The lack of bodily autonomy for women in the US has been horrific and this is doubly true for Black women. I remember reading that enslaved Black women would try to use abortifacients to prevent giving birth to another enslaved person (ie. Their own child). If that failed, they committed infanticide. The thinking goes that it was cheaper to produce slave labor than buy slaves. Obviously, enslaved women resisted by using contraception, abortifacients and infanticide and, when discovered, were treated horribly as of they were immoral.
I think that this is what's happening now but now it includes all people - save the wealthiest. Meaning, this is just one more way to suppress labor wages. Make it so that people can't control their reproduction. Life becomes really cheap.
So, I agree with you. We can't give up on resistance and we can't give up on people in South Carolina (or Alabama or Mississippi).
Good point. We're still one of just a handful of state that hasn't done Medicaid expansion, which would help some. But it's going to take a massive overhaul of the nation's healthcare system before we get to a place where we're really taking care of everyone.
Thank you for highlighting someone who is doing what she can to improve the situation in a state whose population needs it, regardless of political identity. At the risk of being redundant, I once again include a quote that I usually post in response to those who demean states as a whole without any regard to those who are working hard for change and love a place they call home or who have family there. I like to believe most people understand it is the government of these states that is to blame but too many times I see condemnations of the inhabitants as a whole when it is about 6 out 10 that put that government in place.
“Why do I live in Mississippi? The state is beautiful, it is home, I love it here. A man’s state is like his house. If it has defects, he tries to remedy them. That’s what my job is here. Why do I live in Mississippi? I live here to better it for my wife and kids, and for all the wives and all the kids who expect and deserve something better than what they are getting from life.”
And thank you for doing what you can. Progress comes more from many people doing little things than from a few doing big things. I love quotes so here are two from John Lewis I summon when things feel like they aren’t going the way I would like.
“When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something. Our children and their children will ask us, ‘What did you do? What did you say?’ For some, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.”
"Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part."
Thank you! When I had my own great migration to New York after college, I rejected the South (and a significant part of myself), but I learned New York was hardly a racial utopia, either. Now I fully appreciate my home, and won’t let bad actors claim it for themselves.
We shouldn't abandon any fucking thing to any fucking body.
How do you think the repukes got control of the judiciary and repealed Roe? By contesting every single local office including dog catcher.
The lack of bodily autonomy for women in the US has been horrific and this is doubly true for Black women. I remember reading that enslaved Black women would try to use abortifacients to prevent giving birth to another enslaved person (ie. Their own child). If that failed, they committed infanticide. The thinking goes that it was cheaper to produce slave labor than buy slaves. Obviously, enslaved women resisted by using contraception, abortifacients and infanticide and, when discovered, were treated horribly as of they were immoral.
I think that this is what's happening now but now it includes all people - save the wealthiest. Meaning, this is just one more way to suppress labor wages. Make it so that people can't control their reproduction. Life becomes really cheap.
So, I agree with you. We can't give up on resistance and we can't give up on people in South Carolina (or Alabama or Mississippi).
We're not free until all of us are free, as Fannie Lou Hamer told us. Thanks for the encouragement!
Thank you!
It’s not just women’s health or reproductive health, SC is a public health desert, at least as far as rural Blacks are concerned.
Good point. We're still one of just a handful of state that hasn't done Medicaid expansion, which would help some. But it's going to take a massive overhaul of the nation's healthcare system before we get to a place where we're really taking care of everyone.
Thank you for highlighting someone who is doing what she can to improve the situation in a state whose population needs it, regardless of political identity. At the risk of being redundant, I once again include a quote that I usually post in response to those who demean states as a whole without any regard to those who are working hard for change and love a place they call home or who have family there. I like to believe most people understand it is the government of these states that is to blame but too many times I see condemnations of the inhabitants as a whole when it is about 6 out 10 that put that government in place.
“Why do I live in Mississippi? The state is beautiful, it is home, I love it here. A man’s state is like his house. If it has defects, he tries to remedy them. That’s what my job is here. Why do I live in Mississippi? I live here to better it for my wife and kids, and for all the wives and all the kids who expect and deserve something better than what they are getting from life.”
—Medgar Evers
That's a great quote, thanks for sharing!
And thank you for doing what you can. Progress comes more from many people doing little things than from a few doing big things. I love quotes so here are two from John Lewis I summon when things feel like they aren’t going the way I would like.
“When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something. Our children and their children will ask us, ‘What did you do? What did you say?’ For some, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.”
"Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part."
Thank you! When I had my own great migration to New York after college, I rejected the South (and a significant part of myself), but I learned New York was hardly a racial utopia, either. Now I fully appreciate my home, and won’t let bad actors claim it for themselves.