Reflections on structural racism and safe childbirth for Black women. Regarding the panel “Health of Afro-descendant populations in Mexico and Brazil”
Rosa Campoalegre Septien [1]
Center for Psychological and Sociological Research
Coordinator of the CLACSO Working Group on Afro-descendants and counter-hegemonic proposals
This text revisits the reflections and comments made during the panel on “Health of Afro-descendant Populations in Mexico and Brazil.” I would like to address it in four key areas. The first is what this panel is and what the content presented by each speaker means [2] . The second is what we find in terms of positions and approaches. Third, what is the central theme of this panel? And finally, I would like to highlight some political and epistemic contributions that emerged from this panel and a dialogue about certain deconstructions we made of the panelists.
This panel has offered a women's perspective on our bodies. It has presented a photograph of the Costa Chica region of Oaxaca, and we are interested in highlighting the contrasts; it is a panel of contrasts. Brazil has the largest Black population outside of Africa. However, the panel also considered the situation in Mexico, which is among the countries with the smallest Afro-descendant population [3] . Similarly, Brazil and Cuba were the last countries in the Americas to officially abolish slavery, while Mexico was not. I am therefore thinking about the geopolitical and historical contrasts of yesterday and today that this panel brings to the forefront. It can be understood, then, that what Giovanna raised regarding the obstetric genocide suffered by Black women in Brazil is not insignificant, it is not a minor issue.
So when we say that this panel showcased the realities of Brazil and Mexico, we mean to highlight that this panel is a stage for a new era, for diverse and relevant perspectives on the field of racialized people studies, but from the standpoint of their resistance to related systems of oppression. The significance of this panel is that it continues the academic and activist program we developed, entitled “Beyond the Decade for People of African Descent.” This panel transcends the Decade's focus. Nowhere else in the document that this panel has addressed the issues, no document outlining human rights in the region today, neither the Montevideo Agenda nor the Decade Plan, contains such a sensitive topic as that of Black midwives, which we have discussed here in the panel debates.
There is a very peculiar and often invisible way of reproducing life from the position of enunciation that was given to us as Black women. This means we are placing a new issue on the post-pandemic anti-racist agenda, and we have been very active in deconstructing that agenda. We are saying that it needs to be deconstructed, and we are traveling to various countries, articulating the academic and political movement from an Afro-feminist perspective, seeking a new way of understanding the anti-racist agenda. Thank you to the panel and this event for highlighting this important moment we are experiencing. And you will see how this issue of safe Black childbirth is progressing . Because when people talk about safe childbirth, they don't think about racialized women. Or they think about them by objectifying them, as in the study that Giovana presented, as Raita showed today, and as Lina demonstrated.
The second moment is how they present it, and we see that we are facing a panel that has defended a decolonial Afrofeminist position. This is what racialized women are experiencing. This is an example of the articulation of demands from a movement translated and systematized in academic and political terms. And it has presented two major themes—it's all one and the same—our bodies, our resistance, health, and what we do with public policy. This diagnosis must serve as the basis for public policy to transform it.
The central/epistemic theme of this panel has been structural racism—and I emphasize that we now say systemic racism; it's not just structural, it's systemic—and this has been demonstrated above all in its two major forms: institutional racism, in what is done and what is not done through actions and omissions; racism in healthcare institutions; and epistemic racism, in how we are named, how we designate these processes, and how we proceed from academia. We believe that this is the central theme of this panel.
Now, from this central point, important contributions and conclusions have been made. Therefore, I'd like to highlight at least three concepts: obstetric racism, obstetric genocide of Black women, controlled governance, and the controlled governance of our bodies. The State doesn't stop; the control it still has over our lives isn't enough for it; now it wants our bodies. Well, no. We say no! And that's why we've placed this among the priorities of the anti-racist agenda, and for us, this is truly vital; it's the path, it's a priority. And in this sense, we've placed this issue among the key points for debate in the context of the reconfiguration of racism (Campoalegre, 2022).
Necropolitics, as we could define it, according to Achille Mbembe (2018), is the power of the State to decide who lives and who dies. And the State, because it doesn't see things clearly, always decides that it is we who die—Afro-descendants, racialized people. So this issue is one of necropolitics, not health; it is an issue of caring for life in its broadest sense. And to conclude this dialogue, I would like to have this conversation with the people, with our colleagues who have presented.
I distance myself from considering them inequalities. As a feminist, I consider them gaps, and these are social gaps—disproportionate, unjustified, and reproduced inequalities upon which the coloniality of power, knowledge, and gender is based. I recommend that the panelists use the term "gaps" instead of "inequalities" in their research. Inequalities arise when you have the right to live and not die in a given context; that is an inequality, a significant gap. Therefore, incorporating this also implies distancing oneself from the concepts that reproduce the patriarchal order.
It is equally necessary to reclaim our status as working women, both inside and outside the home. We are workers; those who earn wages in the labor market are workers; they possess and value life. It is important to understand the three Rs of care: recognize, redistribute, and re-dignify. Since we are talking about women, we must use the language of feminist struggle. And if that language is used by racialized women, it must be interpreted through the lens of Afro-feminisms or Indigenous feminisms, which have many valuable contributions to offer.
Finally, I echo Georgina Herrera, our ancestral poet, the eternal free spirit of Cuban literature, in her poem "Georgina," who says, "the day is propitious for bridging distances, even our own." The invitation is: fight alongside us, racialized women, for a Black, dignified, humane, and safe birth. And if not, what is the purpose of human rights?
“I am the fugitive, the one who broke down the doors of the master’s house and took to the mountains ,” Georgina Herrera teaches us. Then I always call on the audience to take to the mountains with us, Black women, with us feminists regardless of race, for a safe and Black birth, to take to the mountains.
Bibliography
Campoalegre, Rosa (2021), «Racialized pandemics and the reconfiguration of racism: key to a debate in Latin America and the Caribbean» in Tedeschi, Losandro Antonio (comp.), Portraits of Pandemic: essays for another world, São Paulo, Balão Editorial Ocareté, pp. 119-127.
Mbembe, Achille (2018), Necropolitics, São Paulo, N-1 edition, pp. 80
[1] Professor and Senior Researcher at the Center for Psychological and Sociological Research. Recipient of the Cuban Academy of Sciences Award. Coordinator of the CLACSO Working Group on Afro-descendants and Counter-Hegemonic Proposals. Email: [email protected]
[2] Ludan Gbaye, Raita Maki, Celine Demol, Giovanna de Carli and Lina Berrio.
[3] According to the 2020 Census conducted by INEGI, 2,576,213 people self-identified as such.
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