01x02 - Race

[bunniefuu]

Um, this cake
says, "80 years of birthdays."

Eighty years young,

and his favorite saying has always
been, "You're only as old as you feel."

And if that's the case, Dad, you're
very, very young... About 40.

I was born to
a white mother and a Black father.

That laugh you hear is
my mother, Cheryl Hannah,

and it's fitting that this is
the first thing you hear from her

because my mother is one of
the kindest people I know,

always laughing, always
doing things for others.

Years ago, my mom threw my grandfather
a big party for his 80th birthday.

When my grandfather,
Joseph Novotny, was born,

he was designated
male and white.

Arlena Tillman is my
grandmother on my father's side,

and when she was born, she was
designated female and Black.

Both were born in the year 1924,
but because this is America,

that is where the
similarities end.

They did not choose
these designations,

but were born into them.

And yet, nearly everything about
their lives would be shaped

by their race and their gender.

My grandfather could
vote when he turned 18.

My grandmother could be
beaten and maybe k*lled

if she had dared to try
to cast a ballot at 18.

If my grandfather was qualified,
there was no job he could not have.

Regardless of her
qualifications,

most well-paying
jobs in the North,

just as in the South, were
off-limits to my grandmother.

Grandpa could send his children
to any school he wanted.

Grandmama's children
were sent to the schools

designated for Black children.

These two families,
these two histories,

this racial classification
system we've inherited,

collided in the year 1972,
when my father met my mother.

They fell for each other fast,

and within a few months, my
mom had moved in with my dad.

When they had me
and my two sisters,

my father knew that our Blackness
would shape much of our lives,

and so, when we were very young,

he sat us down and told us the
reality of race in America:

we were biracial,
and in this country,

that meant that I could be Black,
but I could never be white.

I was born of both worlds, but
could only belong fully to one.

I was designated female and
Black, just like my grandmama.

And that is who I am.

This is
The 1619 Project.

♪ Wednesday's Child by
Alice Smith playing ♪

♪ Tuesday's child
will play in sun ♪

♪ Wednesday comes with a g*n ♪

♪ Thursday's tears
have just begun ♪

♪ Friday ships are
filled with crying ♪

In the United States,

race defines our lives
from beginning to end.

Our race is listed on our birth
certificates when we're born,

and on our death
certificates when we die.

We're used to checking boxes to
designate our racial category,

whether it's for school applications,
or bank loans or a driver's license.

And yet most of us
don't stop to question

just how we arrived at
the racial classifications

we have become so accustomed to.

But in 2019, when Ashley
Ramkishum and Samuel Sarfo

made a trip to the
Arlington clerk's office

to apply for their
marriage license,

they did question just why they had to
check these boxes in the first place.

Thank you, Samuel and Ashley, for
agreeing to talk with us today.

So, when you all decide that
you are going to get married,

you're living in Virginia,

and you go to apply for
the marriage license,

and what do they ask you for?

- When we go to the
Arlington courthouse,

they, basically, direct
us to go to the computer

to start filling out the
marriage application.

We got to the question where
they asked about our race,

and it just had the drop-down menu,
and it had the asterisks on it,

so we didn't really have
an option to not answer it.

So, I asked if there's a way
for us to do it on paper.

She had said, no,
there wasn't an option,

and if we didn't wanna
answer the race question,

we just had to click "other."

And so, we said... "Nope."

And we just walked away.

So, why did that stop you?

I mean... in the United States,
we check race all the time.

Race is on your birth certificate,
race is on your college applications.

We always are checking race,
so why did that surprise you,

and then why did that
stop you at that moment?

- For me, personally, for
somebody that grew up in Ghana,

where I guess you could say
everybody's like me, or...

- We didn't have to check this box, like...
- Mm-hmm.

- Actually, to be honest,
when I first came to America

is when I really got
exposed to the word “race."

- Mm-hmm.
- Prior to that, if you say "race,"

I'm thinking we're racing.

It wa... It's not a thing,
so when I came here,

that's when all this box
checking and everything, so

you just have to pause for a
second and think like, "Why?"

In America, the origins of
race go back to the system of sl*very.

Though we may believe
that race is biological,

a physical trait defined
by our skin color,

or hair texture, or the shape of
our lips or nose... it is not.

How we've come to call someone
white or someone Black,

was, actually, invented to help
perpetuate the system of sl*very,

generate profit, and
sustain white supremacy.

And the laws that built this
system were focused on controlling

the sexual and reproductive
lives of Black women.

Take one,
marker.

- All right, we're here to
talk about a subject that

everyone thinks they
know and understand,

but that they, actually, don't.

So, I realized how ridiculous,

um... race is and how
we think about race

when my daughter

was asking me why
she wasn't white...

- Mm-hmm.
- And, right, because we teach,

in this country, that
race is your skin color.

- Right.
- So, she's like, "Well,

our skin looks white, and
Daddy's skin looks black."

And I'm like, "No." I'm
like, "We're all Black."

Mm-hmm.
And she was like, "Well, why?"

So, then I'm trying
to help her understand

because my mother is white.

