MyBrownBaby is a weekly blog that provides thought-provoking, insightful, wickedly funny commentary on motherhood, for moms who love their brown babies, by moms who do the same.
Through their posts, our MyBrownBaby bloggers lift the voices of African-American moms looking for the 411/advice/a high-five on everything from pregnancy and childrearing to sex, work, and relationships—all filtered through the lens of the African American experience.
Be clear: I’m a Raphael Saadiq stan from WAY back. Like, “Little Walter” and “Feels Good” way back. One of these days, maybe I’ll tell you all about the time my high school besties and I dressed up like Tony! Toni! Tone’! for Halloween and put on a three-song lip-synch concert for my girl’s mom and her friends (tragic). Or the time I interviewed the group in person and literally had to give myself a talking to before I saw them face-to-face so I wouldn’t get all Beatles fan on them when I was supposed to be professional and serious and working (The talk worked. Kinda.). Yeah.
No matter that. Today, I want to tell you about yet another reason why I heart Raphael Saadiq. In addition to being an incredible singer, producer, musician, songwriter and the mastermind behind some of my favorite songs—“Just Me and You,” “You Should Be Here,” anything by Lucy Pearl and his entire “The Way I See It”album—Raphael has a huge heart of gold. Specifically, one that loves the babies. And, with the help of SPIN Magazine and American Express, he’s putting it to awesome use on behalf of The Roots of Music Program, a New Orleans-based non-profit program that gives music education, tutoring and lots of other goodness to students from The Big Easy. From now through January 28, 2011, American Express will donate $1 to The Roots of Music Program every time someone watches THIS VIDEO INTERVIEW FEATURING RAPHAEL SAADIQ visiting New Orleans and The Roots of Music Program while he gives the 411 on the impact of music on the lives of children.
For sure, The Roots of Music Program is servicing a huge musical need in the lives of brown babies in the Crescent City, where marching bands once were an integral part of middle schools until Katrina. Today, through The Roots of Music Program, more than 100 students are getting a free after school music education in history, theory, instrumental instruction and ensemble performance, and serving it up in a full marching band that’s been parading the city since Mardi Gras 2009. So popular is the program that it has a waiting list for new students. And every pennyThe Roots of Music Program collects means something to the children it serves.
There’s a story behind the number 7 for one beautiful little girl named Ashanti.
See, while so many other children were enjoying the first rays of summer vacation, Ashanti and her mom, Saundra, found themselves taking up residence at the Ronald McDonald House in Miami. Ashanti was sick—so very sick; she was in need of a liver transplant, but doctors could offer her nothing more than a spot on a long waiting list for a new organ.
But, like a miracle, two months after Ashanti and her family received that dire news, a match was found. And between August 5 and November 3 of this year, while Ashanti underwent and recovered from surgery, The Ronald McDonald House became a “home away from home” for the little girl and her mom—a place where they could count on the love and support needed while she got well.
During her stay, Ashanti celebrated her seventh birthday, surrounded by her new Ronald McDonald House family and friends. And today, Ashanti is doing extremely well—looking for a fresh start with her new, healthy liver.
Talk about lucky number 7!For Ashanti and her family, there isstrength in that number.
Seven days a week, 365 days a year, Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) help families like the Jacksons find the support and comfort they need as they deal with life-changing illnesses. And the charity needs our help to continue its mission to serve children and families in need of a safe, comfortable, loving place to stay while they undergo treatment.
I’ve written before about all of the interesting ways Ronald McDonald House Charities fundraises,including the RMHC Day of Change, in which I urged MyBrownBaby readers to drop off their spare change at a local McDonalds. This time, I’m urging you to open your eyes—to pay attention to numbers all around you. Through December 31, pedestrians, football and basketball fans, shopping mall goers, employees of local businesses, and the general public will find numbers painted on retail windows and sidewalks, projected onto buildings, posted on scoreboards, or stamped on uniforms. These numbers represent meaningful stories about RMHC, its programs and the families the charity has helped along the way. A URL including the number will take people to a website that explains the story behind the number. It’s a bit of mystery and intrigue that will get people clicking to learn more about the stories behind the numbers and, hopefully, donate to a local Ronald McDonald House.
