Bag Lady: A Soulful and Scientific Reflection on Black Women’s Health

Abstract

At the intersection of sexism and racism, Black women experience undue burden of poor health. Established literature in both scientific and artistic arenas archive health disparities facing Black women such as mental health and suicidality. Using poetry, this piece serves as a channel to express the joys and pains of the human experience as well as inspire healing and synergy through honest examination of societal structures. This mixed media artistry (intended to be sung and spoken) weaves together lyrical and literary works, featuring by quotes from Erykah Badu’s Bag Lady; Dr. Maya Angelou’s many works; Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf; and Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry’s Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. It ultimately articulates how to journey across the arc of triumph for well-being synergizing mind, body, and spirit.

As posited by feminist theory, Black women experience hyper-vulnerability to inequity and societal exclusion at the intersection of racism and sexism (Davis, 2008). Herein, we use the definition set of racism forth by Camara Jones, MD, MPH, PhD, where

racism is a system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of how one looks (which is what we call “race”), that unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities, unfairly advantages other individuals and communities, and saps the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources. (Jones, 2018)

This definition may also apply to all “isms,” or societal structures of violence, such as sexism.

Established scientific literature documents poor health outcomes experienced by Black women such as the maternal mortality crisis. For instance, Serena Williams, a tennis sports superstar, was not exempt of this experience of structural violence at the intersection of racism and sexism while undergoing childbirth and vying for her life (Okafor, 2019). Her celebrity status did not protect nor preclude her from bias when she was reduced to a vulnerable Black woman pleading for a health screening to ensure her vascular health. Despite being incredibly fit and cognizant of her own body, her urgent requests for medical help were ignored. Thus, listening to and encouraging Black women to voice discrimination they experience may provide insight poised to address systems of structural violence (Galtung, 1969). Moreover, Black women have been misused and abused in the practice of Western scientific medicine (Washington, 2006). For instance, Harriet Washington’s book, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, documents the horrendous history of Western scientific medicine. Washington’s text includes critical analysis of the nuanced tales of treatment and technology coercively created and perfected on the bodies of Black women by the “father of gynecology” J. Marion Sims, MD, during the same era of the initiation of Women’s Rights Movement and presentation of Truth’s speech “Aren’t I a Woman?” (Washington, 2006).

Black women’s hyper-vulnerability extends into modern times as exemplified in Rebecca Skloot’s book detailing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman with poor access to medical care who died of cervical cancer in 1951 (Skloot, 2017). Her cells were biopsied at Johns Hopkins and were maintained for scientific study as well as commercial use without the consent of Henrietta Lacks nor her family (Skloot, 2017). Her cells, widely referred to as HeLa cells, have been sourced to develop countless innovations in medical research including, but not limited to, cancer, polio vaccination, gene mapping, nuclear testing, space expeditions, HIV/AIDS, leukemia, hemophilia, Parkinson’s disease, cloning, herpes, and influenza (Skloot, 2017). In fact, her cells continue to contribute to scientific discovery to date as they were the first immortalized human cell line (Skloot, 2017). Not until 2013 did her family formally enter agreement with federal agencies regarding the use and privacy of her cells (Skloot, 2017). Although policies and procedures have been institutionalized to account for such biases and prevent poor practices in the future (e.g., federal entities requiring assessments of inclusion of women and minorities in grants, institutional review boards, informed consent), discrepancies and detrimental effects on vulnerable populations still carry over from historical context (Jones, 2000).

Established artistic literature also articulates the importance of Black women’s insight. For example, Toni Cade Bambara’s novel The Black Woman: An Anthology voices an “Afrafemme” view of the world (Bambara, 2005). Bambara includes an excerpt from abolitionist and activist Sojourner Truth in her 1851 speech which illustrates pitfalls of a one-dimensional approach to women’s wellness where she probes:

Dat man ober dar say dat women needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to have de best place everywhar. Nobody ever help me into carriages, or ober mud puddles, or give me any best place, . . . And arn’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! . . . I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me—and arn’t I woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it) and bear de lash as well—and arn’t I a woman? I have born five children and I seen “em mos” all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! —and aren’t I a woman?

African American writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston (Bambara, 2005) wrote the 1937 novel Their Eyes were Watching God (Hurston, 2006). Below, an excerpt from her novel exemplifies the intersectionality of colonialism, racism, and sexism, and xenophobia, where she deduces “Black women are the mules of the world,” specifically stating:

. . . de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it’s some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don’t know nothin’ but what we see. So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.

Structural violence directly and indirectly impacts health and health behavior. Such systems of oppression create a dynamic interplay of racism and sexism which must be exposed and rectified to promote health and prevent disease with efficiency and sustainability. Arts in public health provides insight and voice to express the human experience as well as inspire healing and synergy through honest examination of societal structures to dismantling structural health inequity (Petteway, 2021):

“Bag lady you gon’ hurt your back, dragging all those bags like that . . . ¹ ”

. . . but she didn’t hear me;

because, she was raised as the world’s mule,

running full speed on no fuel . . .

An equation for a catastrophe.

A grim beginning because she . . .

“. . . wasn’t aware that there’s no greater pain than harboring an untold story inside of you”

(Asé to ancestor Dr. Maya Angelou).

Pages of her spiritual diary were full, so she packed them away in a bag or two.

Years of this self-destructing process left her with nothing left but bitterness . . .

“I guess nobody you, all you must hold on to is you, is you, is you . . . ”

But she didn’t get the memo.

“She was still dancing on beer cans and shingles in the spook house . . .”

and no, not one person told her.

Not one person cared to open their mouth . . .

All she heard was distraught laughter falling over her shoulder . . .

Came to a point where not even the rainbow could console her . . . ”

I tried to tell her . . .

“One day all those bags going to get in your way.

I said, one day all those bags gon’ get in your way.

Ooo I said, one day all those bags gon’get in your way . . .

One day all those bags gon’ get in your way . . . ”

& that day finally came . . .

She was tired of being everyone’s angry black woman.

She was tired of being called sexual chocolate no matter what she was doing.

She was tired of unpacking everyone’s bags but her own.

She was tired of drowning while people swam right on.

She had a crown on her head but the weight of the world on her back and her shoulders.

She was going to unpack those bags, go somewhere no one else could control her.

“Sapphire, Jezebel, Mammy” were the stereotypes she ascribed.

She could no longer bare those spiritually suffocating lies . . .

So, she went to the cabinet, pulled out the pills she was prescribed . . .

She went to bed that night eyes shut tight as she bid this life a final good night.

I’m not saying she was right, but she finally listened, she finally found a way to “Pack Light.”

Now to all my “Colored Girls Considering Suicide,”

I know it’s hard when your self-worth and the world’s views of you don’t coincide.

But listen up now before it’s too late,

“Pack Light”

Transcend!

Don’t share “Bag Lady’s” fate.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-hpp-10.1177_15248399231207068 – Supplemental material for Bag Lady: A Soulful and Scientific Reflection on Black Women’s Health

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-hpp-10.1177_15248399231207068 for Bag Lady: A Soulful and Scientific Reflection on Black Women’s Health by Rhoda Moise in Health Promotion Practice