So, she was like, "Well,
if Grandma's white,

"and she's your mom,
why aren't you white?

And why are you Black, and
Daddy's Black, and I'm Black?"

- And, and, and I'm like...
- Right.

"Actually, I don't
know."

And it's one of those things where
you don't realize how ridiculous it is

until you break it down to someone
who has not yet been indoctrinated

- into our system.
- Right. Mm-hmm.

- And then you see it's,
actually, very silly,

so... how did we arrive
at being a country

with all of these
racial classifications,

but, specifically, pertaining to
who is white and who is Black?

- Originally, when the colonies
were beginning to be established

in what's now the United States,

there weren't these clear
classifications and distinctions

between who's white
and who's Black.

And so, they soon discovered
that in order to maintain

a sl*ve society,

that it was important to make
clear what these distinctions were.

So, for example, a question
that came early on was,

"What is the status of a
child born to a Black woman,

but fathered by a white man?"

During this time, white men
who owned, under the law,

Black women, could r*pe
them with impunity.

And children were being born who
were fathered by these white men,

but at that time,

there wasn't a clear-cut rule
of the status of these children.

Under the British law,

which was a patrilineal law ,

these children should have the status
of their fathers, which was white.

If the children had the
status of their fathers,

then the children would've
had an entitlement

to their father's
wealth, uh, their land,

and most importantly, to
their status as white people,

and that wouldn't have
served the white elite.

And so, the Assembly got
together in Virginia,

and in 1662, they
passed a law that said

that the children of Black women would
have the status of their mothers.

Uh, in other words,
they were enslavable.

They were creating this
political classification,

but by putting the source of
it in Black women's wombs,

they made it seem as if it
was an inherited condition,

and they also made it seem as
if Black women were responsible

for the enslaved status
of their children.

In order to justify
the barbarity of sl*very,

white Americans created a culture that
treated people descended from Africa

as a distinct and inferior race.

Many white theologists
justified African sl*very

as the natural order of the universe,
a part of God's divine plan.

And by the 1800s, pseudoscience
emerged to support these theories.

White physicians perpetuated
fallacies in medical journals

that stated Black people had
smaller skulls, thicker skin

and weaker lungs
than white people,

all myths that served to justify
the violence and subjugation

that enslavement required

by creating the idea of
natural racial divisions.

As the pseudoscience of
the 19th century took hold,

the medical field used race to
justify brutal experimentation

on Black people's bodies,

and perhaps none more unspeakable
than those ex*cuted on Black women.

During the 1800s, James Marion Sims,
created the field of gynecology

by conducting surgical experiments
exclusively on enslaved women.

He operated on them without anesthesia,
even though it was available,

based off of the r*cist belief that
Black women were immune to pain.

And while Sims is widely known as
the "Father of Modern Gynecology,"

history has often erased the
Black women whose bodies were used

to create the field itself.

Of all the women
Sims experimented on,

we only know the names of three:
Lucy, Betsey, and Anarcha.

All these centuries later,

the false beliefs about Black
women's pain and their humanity

still impact the reproductive
health care they receive.

And the consequences for
Black women and their children

are all too often deadly.

When
I look at Cassius,

I always see two babies.

I can't unsee that
he has a brother,

and I can't unsee that
he's supposed to have

this little person
with him forever.

Chrissy Sample went
through the devastating experience

of losing a child
before he was even born.

And that loss, like those of
so many other Black women,

was in large part
defined by race.

The fetal mortality rate for Black women
is more than twice that of white women,

not because Black and white
people are biologically different,

but because evidence shows
that Black women do not receive

the same standard of
medical care as white women.

A 2019 survey of 2,700 women
found nearly 23% of Black women

reported being mistreated
by medical staff,

ranging from violations
of physical privacy

to being threatened
or refused treatment,

compared to 14% of white women
who reported the same experience.

Thank you for agreeing
to speak with me today.

And I thought we might start by
you just telling me a little bit

about yourself and your husband.

- I'm a Brooklyn mom, um,
born and raised New Yorker.

My husband works for the NYPD.

We're a modern, regular Brooklyn family
tryin' to figure out, navigate through

this new world that
we're living in.

We have Cassius, who's two,
Cameron who is about to be 10,

and I have a bonus
daughter who is 14.

- So, can you describe for me, um,
what it means to you to be a mother?

Motherhood is not easy.

I feel like I'm constantly
doing this juggling act where

some days I feel like, "Wow, this is...
Who put me in charge of these humans?"

Because this is a lot...
I wasn't expecting this.

I understand where
you're comin' from.

I would say I have, I have all
the confidence in the world,

except for parenting.

This is the one part of my life
where I'm like, "I don't know,

"I don't know what I'm doing,

- and I'm probably not doin' it right, so."
- It's very humbling.

- It is. I think every mother
can relate to that feeling.

Seven years after Chrissy Sample
had, what she described as,

an easy first pregnancy
with her son, Cameron,

she and her family learned
at their gender reveal party,

that they were
expecting two baby boys.

There were so many emotions.

Happiness, excitement.
I was anxious.