In this season of giving, won’t you please consider helping families find strength in numbers? RMHC—along with MyBrownBaby—is encouraging those looking to do some good this holiday season to donate to RMHC. The organization’s goal is to reach 4,200 donations by December 31.
Editor's note: If you follow poet and Bringing Up Boogie columnist Bassey Ikpi here on MyBrownBaby, you know that she is a tireless advocate for mental health. You should know, too, that she's equally passionate about HIV/AIDS advocacy—specifically building bridges of acceptance and love between people without HIV toward those who do. Her mission is to remove the stigmas that come with the disease, with the hope that doing so will encourage people who are at risk or infected to get smart, get tested, get help and get support. Considering how HIV/AIDS is devastating black women—check out this story, which chases down stats showing black women have the highest rates of new HIV/AIDS infections but get very little attention in the fight—it is high time that we got smart not only about protecting ourselves, but embracing our sisters and helping them find their way. Shout out to Bassey for this piece, which she performed in this YouTube video with Talib Kweli, as part ofGlobal Grind's "Positive Charge" campaign, which debuted on World AIDS Day. Below the video are the words—each and every one of them raw, beautiful, relevant. Necessary.
There Is No Comfort in Silence
By BASSEY IKPI
don’t ever forget your body
don’t ever forget this heart
that saves
this thing that pushes blood
and oxygen
this pulsating beating living thing
don’t ever forget your heart
your lungs
your breath
this mass of tissue and muscle that
holds your compassion hostage
HIV will not hold you hostage
eliminate the sigh
eliminate the look that weighs tons
free the loveliness
the comfort
embrace the spirit that longs for touch
you must do this in solidarity
for those afraid
those who turn their body over to sickness
you must tell them that they are loved
that they can remain whole
despite this thing that threatens the blood
but you will never threaten love
will never withhold
will only embrace
offer comfort like a sweetness dancing on your tongue
Make the earth a promise
and exhale this vow into the wind
“I will love you always.”
let the breeze carry it across the earth
let it touch the women, the men,
the babies, the families
let it touch the continents in need of healing
and understanding
let it touch the hearts that need it.
there is no comfort in silence
hold the hand that aches for peace
hold the body that aches for peace
offer them a morning without judgement
offer them a night without shame
offer them a peace that holds centuries
carved into their throats
allow them the freedom of a hollow scream
allow them the pleasure of acceptance
allow them a glittered night
golden, halo of sun
bodies warmed by understanding
cups overflowing with encouragement
this battle deserves an army
this war, a fair fight
this love serves as ammunition
a warning shot into the distance
say, “we love you always.”
then say it again.
then say it again
and again
and again
and again
say it once more
until the silent find their voices
hidden in the corners without light
hand them candle
hand them torch
hand them bonfire
burn courage into your chest
watch it scar over
tough and impenetrable
then listen
the heart beats a welcomed
love song
the spirit spills peace into your veins
courage
there will be no room for secrets
there will just be this desire to live
to do what it takes to make your days longer
to dull the ache that comes from silence
to offer fistfuls of truth and acceptance
send a message into a wind
spin it into a thousand hurricanes
create a whirlwind of strength
let it fall
a thousand raindrops upon their heads
until they are soaked with the truth of this
“we will love you always.”
* * * *
About our MBB Contributor:Bassey Ikpi is a Nigeria-born, Oklahoma-bred, PG County-fed, Brooklyn-led writer/poet/neurotic. She’s half awesome, a quarter crazy and 1/3rd genius... the left over bit is a caramel creme center. She’s also the single mother of an amazing man-child, Elaiwe Ikpi. Get more Bassey at basseyworld.com
If you would like to be a featured contributor on MyBrownBaby, email your essays/ideas/blog posts/rants/musings to Denene at denenemillner at gmail dot com.
