This Thursday, Bucknell hosted Dana-Ain Davis, PhD., for a lecture and Q&A. Dr. Davis is a professor of urban studies and anthropology at Queens College, City University of New York. Davis has published multiple works on the intersections of race and obstetrics-gynecology. Dr. Davis is not only an academic, but also a practicing doula, allowing her to put her work into practice. Her list of accomplishments is vast and cannot be justly listed in one blog post, so I encourage those interested to visit her page on the CUNY website. Her talk, “Laboring Under Racism: Black Bodies, Medical Dispossession and Obstetric Racism” focused on the reality of obstetric racism and Black maternal mortality in the United States. This spring I had the pleasure of interviewing Deirdre Cooper Owens about her book “Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology”. This week’s event was an excellent continuation of an ongoing discussion about an incredibly pressing topic.
Professor Davis began her lecture by speaking about her ancestry, crediting her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents for their contributions to her understanding of the world. She shared that she is only three generations away from her enslaved ancestors- a sobering reminder of the magnitude of her role as an academic. This family history, she said, has had a significant impact on her moral framework.
Davis draws on Frantz Fanon to introduce her term “medical dispossession”, which she defines as the stripping of the rights that black women have over their own bodies. Multiple stories were shared about Black women who had been disrespected and mistreated at various stages of pregnancy, labor, and delivery. One woman was denied an epidural, forced to crawl to her own delivery bed while crowning, and suffered a hematoma which went uncharted in her medical records. The second story told of a woman who went into cardiac arrest during an emergency c-section, only to overhear her doctor profess that “You can’t kill a Creole”. Davis then drew upon historical examples, including Saartjie Baartman, an enslaved woman displayed across Europe due to her large breasts and buttocks. After her death, Baartman’s dissected remains were displayed in a museum in Paris. She also spoke of Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy, who were subjected to medical torture during the gynecological research of James Marion Sims.
Each of these circumstances are examples of medical dispossession. Importantly, medical dispossession is not always as extreme as these examples. Other examples, such as hospitals with predominantly Black populations closing, and people of color being excluded from medical trials, may be misinterpreted as nonviolent. All instances of medical dispossession are violent, however, in that they cause direct physical harm and pain to the individual or community which is dispossessed. Medical dispossession is something which occurs “generation after generation by the every system which claims to help people”. Importantly, Davis provided a non exhaustive list of instances which indicate medical racism: Diagnostic lapse, neglect, dismissiveness, disrespect, intentionally causing pain, coercion, ceremonies of degradation, medical abuse, and racial reconnaissance.
I earnestly hope that Bucknell continues to host experts on public health, race, and their intersections so that public consciousness of this topic will continue to grow.
-Lily Hebda, ’27