It was so much love and support.

Everyone was writin'
these little sweet notes,

and just little tidbits on
well wishes for the baby,

well wishes for the mom.

It was just a lotta love in
the room, a lotta support.

But Chrissy's
excitement slightly dimmed

when the doctor who
delivered her first baby

informed her that he didn't
do deliveries of twins,

so she was forced to find a new doctor,
and that new doctor happened to be white.

What was your new doctor like?

- She kinda treated me like,
"Okay, another pregnant woman.

See you in four, five weeks."

This was a pregnancy where
I needed my hand held.

- Mm-hmm.
- I'm pregnant with twins,

I have a list of questions,

and she's not reassuring
and she's not engaging.

It felt like a checklist.

My gut's sayin', "I
don't, I don't like her."

But at this time, it's,
like, the world's on fire,

so I can't really
change doctors.

So, by, "The world's on fire,"

you get pregnant, and then
we enter into the pandemic.

Yes.

- So, that complicates...
- So, no one's...

- your ability to find a new doctor.
- Everything. No one's gonna t...

No one's taking a new
patient with multiples.

With multiples, you see
two doctors every week.

- I saw her every four weeks.
- Mm.

- Which gives you room
for anything to happen.

And I couldn't get
appointment with a high-risk,

and she didn't do anything to help me get
an appointment with a high-risk either,

where she didn't
check me any further.

She would just rub a
Doppler across my belly.

"Oop, two heartbeats. See you
in, um, four or five weeks?

Does that sound good?"

At about 22 weeks,

things start to really,
physically, change for you.

I'm in pain.

I can't walk down a flight of
steps or up a flight of steps.

I can't walk down a block,

and she's aware of
all of these things,

and it still doesn't make
her check me any further.

She goes, "Oh, well,
maybe one of the twins

is sittin' on a pinched nerve."

I'm in pain, and you just
normalized it for me.

The death of
Black women's children,

and the dismissal of their
pain, voices and experiences

is deeply tied to the
legacy of sl*very.

The invention of race in early America
in order to create and sustain wealth,

shaped the sexual and reproductive
lives of enslaved women.

And yet, their lived experiences
went ignored and largely unrecorded.

But there are some
records that do remain,

giving us a rare glimpse

into what enslaved women's
lives were, actually, like.

Here on 8th and Chestnut
in downtown Philadelphia,

once stood the mansion
of Pierce Butler.

In 1834, Butler married a well-known
British actress named Fanny Kemble.

Two years later, Fanny's husband
inherited the Butler plantation

located along the
coast of Georgia,

and with it, more than
500 enslaved human beings.

So, when is the last
time you were here?

Probably
early to mid-2000s.

I think maybe 2003 or '04.

- So, it's been a while.
- Yeah, it has.

- So, what's it like comin' back?
- Heavy. It feels heavy.

It feels as heavy as it
did when I came before.

Brings back a lotta research
memories. NIKOLE: Mm-hmm.

Tryna think about
the people that were here,

who worked here.

You kinda feel their presence.

Daina Berry is
a renowned historian

who has extensively studied enslaved
people in the state of Georgia,

particularly the lives of women.

So, this land we're standing on

- was, uh, called the Butler Plantation.
- Mm-hmm.

- Um, can you just give me a
brief history of this place?

Absolutely. Major Pierce Butler,

one of the fathers of
the U.S. Constitution,

was the owner of this plantation

and also, Hampton Point
Plantation on St. Simons Island,

which was another large
estate that he owned.

He and his family had
operated a rice mill here.

- And they had, as you see...
- Which is that there.

Yep. That's the mill.

They had almost a
thousand enslaved people,

considering those that were
on this particular property,

and those that were
on Hampton Point.

- So, let's just pause there...

- Mm-hmm.
- Because a thousand,

that was massive.

- Yes.
- That was not typical at all.

- Right? That would've put him...
- Right.

- I would imagine,
somewhere top 1%...

- Absolutely.
- Of enslavers.

The amount of wealth
that that would've been,

uh, was pretty astronomical.

In the winters of 1838 and 1839,

after Pierce Butler inherited the
plantation from his grandfather,

Fanny joined him on visits to
this sl*ve labor camp in Georgia.

During those visits,
she kept a daily journal

of her experiences and her encounters
with the enslaved women there.

How does she respond
when she comes down here,

and sees what that wealth
has been built upon?

- She had mixed feelings.
It's her raw, like...

It's, it's her personal journal,
so she doesn't hold back.

So, some days, she's disgusted by
Black people, and she says that.

She talks about them in
very disrespectful ways.

And then, other times,
she has empathy.

She's worried about, "Well, maybe
I should talk to my husband.

They're asking me to
ask for work relief."

And, and so, you see her sort
of struggling with understanding

that now she's a enslaver.

She is the wife of an enslaver.

And what that means is something

that I think she's processing
throughout the entire journal.

"I have been
interrupted by several visits,

"one from a poor
creature called Judy,

"whose sad story and condition
affected me most painfully.