It was Christmas time and we wanted to teach our kids the beauty and value of giving freely and so my sister-in-law and I, then the room moms in our kids’ second grade class, started searching for a local charity the children could adopt for the season. We researched homeless shelters. We looked into group homes. We even considered playing “Secret Santa” to some kids who’d left wishes on the “Angel Tree” at our local mall.
But it was an earnest and heartfelt tap on the shoulder from one of our class teaching assistants that made plain we needed to put The Ronald McDonald House Charities at the top of our list. With tears in her eyes, she explained to us what a tremendous resource RMHC was to her and her family when her daughter was battling leukemia. The Atlanta-area Ronald McDonald House hosted her, her husband and their children (the family had travelled from Arizona to seek treatment for their daughter)—feeding them, giving them a place to rest, and serving as a base station close enough for them to have quick access to their sick daughter and her medical team. Most importantly, the Ronald McDonald House took away the worry of the everyday—the laundry, the grocery shopping, the cooking, the cleaning—so that she and her family could focus on what was most important: Being strong for their sick child. And each other.
I’ll never forget how grateful the folks at the Ronald McDonald House were for the load Mari, Miles, Angelou and I collected from the class and donated on its behalf; the folks at our area Ronald McDonald House needed simple things—snacks for the kids, everyday toiletries like soap, tampons, and disposable razors, and pampering products for weary mothers, like lip gloss and nail polish and things that would help them feel pretty, even as they stared down the most ugly experience any mother could face: dealing with the devastation of watching her child suffer from and fight a devastating illness.
They were grateful. And we were happy to help.
And now I’m calling on MyBrownBaby readers to do their part to help a fantastic charity that serves more than four million (!) children AND their families in houses, mobile units and hospital rooms throughout 52 countries around the world. Today is the Ronald McDonald House Charities Day of Change and all day long, people around the world are going to participating McDonald’s restaurants to drop change in those cute Ronald McDonald House containers—pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and more, that will keep sick children and their families together in communities across the country.
When it’s in your pocket, your spare change may seem like a small amount. But when added with others’, it can make a HUGE difference. The nickels, dimes and quarters dropped into RMHC Donation Boxes at McDonald’s restaurants last year added up to more than $19 million.
Help RMHC top that by participating in today’s RMHC DAY OF CHANGE. Drop your small change into an RMHC Donation Box at participating McDonald’s to make a big difference. (Look for them at the counter or drive-thru.) I'm going to have Mari and Lila donate money from their allowance, and I'll be donating all the change at the bottom of my favorite purses (a small fortune, believe you me) for the cause.
I never could strike that Jane Fonda leg-warmer pose. My legs are too heavy.
Seriously, I'm not going to lie: I have a love/hate relationship with exercise. Get me in the room with some African drums and my incredible dance instructor (and friend!) Sauda (as chronicled in THIS POST), and it doesn't matter that I can't dance a lick—I'm swaying and bending and leaping my way to a more fit body, and having so much fun that I'm telling everyone I know that I'm addicted to exercising. But let me walk into the great room in my basement and see the treadmill all dusty and lonely, laying up against my good walls, and I'll cuss out that big hunk of machinery like it stole money from my mama.
I guess you can say that I can't really be left to my own devices when it comes to staying fit. I do my best to eat right—not only for my sake, but for that of my family—and my girls and I are good for inspiring each other to get in a good work out at group classes, like belly and pole dancing. But outside of that, I need a bit of inspiration to get my work-out on at home.
