The Blame Game in Black Maternal Health

*Late Post, Written in 2024*

I'm honestly fucking annoyed with the way media covers and portrays the Black maternal health crisis, and in fact I'm tired of seeing coverage about it because of how negative it is and how misinformed it makes the public as well as how it has been hijacked by the general public as a way to engage in political warfare.

Recently, I had to tap out of social media because it just got way too loud. The lingering stench of adversity is still hovering around in the air since news broke of Tori Bowie's death. I am always deeply shaken to my core when I hear of a Black persons preventable death, but this one in particular I felt more sick to my stomach than usual for so many reasons. I had to log off. I could not bare to read or even skim the details. As a Black woman who has experienced maternal health complications due to trauma created by the systems of our nation, this story as many, are extremely triggering for me and I’m sure many others. Additionally, as someone who is in a life phase of conception and struggling with multiple “unexplained” pregnancy losses, this type of news is the last thing I or anyone in this situation wants to hear.

Aghast but not surprised, America has killed yet another Black body. Her death being attributed to complications of childbirth but what media and society fails to mention is that it was primarily brought upon by racism, discrimination and bias from America itself. Yep, I said it, America gets away with murdering Black pregnant and newly postpartum women, as well as Black men, children and babies on a DAILY basis.

No matter how much coverage this gets, it will continue to happen without appropriate and affirmative action to the people who are to blame. Who is to blame? Many people and many systems, it's not just the medical system and it's not just the providers who represent them. It's time that we all take some major leaps backward to see what is causing all of this.

The media continues to place the blame on this innocent woman by speaking in a negative and shaming tone about her struggles with mental illness and her general distrust of the medical system, namely the hospital and rightfully damn so.

Let’s be real, society & media rarely does right by us. Instead of honoring Tori Bowie's humanity or holding the system accountable, they ran with headlines that subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) painted her as the problem. The underlying tone? That she was too paranoid, too sick, too stubborn to seek help. But what those headlines miss, what they always miss is ‘the WHY’. Why would a Black woman distrust the very system that has historically dehumanized, neglected, and dismissed us? That’s not paranoia, that’s survival.

Mental health isn’t a moral failing. Medical distrust isn’t an individual defect. They are symptoms of a violent and broken system that repeatedly fails Black women, and then gaslights us into believing that we are the ones to blame when things go wrong.

Tori Bowie didn’t fail the system. The system failed her.

And it will continue to fail all of us, unless we make them do things differently.

Melanin Milk SD was born from that same ache and m same fire, out of a need to carve out space where Black birthing and lactating people can just be. Be soft. Be powerful. Be angry. Be held. Be heard. Be healing. Not reduced to data. Not dissected in headlines. Not turned into hashtags. Just human.

Tori Bowie should be alive.

So should so many others.

And while I don’t have all the answers, I do know this, we deserve more than survival. We deserve joy. We deserve safety. We deserve to carry life without fear. We deserve to tell our stories on our terms.

I’m committing today to start changing the narrative.

With my truth.

With this blog.

With you.

Thanks for holding space with me.