even went to jail for her beliefs. However, later on she became

associated with Eugenics movement. The Eugenics movement pushed for

control of the undesirable population-which included Black people,

immigrants, low class everyday folk and anyone else the powers that be

deemed undesirable. Two unjust instances have been highlighted that

advocated for sterilization of women who were raped and then had illegitimate

children. One is the Carrie Buck case that pushed forth a landmark Supreme

Court Case, and the other is the story of Elaine Riddick-a victim of the

Eugenics campaign and goings on in NC. The Haiku addresses the legislature

that has changed from one end of the spectrum to the other and in closing, the

powerful words of feminist activist, bell hooks, highlights the power of women’s

abilities to fight and push against domination in society.

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“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for

wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their

capacity to be transformed?” – bell hooks

Part III – We Shall Not Be Moved Healing in the Fight for Reproductive Rights-Knowledge = Power to Push Against Policies

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Right ON!

After all I have been through as a woman

After all many of us have been through as women

We have a RIGHT to equal and just access to healthcare

We have a RIGHT to have a say so over our bodies

Unjust policies being pushed forth based on ignorance and inaccuracies

Drug testing to qualify for public benefits

Female prisoners, shackled and chained to a cot as their bodies bring forth life

Forced sterilizations without proper and informed consent

Experiments on our bodies to revolutionize the medical industry

Clinical trials that do not include us as women, but expectations to partake the meds introduced

Our bodies throughout time have not been our own

From the Hottentot Venus put on display

To the enslaved women put on display by MadMan Sims with no anesthesia

Onto Henrietta Lacks

Whose cells are scientific wonders that still live on nearly a century after her death?

Fast forward to the sterilization victims labeled feeble minded, sex fiends

Onto the disadvantaged women now deemed as Ghetto Queens

Objectified Bodies used up in the name of science

Objectified Bodies dealing with policies implemented by paternalistic minds

Paternalistic Policies

Paternalistic Polices

This SHOUT OUT is for you!

After all I have been through as a woman

After all many of us have been through as women

We have a RIGHT to equal and just access to healthcare

We have a RIGHT to have a say so over our bodies

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HEALING

“The history of medical abuse is a grim but only partial account of the legacy of

antebellum medical relations. Simply put, enslaved African Americans were not

passive victims of medical malice, nor were they helpless dependents on white

health care. Instead, communities in slavery nurtured a rich health culture, a

constellation of ideas and practices related to well-being, illness, healing, and death

that worked to counter the onslaught of daily medical abuse and racist scientific

theories.” – Sharla M. Fett – Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power on Southern

Slave Plantations

In the present, we embrace and desire to carry on the strong

and empowering legacy of those that came before us. In the

midst of it all, we stand strong! We use our knowledge as a

catalyst to use our voices to lift high as advocates for those who

are not able-as voices to the voiceless. My voice, your voice,

their voices, OUR voices lift far, they lift high above as forces to

break the chains that bind us all. No matter the color, creed,

culture, social class and background-Liberation! Freedom!

Justice! FOR ALL!

RaTasha Tillery-Smith

“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations

for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before”

I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so

terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence

would save us, but it won't. - Audre Lorde

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Resolved, that the women of this nation in 1876, have greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution than the men of 1776. ~Susan B. Anthony

I ask no favors for my sex.... All I ask of our brethren is that they will take their feet from off our necks. ~Sarah Moore Grimké

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise – Dr. Maya Angelou

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If the first woman God ever made was

strong enough to turn the world upside

down all alone, these women together

ought to be able to turn it back, and get it

right side up again! And now they is

asking to do it, the men better let them. –

Sojourner Truth

Your community deserves you whole.

Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs

I see my body as an instrument, rather than an ornament.

Alanis Morrisette

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To Kill the Black Body

Is to Kill Human Life

Freedom for the Black Woman

EQUALS

Freedom for ALL!

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Epilogue

Black women, in the midst of the policies set forth from past to present

Affirm your humanity

Affirm your femininity

Affirm your identity

In doing so

An open and sacred space

Busts WIDE OPEN

And creates a safe haven for all of humanity

In this open and sacred space is

HEALING

UNDERSTANDING

LOVE

and most importantly

FREEDOM FOR ALL!

FORWARD!