On Saturday, May 1, I'm going to get a stadium full of inspiration to get moving, for sure, when I take part in World Fitness Day. The brainchild of actress, author, philanthropist and fitness icon Jane Fonda, World Fitness Day is an annual initiative to highlight the importance of staying active and fit. I'll be joining literally thousands of Georgians on the field of the Georgia Dome—home of the Atlanta Falcons—to participate in a one-of-a-kind group workout with celebrity fitness and health experts Richard Simmons, Billy Blanks, Denise Austin, dancer/director/choreographer Debbie Allen, and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger also will deliver a video tribute—I swear, if he says, "I'll be back," it will make my millennium!—and The Pointer Sisters will pump up the crowd with live renditions of some of their greatest hits. Ludacris will also kick a few verses for the cause.
Tickets to participate in World Fitness Day are $75 a pop (though if you register now, you can get 50% off by CLICKING HERE); you can come alone or bring a bunch of friends and come as a team. If you want to just cheer on your peeps and get workout tips without moving, tickets are only $25. Kids ages 12 and up, accompanied by an adult, can participate, too; their tickets are $25, too. To register, form a team, or become a workout sponsor, CLICK HERE.
Not planning to be in Atlanta on May 1st? You can still participate in the workout by logging on HERE to check out a live feed of the event on UStream. Tune in and you might just see me getting my sweat on and doing my best Debbie Allen imitation:
You want fame? Well fame costs. And right here is where you start paying... in sweat.
I was going to have Mari write a "Earth" poem like the one she wrote HERE, or get Lila to draw a beautiful picture celebrating Earth Day—maybe post a few tips on how we could be better about reducing, reusing and recycling, like those I found HERE. I even considered posting Marvin Gaye's "Mercy, Mercy Me," the ultimate Earth Day anthem. Each of these things was meant to remind my MyBrownBaby friends to protect our planet at all costs. After all, we have but one Earth; who are we to do anything but revere all that the Lord has made?
And then I started flipping through my iPhotos and came across some breathtaking pictures—each one of them taken over the past year as our family made a much more conscious effort to enjoy nature and the great outdoors. I'm more of a keep-it-in-the-house kind of girl, but I have to admit that I really enjoyed breathing in the fresh air and admiring the wonders of nature. Here, our year-long celebration of the Earth, in pictures. My hope is that you'll be inspired by our journey, and perhaps create some beautiful outdoor memories of your own.
Snow Balls, February 2010
Lila and her best friend, Maggie, got a kick out of seeing who could make the biggest snow ball!
The Secret Life of Bees, April 2009
When our cousin found a wall-wide beehive nestled in the porch wall of his house, we got a lesson on bees that we wouldn't soon forget. Mari waited patiently while the beekeepers got the job done.
Spring Flowers, April 2009
Who can resist spending quality time out on the front lawn when Spring is in bloom? We sure can't!
Mother's Day, 2009
Sometimes it's the simple things, like watching your children run and play and giggle in the park, that make Mother's Day the most special.
Carnival B-Day Party, June 2009
What do you know about egg races, hoola hoop contests, and water balloon tosses? I can tell you they're GREAT summer party games, especially if you're partying outdoors. This is Lila, dead serious about winning a pack of gummy bears for keeping her hoola hoop going the longest.
Camping Trip, June 2009
A whole weekend outdoors. With bugs. And weird night noises. And campfires with s'mores and lots of great grilling. Not sure I want to do this again—but I will have stories for the grandkids!
Hilton Head, July 2009
Our family vacation in one of the most beautiful towns we've ever visited—full of great history and natural beauty.
Kentucky Wind Mills, August 2009
I shot this picture of the incredible flat lands of Kentucky while riding with The Blogrollers back from BlogHer 2009. Man was that ride fun—matched only by the scenery of our beautiful country whizzing by.
Black Butterfly, August 2009
Black butterfly/Sail across the waters/Tell your sons and daughters/What the struggle brings. (Man, I love that song—that Niecy Williams sure can belt it out, can't she? This butterfly, which we found in our driveway, was a source of endless fascination for the kids.