"She complained of
chronic rheumatism,

"and other terrible ailments,

"and said she suffered
such intolerable pain

"while laboring in the fields,

that she had come to entreat
me to have her work lightened."

So, this
is where they worked.

Twelve hundred acres of land.

This is all part of
Butler Island plantation.

And they worked here from 4 A.M.

They came to the fields and worked
in these rice marshes, rice lands,

until... the wee hours or until
they finished their tasks.

So, two of the overseers
on this plantation were

Roswell King Sr.
and Roswell King Jr.

You know, these
were prominent men.

There's a town named after
them in metro Atlanta.

And yet... we know that they
were sexually exploiting

and sexually assaulting
enslaved women on this property.

Can you talk about their
treatment of enslaved women,

and the prevalence of r*pe, um, in
plantation societies in general?

- I mean, there's been descriptions
of how much they were raping

- enslaved women.
- Mm.

- And multiple. Not just one
woman, not a particular partner.

So, they say that both
Roswell King Sr. and Jr. sired

many of the young "mulatto"
children that were walking around

the Butler Island and
Hampton Point Plantations.

When we think about
this though...

I, I like that you asked the
question about how prevalent this was

because, I think, it's,
it's not any amnesia,

- I think it's erasure.
- Yes.

- It's denial. It's denial
that it even happened.

So, it was common.

It was so common that I feel like
we have yet to fully uncover this

because people don't wanna think that
it was, actually, as common as it was.

- In fact, the Roswells were so
prolific with their sexual as*ault

that Fanny Kemble wrote that
she saw a number of "mulattos,"

biracial children, mixed children
running around the labor camp

- that looked just like them.
- And so, she saw it, and recognized it,

and recognized those features looked
like the Roswell King Jr. and Sr.

"Judy told
me a miserable story

"of her former experience
on the plantation

"under Mr. King's overseership.

"It seems that Jem
Valiant was her firstborn,

"the son of Mr. King,
who forced her,

"flogged her severely
for having resisted him,

and then sent her off,
as a further punishment."

The Kings kept track of
the number of children born on both

the Butler and the
Hampton Point Plantations,

and like so many other slaveholders
and plantation managers,

their sexual exploitation of Black
women was also incentivized by profit.

Women were valued
based on their future increase.

So, even if they hadn't given
birth, they're thinking,

"How many children is
this person gonna have,

and are they gonna be healthy?"

And if a woman had children
that made it to age five,

then they would consider
that woman very valuable,

a very good breeding "wench."

Even that terminology,

- "future increase."
- Mm-hmm.

- That was terminology
that was used with animals.

- Yep, absolutely. And, you
see, when you look at the way

in which enslaved
people were bred,

you can look at a parallel
and find that animal husbandry

was done exactly the same way.

You know, just
like a big, fine-lookin' woman,

big, fine-lookin' man, you know.

Old boss wants, you know,
children's for them, you know.

They just fasten them
up in a house somewhere.

You know, go on off,
leave them in there.

Want to breed them like
they was hogs or horses,

something like that, I say.

- Let's talk about that, that
word, "bred" or "breeding."

I think my breath
catches every time I see

- the phrase, "sl*ve breeding"...
- Mm-hmm.

- and I, and I kinda
don't even want to use it.

Yeah.

- But this is how the
people who were owning

- enslaved people considered this, so...
- Mm-hmm.

- talk to me about this idea
of, of forced reproduction,

and what this place
teaches us about that.

- So, forced reproduction is
making sure that enslaved women

are continuously giving birth,

those that are in the age
range of being fertile.

Enslavers waited to find out
when a woman... a young girl

had her first menstrual cycle.

They were, like,
literally, wanting to know.

Sometimes, they would force
people to have relations,

and they would say
that, "You two"...

"We've selected you two to
breed with one another."

And imagine for a
woman, and a man,

if they have other
partners that they are...

Consider that, that, that's
their husband or their wife,

the enslaver didn't
care about that.

They had... They were
looking at the body,

the stock, the physique,
you know, all of that.

They, literally, paired two
people up, locked them in a cabin,

and said, you know, "Until we
see evidence of pregnancy,"

you know, "you're gonna be
whipped 30 lashes a day."

It's unspeakable.

- It is.
- And yet, we have to speak about it.

- We have to speak about
it because we haven't.

People are in denial at
how prevalent this was,

and, I think, to even say
that this was breeding,

- is an important statement to make.
- Yes.

Because the construct
of race made

Black women's children
innately enslavable,

enslavers were assured a
profit with every birth.

And that assurance became
even more important in 1808

after Congress banned the importation
of Africans to the United States.

With the supply of newly enslaved
people from Africa cut off,

enslavers had to rely on a single source
to replenish their essential labor force:

the wombs of Black women.

The numbers are staggering.

In 1790, the first
United States census

counted just under
700,000 enslaved people.

By 1860, despite the
congressional ban

that had been in place for
more than half a century,

the enslaved population had
blossomed to nearly four million.

And the r*pe of Black
women by white men

played a significant
role in that increase.

r*pe was so prevalent
during sl*very,

that today, a quarter of the
genetic makeup of Black Americans

can be traced back to Europe
through the paternal line.

