21 | Birthing Black Freedom: A Midwife Fighting Structural Racism and -isms | Jamarah Amani

Social Medicine On Air

(Short Audience Survey: bit.ly/SMOAsurvey)

Jamarah Amani (@jamarahAA) shares how her work and activism as a midwife fights racism and injustice. She shares her own birth story and ancestors, the racial violence in the history of birth in the United States, obstetric violence, the Birth Justice Bill of Rights, health disparities, community members as healthcare designers, being able to unapologetically be one's whole self, queer midwives and midwifery, incarceration, shackling, prison doulas, the ways in which social work can collude with the mass incarceration system, and how midwifery chose her.

Jamarah Amani, LM is a community midwife building a movement for Birth Justice. A community organizer since the age of sixteen, she has locally, nationally, and globally worked on HIV prevention, maternal and infant mortality, and access to emergency contraception and midwifery care. She is currently the director of the Southern Birth Justice Network, and the National Black Midwives Alliance. Jamarah is the 2019 recipient of the Trailblazer Award from the City of Miami.

• SBJN's Birth Justice Bill of Rights, bit.ly/3hkMVRb

• Southern Birth Justice Network, bit.ly/3blrfkc

• National Black Midwives Alliance, bit.ly/3oaj5A6