Gone Fishing, September 2009
The kids had a blast getting fishing lessons from their Uncle Marvin, but it was my mom-in-law, Helen, who schooled everybody when she caught three fish!
Our Garden, September 2009
Every year the girls and I plant and maintain a container garden out on our back deck; the rosemary, thyme, sage, peppermint, flat-leaf parsley, cilantro and basil give our food the best zing, and the colorful flowers keep butterflies and hummingbirds aflutter just outside our kitchen picture window. We tend our garden with love.
Soccer Game, November 2009
The girls stayed active out on the soccer field—the perfect way to get in some exercise and enjoy the outdoors.
Martin Luther King Day, January 2010
This is my beautiful nephew Miles, who volunteered at this year's MLK Day celebration in Atlanta, at the MLK Center, a national historic park site.
The Great Snowstorm, February 2010
We actually got enough snow to make two snowmen. This one, with carrots for eyes and a nose and a random Gap hat (because our snowmen are supa fly!) was pulled together by Mari.
ENJOY THIS DAY, AND EVERYDAY, CELEBRATING THE WONDERS OF OUR PLANET—AND HAPPY EARTH DAY!
So how fly is my sister-in-law/BFF/resident environmentalist Angelou? So fly that she's in Washington, repping her non-profit children's environmental group, Greening Youth Foundation, at a White House Conference on America’s Great Outdoors. Newark Mayor Cory Booker is there. Governor Bill Richardson is there, too, as are the heads of the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency. And sometime today, she's scheduled to meet favorite guy, President Barack Obama!
The conference is part of President Obama's ongoing conversation about the greening of America, and Angelou is onboard to talk about how to include both people of color as well as kids and young adults in the Green Revolution. It is a mission that is a passion of Angelou's, and she's done some pretty incredible things with her foundation: Her team teaches children in a dozen schools throughout the Atlanta area how to respect and protect the environment; she's lined up several summer internship programs for high school and college students in the nation's national parks, and; she's become quite the outspoken advocate on behalf of organizations working to get black folks engaged in green initiatives.
Most heartening is Angelou's work with the babies; indeed, not even 24 hours after Mrs. Ezeilo finishes up in Washington, she'll be back here in Georgia throwing her second annual Earth Day Festival, which will play host to hundreds of kids who'll exchange recyclables for chances to ride and play in Greening Youth's "green" park full of giant bounce machines and slides, mazes, and fun games. Plus, she's got 14 vendors on deck, including REI, Kroger, Nike, and even the Boy Scouts, to carry out the fun festival’s mission to properly dispose of hundreds of pounds of recyclables and educate the students to effective ways to reduce, reuse and recycle.
If the success of last year’s event is any indication, GYF’s Earth Day Fun Festival will make quite a difference for the environment. In it’s inaugural year, the GYF festival collected: more than three tons—6,000 lbs—of large electronic recyclables like computers, printers, scanners, fax machines, stereos and speakers; about 200 pieces of portable electronics, including cell phones, cameras, PDAs and computer games; about 400 pairs of sneakers; about 100 cubic feet of grocery bags and 400 cubic feet of paper and cardboard, and; more than 100 batteries, plus a few odds and ends, including linear fluorescent bulbs, compact fluorescent bulbs and even a car!
And as if she doesn't have her hands in enough projects, Angelou and her team released a video yesterday announcing a new online reality show she'll be producing, which will chronicle the journey of GYF interns set to become one with nature and the national parks this summer. Here's a sneek peek:
For sure, I'm so very proud of my little sis! Check out her Greening Youth Foundation HERE, become a FaceBook fan of her organization (on the right lower side of her foundation's homepage), peep her on the cover of our local county magazine, Our Town, and, if you're so moved, please leave her a few words of encouragement as she works in Washington to open doors and breathe new, fresh life into the Green Movement.