While forced reproduction grew the
numbers of the enslaved population,

the deplorable conditions
that enslaved women lived in

resulted in countless miscarriages,
stillborns and infant deaths.

There wasn't bed rest. There
was no prenatal treatment.

They are, they're out here
trying to endure pregnancy.

Talk to me about that.

- So, they're out here in... Working
in this... in these conditions

as pregnant women during their
first, second, and third trimesters.

And when we read their stories,
and we listen to their stories,

we can hear them pleading,

just like they did in
Fanny Kemble's journal,

pleading for breaks, pleading
for rest from their labor,

pleading for some time off.

But one thing that we find

is that they would give
birth to 8, 10, 12 children.

They're giving birth, but the
children aren't always alive,

so they're often giving
birth to stillborn infants.

So, a woman might have 12
pregnancies and six live births.

So, half of their children
are dead when they give birth.

- Mm.
- So, so, infant mortality was high.

- Dr. Berry, when you were talking
about the trauma enslaved women endured,

and, and how that led to these extremely
high rates of infant mortality,

I couldn't help but think about
how Black women today suffer

the highest infant mortality
rates in the industrialized world.

How we are still seemingly
carrying that trauma in our bodies,

and burying our babies.

- I would argue that there's a direct
link and a contemporary connection

to maternal mortality today,

and infant mortality, and
the challenges that women had

giving birth during sl*very.

And I think that line goes all the
way from sl*very to the present,

and I think that we'll...
We see Black women today

struggling in similar ways

that they struggled
during the institution.

After Chrissy Sample says
her doctor dismissed the pain

she was experiencing during her
pregnancy with her twin boys,

she finally got in to
see a high-risk doctor.

And the news she received
was the most devastating news

a mother can hear.

- She said, "Baby A
doesn't have a heartbeat."

And I'm like, "Are you sure?"
Like, "I just felt him."

And I couldn't understand.
I'm like, "I don't..."

I'm like, "I don't understand."

It's like she was
speaking French.

I was like... I didn't have
the, the words or the...

It's like when you have
cry in your throat,

and you have to say
somethin' so important,

but you can't get it out.

And I, I remember
pickin' up the phone,

and calling my husband, and
I'm trying to explain to him.

And she had to take the phone
and tell him what is happening.

And then he's on
the phone crying.

And she said, "Well...
you can't give birth.

"You have to have Baby
A and Baby B together,

or... you will lose them both."

- I can't even imagine...

- And it feels like you're...

I've been managing life
and death at the same time,

where I have my
baby that passed,

and I have to keep my baby
that's alive, healthy.

So, you have to go home knowing

one of your babies...

- Mm-hmm.
- That's in your body...

- Has passed.
- Has passed.

Yeah, I sobbed, I cried.

I remember sitting at night crying
'cause I'm like, "I, I felt him.

"I, I feel him. I
feel his spirit.

I felt his kicks. I feel
them moving together."

I wrapped my head around two
babies, two of everything.

I'm looking at YouTube videos
of how these twin moms do it,

and what life looks like,
and everything has changed.

Even when Black babies
survive after they're born,

they're still twice as
likely as white babies to die

before their first birthday.

If
white babies were dyin' at this rate,

it would be a public
health crisis.

There would be
research being done.

It would not take all the deaths that
have happened to cause attention to it

as it has for Black infants.

Dr. Veronica
Gillispie-Bell

is an obstetrician for the
Louisiana Department of Health,

and she sees firsthand how
race drastically impacts

the survival rates, not
only of Black infants,

but of Black mothers themselves.

- Hi, Dr. G.
- Hi. How are you?

- I'm doin' well. How are you?
- I am good, I'm good.

Black women
die in childbirth

at nearly three times
the rate of white women.

Maternal mortality
and maternal morbidity for Black women

is at a public health
crisis level right now.

That's the best way
to characterize it.

We know, in general, that our
outcomes in the United States

are worse than any
other developed country.

There is no reason
that a Black woman

should biologically
experience these outcomes.

The reasons for
the disparate outcomes

for Black women's
reproductive health

can be complicated
and multi-dimensional.

There's a, a misconception

that these disparities are only
limited to poor Black people,

or Black people
without resources.

It doesn't matter whether you
are socioeconomically advantaged,

socioeconomically disadvantaged,
you're educated, not educated.

The single tying string
is being a Black woman.

- Here we are looking at
Serena Williams, in particular,

who was the world's,
you know, best athlete.

She definitely has support,

she's definitely not dealing
with economic issues,

and she still was
dealing with the fact

that she almost lost her
life after giving birth.

The death of Chrissy's son,
whom she and her husband named, Apollo,

cannot be attributed to poverty
or poor medical coverage.

Chrissy is a middle-class mom
with good healthcare benefits.

Instead, her birthing
outcome might be a reflection

of the unconscious racial bias

that is a part of so many Black
women's experiences in this country.

Research shows that race,

or more accurately, racism
and racial inequality,

also contribute to higher death rates
for Black women and their babies.

