Texas Southern University Archives

Black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die of pregnancy-related causes.

2020 Presidential Candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren is giving me the feels over her recently announced plan to combat maternal mortality and the deplorable way black women in particular are treated when they go to hospitals to give birth in America.

During a an event at Historically Black College Texas Southern University, she said :

“The best studies that I’ve seen put it down to just one thing: prejudice, Doctors and nurses don’t hear African American women’s medical issues the same way as they hear the same things from white women.”

Ok. I’m going to cry! I try not to mix politics with this blog but given this is a public health crisis and an issue that I personally have endured, I’m making an exception.

Warren added to the cheers from the crowd of about 1,700: “I got a plan. I want to talk to the hospitals… in the language they understand: money.”

She then proceeded to lay out her specific plan to have medical providers’ funding be contingent on the quality of care they give to mothers, and specifically to black moms.

Hallelujah!!

“The hospitals are just going to get a lump of money, and if they bring down those maternal mortality rates, then they get a bonus, and if they don’t, then they’re going to have money taken away from them,” Warren said. “We’ve got to have change, and we’ve got to have change now.”

A friend of mine recently lost her sister after giving birth. One of her last shares on Facebook had to do with being readmitted to the hospital because the hospital messed up something with her. Now she is gone.

My friend’s sister story, albeit not as extreme, echoes the frustration that even wealthy A-List celebrities like Serena Williams and recently Beyonce Knowles as shared in her Homecoming Netflix special.

TV Judge Hatchett lost her daughter in law to bad treatment of black mothers and her son is on a campaign to change this all. This is 2019.

This is America, the so-called leading nation of the free world.

My Story

For me, when I told my OB that I wanted to attempt a VBAC, his demeanor and friendliness towards me stopped because he preferred C-Sections he could schedule around his vacation plans.

When I eventually had to succumb to surgery because my son’s heart rate kept dropping with each push, (same thing happened to Beyonce) I was given excessive anesthesia in the operating room, on top of the heavy dosage I had gotten during my epidural. I thought I was going to literally die because the medication suppressed my body cavity so much that I could not breathe… at all…and no one would listen to my whimper for help.

Thankfully, I did not die, but during post-opp when I buzzed for pain medicine, I was not given it despite my repeated buzzing and fell asleep without being given a new dose and awakened to extreme excruciating pain because of the neglect. I had just undergone major surgery and was literally crying.

I gave birth in one of the most poshest and richest hospital in the city and I was certain my treatment there was uncommon of the other guests that include Princesses and children from heads of states of other nations and political elite.

It’s Pandemic

By now we know that the medical profession do no prescribe pain medicine for black patients, black athletes and children because of racist belief that we have a higher threshold for pain.

The only silver lining on this horrible situation of black people not being given medicine for pain by doctors is that discriminatory underprescribing of pain medicine has meant less black people succumbed to opiod addiction. Yay us, I guess! (Phew)

Overall, the medical profession, hospitals and doctors need training on their bias and how it effects black moms so less of us will die needlessly.

Photos: Starcast, Pexel, Screen

During a February 2, 2017 interview, Beyonce’s dad Matthew Knowles suggested that Queen Bey is expecting a baby boy and baby girl this year but in DJ Khaled‘s song “Shining” that she and husband Jay-Z guest performed on a week later, Jay seemed to suggest that he didn’t know what the sex of the babies are.

Let’s back up:

Knowles, who currently is an entertainment assistant professor at Texas Southern University, learned about the pregnancy the same time we all did because Bey didn’t tell him before announcing it to the world via her artsy pregnancy announcement.

But during a sit down chat with Insider, the ex –Destiny’s Child manager shared the circumstances under which he learned/

“I was shocked,” Knowles told the site. “Let me tell you what happened. I got a first text, and I was like, ‘Why is this person saying congratulations?’ Then I get a second text from one of my students at Texas Southern, and I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ He was like, ‘Go to the web.’ I didn’t know myself.”

That might have been a good decision by because Matthew might have accidentally spilled the beans too soon.

During the Insider interview, the talent manager and university instructor went on to possibly reveal the sex of the babies.

“And Blue Ivy is going to have some brothers and sisters. She is already excited,” he said.

When the interviewer pressed for a confirmation that Bey was going to have a girl and boy, Knowles quickly flipped the script.

He said he was just talking in general.

Mmmm hmmmm! No wonder Yonce didn’t tell dear old dad the news in advance. He plum would have revealed it too soon but he wouldn’t have been the first. In 2011, Kelly Rowland also slipped up during an interview and let people know about Blue’s gender before Bey and Jay could.

Both Rowland, who is like a sister, and of course Matthew, who is a grandfather to Mrs. Sean “Jay-Z” Carter’s 5-year old daughter Blue Ivy and Solange Knowles‘ 12-year old son, Daniel, would be forgiven.

He may be right about guessing though.

A week later, the same day Beyonce performed on the Grammy Awards, DJ Khaled released a single from his upcoming album titled, “Shining” (that’s my jam) but any way, on the song, Jay-Z has a few bars which seem to indicate that he is clueless (or was clueless back when he penned the lyrics) as to the baby’s gender. On the song, he raps:

One ain’t enough, I need two

That night I mix the Ace with the D’us’

Hit a triple-double in the Garden

I done my left wrist like I’m Harden (swish)

Ran to the dealer, bought twin Mercedes’

The European trucks for the twin babies

Don’t let me have a son, I’m a fool (ooooh)

Send him to school in all my jewels

I want a boy and girl I fight for truth

Whatever God give me, I’m cool

LISTEN to the entire thing here:

We imagine what those twin European (his and hers) Mercedes would look like in the above collage, specifically, the 2017 Mercedes-Benz AMG GLS63. Below, check out actor-comedian Kevin Hart in front of his own Mercedes truck that he showed off his truck on social media recently. Something tells us these trucks will grow in popularity soon especially after the twin babies are born.

Texas Southern University

Elizabeth Warren’s Plan to Tackle High Black Maternal Mortality Is Giving Me Feels

My Story

It’s Pandemic

We Imagine These are The Euorpean Trucks for the Twin Babies Jay-Z Rapped About