I'll never forget the day I found out that one of my best friends, my co-author Mitzi Miller, was living on borrowed time. It was right after she, I, and Angela Burt-Murray (the editor-in-chief of Essence) finished a book signing for our novel, The Vow, at Hue-Man Bookstore in Harlem; a woman working on a documentary about organ transplant recipients wanted to interview the three of us for her film, and, all out of nowhere, Mitzi looked right into the camera and told the interviewer that when she'd gotten her liver transplant, her doctors told her the organ would last for about eight years. She was on year number seven.
Of course, I'd known that my friend had had a transplant; when the three of us worked as editors at Honey, Angela and I lorded over Mitzi like she was our child and we her protective mothers—forbidding her to partake in risky assignments for her column, imploring her to get the proper rest and nutrition she needed to be well. But I didn't know her liver had an expiration date—that there was a chance I would lose my friend. And so when the documentarian asked me how I felt about Mitzi's struggle to keep her transplanted liver healthy, I cried. Like, sloppy, ugly cried. No person, let alone my dear friend, should be forced to wonder day in and day out when a part of her body would, quite literally, cease to function—when she'd have to go on a mad search for another liver or face an unspeakable illness that could forever change, even end, her life.
This weighs on my mind every time Mitzi tells me she's not feeling well, for sure. And it's weighing on my mind this week after Mitzi wrote on her blog, Mitzi Moments, a passionate post about needed changes in the way organs are harvested and shared between regions—regulations that lead all-too-many potential recipients endangered. She graciously agreed to let me repost it here on MyBrownBaby. I ask you to read it and, in my friend's honor, take a moment to advocate on behalf of her and the many sick Americans who are wasting away while they wait for life-saving transplants.
By MITZI MILLER
Thirteen years ago I was diagnosed with auto-immune hepatitis. As a result, my liver had completely stopped functioning. Basically, I was told that I needed a liver transplant IMMEDIATELY or I was going to die.
Clearly, I received the transplant.
But those eighteen months I spent waiting for an organ to become available were the hardest minutes, hours, days, and months of my life. And not just because I was unspeakably ill but also because while waiting, I watched fellow patients who had been waiting along with me, die. Yeah, I can't explain what that does for the moral... Not.
But the thing is, once I received the organ I was so busy living and catching up on the years I spent dealing with the liver that I started to forget the scariest details of the ordeal. Like damn near everything. To this day, it takes my mom, medical charts and closest friends to help me remember half the craziness that happened... The human mind is so amazing.
All that to say, when I saw the commercial for the premiere of the new season of MTV doc series True Life, True Life: I Need A Transplant, I totally flashed back. And trust, it was not fun. Then, to make matters worse, while doing my monthly blood tests at the hospital last week, my coordinator informed me that things have gotten even worse for liver patients in New York State.
Apparently, nowadays New York State patients experience some of the longest wait times for a liver in the country- 26.9 months. That's more than TWICE the national wait time. Honestly, I just don't know if I would be alive if I would've had to wait almost two and a half YEARS for my transplant. Unfortunately, this increased wait is happening because 1) there are not enough organ donors and 2) organs aren't shared nationally, only regionally. Which means that if an organ becomes available in say California, a patient in New York will never have access.... even if no one is California needs it or is a match.
So you're clear: Over 160 New Yorkers died on the waiting list this past year. Mind you, because of the existing regional system, nearly 1000 viable donor livers are discarded each year at centers with small waiting lists while patients in other regions remain on long wait lists and basically die.
SILENCE
While I'm happy to report that they've recently started lobbying for policy change (there's an important meeting in Atlanta on April 12th that I may attend); we all know how slow that road can be if the regular folks don't get involved. *serious side-eye*
So I'm asking everyone to take a minute out of their day, and contact their representative HERE
Since there's no form letter or petition, I wrote a little something for you to cut and paste:
I know someone who was able to receive the liver transplant necessary to save her life. Unfortunately, because of the existing regional access system and new language in recent guidelines from the government in the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010, many others will not be as lucky.