The legacy of sl*very

is so ingrained in our system,
and we don't even see it.

So, if we think about sl*very,

and we think about how the
Black woman was utilized,

she was not allowed to
take care of her kids,

she was not able to
breastfeed her children,

and so, what has translated
from that, today, in our bias,

is that Black women don't
wanna take care of their kids.

When we have our unconscious
bias and our unconscious beliefs

that cause us to not listen to
Black women when they complain.

We have an unconscious belief

that Black women are supposed
to have higher blood pressures,

and we are less quick to treat
those elevated blood pressures,

that Black people don't
feel pain in the same way.

Biases, whether unconscious or
conscious, impact medical treatment.

For example, a 2016 study
showed that Black patients

get undertreated for pain
relative to white patients,

in part, because some
medical professionals

still believe that Black and white
people are biologically different.

- And so, these are biases
and these are things

that have happened durin' sl*very that
have just been perpetuated over time.

But they have, they have now come
into our, our medical practice.

And again, bias is unconscious.

It is not somethin' that
anybody's intentionally doing.

But as healthcare
providers, it is on us,

it is our responsibility
to understand our biases,

recognize 'em, address
'em, acknowledge them,

and start to make
differences to change them,

so that we are not usin' those
biases in how we treat our patients.

Three weeks after Chrissy Sample
found out that her son died in her womb,

she abruptly went into labor

while homeschooling her
eldest son, Cameron.

She was just 27 weeks pregnant.

So, you had a cesarean.

- Yeah, it was an emergency,
and they had to, yeah.

And so, what's that moment like?

- I was scared, um, but I
also... I was drugged up,

and my husband's like,
"He's here. You did it."

And I wake up from surgery,
you know, hours later,

and my husband took... Made the
arrangements with Apollo's body.

On a whole, they were
just insensitive.

The chapel comes in, he's shouting,
"You need to bury your baby.

Your baby needs to be buried."

And I couldn't even
articulate the words.

And I'm like, "Oh my gosh,
we have to bury Apollo."

Cassius survived
his traumatic birth,

but weighed less
than three pounds,

and had to spend his first two months
in the neonatal intensive care unit.

I think
it's really hard for individuals

to accept what is happening
in Black women's lives

because of the guilt
that we feel as a nation.

If you say the word, "racism,"
to say the word, "race,"

it gives a very visceral
response to a lot of people

because they do not want
to be tied to sl*very,

or even think about sl*very, and what
happened during the sl*ve period.

It is a black mark,
a blemish on America

to think that that's how
individuals were treated.

And so, we want to separate ourselves
from all of those activities,

but we can't because that
is a part of our country,

it is a part of our culture,
it's a part of our thinking,

it's a part of
how we, we behave,

and we have to acknowledge
it, so that we can change it.

♪ Wednesday's Child by
Alice Smith playing ♪

♪ Tuesday was not bad at all ♪

♪ Wednesday came with a flame ♪

♪ Thursday never be the same ♪

♪ Friday ships are
not returning ♪

Our society's
racial classification system

that grew out of
250 years of sl*very

didn't simply disappear
when sl*very ended.

Instead, white men in power
passed new laws that criminalized

interracial sex and
interracial marriage.

And their blueprint was Virginia's
Racial Integrity Act of 1924.

The Racial Integrity Act

was designed by a physician
named Walter Plecker,

who was Virginia's first registrar
for the Bureau of Vital Statistics,

and a staunch white supremacist.

- Part of the reason that Virginia
passed the Racial Integrity Act in 1924,

post-emancipation,
in order to make sure

that people's race was certified,
and they prove what their race was,

and every aspect of their
lives could be determined

by this accurate
assessment of their race.

And that was partly
because of this fear

that Walter Plecker
had that there were

people who weren't truly white,
who were pretending to be,

and getting the benefits
of whiteness in Virginia.

- In 1924. Not ancient history.
- Yeah.

- That's the year my grandmother
and my grandfather were born.

Yeah, it's not that long ago.

As part of the
Racial Integrity Act,

Plecker instituted the
infamous one-drop rule.

Can you explain what
the one-drop rule is?

- The one-drop rule
was the idea that

if you had any discernible
amount of African ancestry,

you were to be considered Black.

And so, there were various
tests for determining

whether you had some,
what was considered,

"Black blood" at the time.

These were not just
physical tests,

but tests looking at
who your friends were,

what doctor you went to, what
neighborhood you lived in.

It just became really important
to police these delineations

between the people who had
the privileges of whiteness

and those who had the
subordinated status of Blackness,

especially, after sl*very ended

because you no longer had this distinction
of who was enslaved and who wasn't.

The absurdity of race played
out during the early and mid-1900s

in bizarre ways particular
to the United States.

In 1924, New York
socialite, Kip Rhinelander,

sued his new bride, Alice Jones,
after discovering she was biracial,

claiming she hid
her “n*gro blood."

The jury ruled in her favor,
but not before she was forced

to partially disrobe in front of
them so they could examine her body.

And then there's the case
of Walter Francis White

who headed the NAACP
from 1931-1935.