As a voting constituent, I'm asking for you to help fight for changes to the system to include broader sharing.
Sincerely,
I promise, this will take 30 seconds and very likely save a life. So go on and be my hero today.
So I blew a gasket when I read THIS STORY in the New York Times last week, about how the largely white staff of an anti-abortion group is running all through predominantly African American churches and colleges around Georgia, telling black folks that abortion is nothing more than a “womb lynching” designed to “kill off blacks.” Buoyed by stats that show black women get about 40 percent of the abortions performed in the U.S., despite being only 13 percent of the population, the group is tapping African Americans to boost the anti-abortion cause—one that has long been identified as a predominantly white Republican tenet. For good measure, the group insists that Planned Parenthood is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to abort Black babies.
Of course, I love me some black babies, and obviously, the last thing I want is to have them killed off. Indeed, full disclosure: I’m pro-life—for me. But I think women should have the right to make the very personal CHOICE to become mothers without the government legislating our wombs.
So what’s got my goat about this group’s efforts to recruit blacks to their anti-abortion cause? Well, the same group of conservative Republicans that are running around telling black teens and young black women to have their babies are usually the first ones to snatch away the support system young mothers need to take care of their children. They say no to everything—food stamps, welfare, raises in the minimum wage, paid maternity leave, childcare subsidies, and any other program that would help lift black children out of poverty, and then demonize black moms for being poor and raising their kids in poverty. What right does any one person have to demand a woman have a baby if that woman knows good and doggone well she can’t take care of that child?
Here’s an idea: Instead of spreading the ridiculous claim that abortion is tantamount to black genocide, maybe those same “black baby saviors” could focus their energies on helping black teens and women protect themselves from getting pregnant in the first doggone place. Let the statistics tell it, and black girls and women are slowly killing off themselves by not doing what it takes to protect themselves during sex. For sure, the numbers of unplanned pregnancies is on the rise among black teens and HIV and AIDS stats show that black women are under siege. Though black and Latina women represented only 24 percent of all U.S. women combined in 2005, they accounted for a whopping 82 percent of the estimated total AIDS diagnoses for women in 2005. And the Centers for Disease Control reveals even more disturbing news:
• HIV is the leading cause of death for Black women (including African American women) aged 25–34 years.
• The rate of AIDS diagnosis for Black women was approximately 23 times the rate for white women and four times the rate for Latina women
• In 2006, teen girls represented 39% of AIDS cases reported among 13–19 year-olds. Black teens represented 69% of cases reported among 13–19 year-olds; Latino teens represented 19%.
Clearly, the reason black women are having so many unwanted pregnancies and contracting and dying from HIV and AIDS is because they’re NOT PROTECTING THEMSELVES. Loretta Ross, the executive director of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective in Atlanta breaks it down best in the New York Times story when she says a lack of access to birth control, lack of education, and even a high rate of sexual violence in black communities creates “a perfect storm” for high pregnancy rates. I would gather the same thing can be said for those high STD rates.
What, then, do we do? Well for starters, we stop it with all the silly “womb lynching” talk and get serious about empowering black teens and young black women with the information they need to protect themselves. This is why I’m Rocking the Red Pump today here on MyBrownBaby—in support of National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NWGHAAD). Click HERE to see what you can do to HELP women get tested, protect themselves, and, most importantly, empower themselves to make choices about their sexuality that positively impact their lives. This isn't about politics. It's about saving lives.
Rock the Red, y’all—and teach our babies (and their mothers!) how to protect themselves.
MyBrownBaby is Rocking the Red Pump as part of National Women/Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, with the hope that this post, and dozens more spearheaded by Awesomelyluvvie and The Fabulous Giver of The Red Pump Project, encourages women to protect themselves. A great way to do this is to know your status; click HERE to find a low-cost, pain-free testing site near you. You can find out more information, too, by visiting this special page on the United States Health and Human Services website, or checking out local programs today in your area.
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