Walter White used the fact
that he could pass for white

to travel into the Deep South
to investigate lynchings

and other violence
against Black people.

On one trip to Arkansas, he was
discovered and forced to flee.

And a clueless train conductor,

not knowing White was the
one everyone was looking for,

told him that he was leaving right
before “The fun was going to start."

According to Walter White's obituary, he
was, “Only five-thirty-seconds n*gro,"

but lived a life as,
“A n*gro by choice,"

and the existence of people like him
was what white supremacists feared most.

That's why when Walter Plecker
created the Racial Integrity Act,

he went to great lengths to
specify a person's racial makeup.

And some of the categories
that still existed on the books

when Ashley and Samuel tried to
get married, gave them pause.

So, the racial categories
in your county in Virginia

were what we would
consider fairly typical.

But you all found out that,
in other places in Virginia,

there were a lot of
interesting categories.

- Can you talk about some of them?
- Some of them I...

Some of them I didn't even
know that they existed.

Like, I, you know,
I knew "mulatto,"

but, like, "quadroon,"
and all these other terms,

I'm like, "What are those?"

And then when I started
googling it, it's like,

"One-fourth Black in you,"
or, like, "Two-thirds Black."

And I'm like, "How do
you... decipher that?

"How do you measure the
amount of Black in a person,

and then give them a name, a
completely different name?"

- Like, that, that blew
my mind. - Mm-hmm.

Virginia may have been the architect
of laws policing interracial sex,

but most states
readily adopted them.

At some point during
the Jim Crow Era,

thirty-seven states
had laws on the books

that prohibited interracial
sex and marriage.

My home state of Iowa, with
its tiny Black population,

legalized interracial
marriage in 1851,

nearly a century before
most of the country.

But making interracial marriage
legal did not banish the ideologies

that made it socially unacceptable for
a white person to marry someone Black.

And so, when my grandparents learned
that my mother was in a relationship

with my father,
they disowned her.

They eventually came around
when my older sister,

their first
grandchild, was born.

But through the years, I've thought
a lot about how racial categories

created such a stigma
around Black people

that it could turn parents
against their own child.

Number 395.
Richard Perry Loving,

and appellants, versus Virginia.

The Racial Integrity
Act stayed in place until 1967,

when the Supreme Court ruled in
the Loving versus Virginia case

that it was unconstitutional to
prohibit people of different races

from marrying each other.

But the Supreme
Court didn't overturn

that whole racial classification
that Plecker enforced.

That structure
was left in place.

And that's why people
found out, even in 2019,

that they couldn't get
married in Virginia

if they didn't check the
box for what race they were.

- The marriages of three Virginia
couples, they're on hold right now.

They argue the
mandate to designate a race

violates their First
Amendment rights.

After their failed attempt to
obtain a marriage license in Virginia

without identifying their race,

Ashley and Samuel joined a
lawsuit with other couples,

challenging the racial
classification requirements.

The couple ended up
moving to Miami for work,

but when they applied
for a marriage license,

they were met with
the same requirements.

So, I go online to the
Miami-Dade clerk's website,

and I start applying for
the marriage license.

And their automated system, again,
had the drop-down menu for the race,

and there was no other
option on that menu,

but to go down and click
it, and I had to exit out.

And I remembered calling Sam, and
I was like, "Here we go again."

All rise.

Ultimately, the
Miami clerk's office

found a way to issue
the marriage license

without identifying their race.

I pronounce Ashley
and Samuel are husband and wife.

And Ashley and Samuel
were finally able to marry.

Back in Virginia, a judge ruled

that the remnants of
the Racial Integrity Act

should not continue
to force people

to identify their races
in order to get married.

The end of the Racial Integrity Act and
other archaic laws that created race

doesn't mean that the racial categories
and beliefs they enforced over centuries

simply disappear.

And the legacy of these laws
still perpetuate false narratives

about Black women's sexuality,
reproduction and motherhood to this day.

In America, race was constructed
on the control of Black women's bodies,

often through sexual violence.

And that violence created harmful, false
narratives about Black women's sexuality.

- So, all of these ways of thinking
about the enslavement of Black people,

the control of Black
women's reproductive labor,

and the control of their
sexuality in the sense that

not having the legal right
to consent or not to consent

is the foundation for many of the
myths about Black women today.

Because it was all excused by
a mythology that Black women

were inherently hypersexual,
that we were licentious.

You know, we could not be r*ped because
we were always consenting to sex.

And so, that idea of
the Black Jezebel,

the temptress who tempted white
men to have sex with them.

You know, these were ideas
that were circulated to excuse

the rampant sexual as*ault
of Black women by white men.

I know I'm not good
enough for you,

but let me have your precious,
white body just once.

The caricature of the Jezebel
was followed by other stereotypes

that have historically served to
rob Black women of our humanity,

and are often so normalized that
we don't even think about them:

the self-sacrificing,
nurturing, asexual mammy.

I can't live with you?

Oh, honey chile, please
don't send me away.

The angry,
emasculating, loud Sapphire.

- It's about time you
met some decent people

instead of that horrible,
uncouth group you associate with.

- Get some Kleenex, wipe your nose
'cause it ain't that damn sad.

Narrative
drives policy,

and too often, cultural
stereotypes about Black people,

and specifically, Black women,

have informed public policy
in truly harmful ways.

Well, can you talk about
the social policies

implemented in the second
half of the 20th century

that really were fueled by sl*very-era
notions of Black women's sexuality?

- You know, this idea
that Black women's wombs

produce devious and
dangerous lifestyle

in their children

is a major driver of public
policy in the United States

for centuries.

But, especially, during the
20th and 21st centuries,

we can see it as behind really
substantial policy changes.

I mean, think about Reagan's icon
of the Black "welfare queen."

She's supposed to get pregnant

just to get a welfare check,

so that she can
spend it on herself,

and completely
neglect her children.

Her
tax-free cash income alone

has been running
$150,000 a year.

Reagan's attack on Black mothers,
eventually, led Congress to pass a bill

drastically restricting welfare
benefits for poor families.

President Bill Clinton signed
that bill into law in 1996.

And the tragic,
only-in-America irony

is that it's unclear whether
the Black woman Reagan made

into a poster child
for welfare reform

was even Black at all.

Born into a white family,
she became a con artist

who used different racial
identities to her advantage.

- From now on, our nation's answer
to this great social challenge

will no longer be a
never-ending cycle of welfare.

Not only did the policy fail
to save the federal government money,

but researchers found that in
the first 15 years of the law,

extreme poverty in the United
States roughly doubled,

a reality that impacts
Americans of every race.

We think about race
as being about racism.

- Mm-hmm.
- But it's power, right?

It's, it's who will have access

to these exclusive white
institutions, right?

To public goods, to things
like public schools,

access to government,
access to employment.

That's really what
this ordering is about,

and making sure that only people

in this very rigid category
will get access to these things.

- Yeah, that's right.
This is a power hierarchy.

Whether we're talking
about where you live,

what kind of job you can have,

whether you're gonna be arrested
and incarcerated or not,

what kind of
healthcare you'll have,

and just in generally how
you're valued in society.

It's hard to resolve
the stereotypes of Black women

with all the Black women I know,

beginning with my
grandmama, Arlena,

who was so determined to give
her children a better life

that she left her entire
family in Mississippi

with nothing more
than a suitcase,

and worked multiple jobs
to provide for her babies.

I think of all my
aunts, cousins, friends,

who like centuries of
Black women before them,

love their children fiercely,

and fight to make the lives

of their families and
their communities better.

After two months in the hospital, baby
Cassius was finally able to go home.

- I felt a great amount of
joy being able to look at him,

and hold his little face, and
everything you can think of.

Like, my job is
here to protect you.

And for Chrissy
Sample and her family,

reaching the milestone of
Cassius's first birthday

was cause for celebration
and reflection.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

When his first birthday come,
it was like, "Oh, my God, I made it.

I made it... He's
here. He's healthy."

- And, um... WOMAN:
We got you, bro.

- I just... wanna have
a moment of silence...

- I wanna have a moment of
silence for, um, Apollo.

Please.

Hello, hello, hello!

Like Black
women often do,

Chrissy turned her traumatic
experience into action

when she decided
to share her story,

and connect with other Black
mothers in her community.

In sharing your
story and your loss,

and connecting with this
whole community of Black women

that you probably didn't even know existed
prior to what, what you went through,

what is your hope for other
Black mothers going forward,

and the impact that
you hope to have?

I want Black women
to know we have options,

and your birthing story
doesn't have to end in tragedy.

Like, you can have
a beautiful birth.

You can bring home
healthy babies.

You don't have to damn near die,

and think about... leaving
your previous children

to be motherless children.

These are the only worries
that Black women go in,

in the hospital thinkin'
like, "I might not make it."

That's not okay.

I, I would like to change that.

I think a lot about what
it will take for this country

to speak the truth of what
was done to Black women,

and reconcile the
atrocities of the past,

so that Black women do not continue
to suffer under this legacy.

I think about what it will take

for this nation to honor
and respect Black women,

to see us, finally, beyond the
constructs that race created.

- What do you see as the way forward for...
- Mm-hmm.

For healing and justice
for Black women,

but also, for liberating our
society of these categories...

- Yeah.
- That harm us all, really?

Yeah, they, they
do, and I think that

women who have been
grappling with this,

who've been experiencing it,

and have been the greatest
resistors against it,

uh, taking their leadership
to imagine a society

that is truly based in
caring, and in humanity

and in valuing human
beings equally.

I think that should give us hope

that if we listen to the
voices of Black women

and their visions for
a transformed society,

we can collectively create
a world that would be safer,

and healthier and more
flourishing for everybody

than the kind of damaged
society we have today.

It's the voices
of Black people singing

about that damaged society
that have helped to change it,

right from the very beginning.

The music
was beautiful.

Comes from a place of, of great
pain and uncertainty, but also hope.

That there's a whole
cultural experience

that is fascinating and
foreign to white people.

They're drawn to it, they
are drawn to this music.