Things I Lost in the Fires: My Mission, Part Two
Hey hey, y’all! Back again fa’ one mo’ again.
“How boring to spend the whole of my vocational energy trying to figure out if I am choosing the right work. It is of much greater interest to me to talk about how I’m going to do the work with integrity. How am I going to protect dignity as I work? And what truths are calling out to me as I work?”
― Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
I believe in working with integrity. I believe in protecting the dignity of myself and my people.
The ED spoke adamantly about me taking over GALS in late 2017-early 2018 as they were unsure of being able to do the job due to relocation. Encouragement and care led my words towards maintaining their role, and even creating a branch of the organization in their new location. I made it clear that I do not have the ability or tolerance to be the face of that organization. I did not want the responsibility of being that important. The changes needed would have outraged the White AF board. Shortly after my second round of denials to medical school, I was offered the opportunity to work for Blue Cross Blue Shield in Pediatrics with Special Needs. I resolved that medicine was an impossibility for me. And, I pressed into this new endeavor as my future, my career, and eventually my retirement. I would continue to refer families that I encountered to GALS. I did not agree with the operations of the organization, but I did agree with people feeling supported and seen as they brought forth life in a system that does not prioritize them. Fast forward to last year (2021) when I read an ignorant ass county commissioner for filth during the public hearing for this new prison…..the ED texted me handclap emojis after they listened to the discourse. Not an “I am sorry for attempting to silence you when you were being what a doula should be…an advocate.” I responded, “Don’t text me, pay me.” And, I still mean that shit with my chest. Read the previous blog post to understand the my offense to those handclaps. As if I was performing for someone? TF? Maybe me no longer being a part of the NPO (which protected their status not mine) led them to send that text? But honestly, how you gonna silence someone, then act like you support them concerning the same issue?
After more than a few red flags, I stopped referring to GALS. The continued public exploitation of Black death and grief helped me become decisive about harm reduction. The professional departure was not without good reasoning. The ED did call me to grant me the opportunity assist with families in complex situations, asked me to speak about medical billing/hospital admin, invite me to conferences that spoke about reproductive health. But, they did not have anything to say when I asked a room of reproductive health stakeholders concerning ACOG’s statement on doulas. I now realized that reflected positively on them. No risk in that. There is a literal voluminous pipeline of White DONA/DTI certified doulas that GALS is responsible for in Central Texas. You can read that as access. I read that as George Floyd had to die for both orgs to realize, “Ohhhhhhh, most of our doulas and curriculums look like Derek Chauvin’s mama. Black women are still dying while bearing children, we might want to stop being complicit in that and open up our scholarship pool.” I read that as appropriation. I read that as further disenfranchisement. It wasn’t Trayvon’s Snapple shattering and Skittles spreading. It wasn’t Mike’s body baked into the pavement, or Sandra’s pleas. It was a public execution, the same ones their ancestors used to dress up for which had them running to say “I am not a racist.” The doula profession is flooded with White bodies saying they are advocates. The Austin doula profession is flooded with White bodies that used oppressed bodies for “certification”. The proclamations have yet to manifest systemic change as these organizations, and many of their certified members continue to perpetuate harm via micro-aggressions, macro-aggressions, gate-keeping, tone policing, selective associations, appropriations, etc, etc, etc. They read the required books, but never go deeper. But, I am supposed to trust a tone-policing, White woman in a position of power, mentored by another complicit, White woman of power to make more “conscious” White birth-workers? I am a queen until I call you out on some bullshit?
Avocado toast activism asses.
I am also the individual who began to refer to humans that were served as birthing people/folx, the individual that asked that people do not use birthing people’s images on the org’s site without expressed, INFORMED written AND verbal consent. Poverty and need is not an excuse for exploitation. Also, the individual that asked the ED why were we meeting in a church, but not receiving for seeking contributions from religious organizations? This later question stemmed from an incident at a Volunteer training in which the entire room was distracted by a Right to Life rally outside. If someone needs a birth doula, then we are pass the pro-life/pro-choice conversations. That person chose (reasons being THEIR business) to birth another person……..soooooo, what’s the issue? We can hold meetings in a church’s building, but not ask for money to support that “no one births alone”?
To be completely transparent, I am appalled at the completely unaccountable nature of the organization concerning incidents of harms towards Black bodies. The organization was built by non-White bodies. A White, cis-gendered woman, and a largely White cis-gendered board runs the organization. But, because of a race-equity training, they get a pass? The training only came after a GALS doula asked a Black midwife, in front of a pack house at a DTI Born Into This panel, “besides changing the color of her skin what could she do to change racism/African-American Maternal Mortality?” And after the Black, harmed body incinerated this racist, classist ignorance, the ED comforted the White woman’s tears. And then have the incident removed from the recording. (But apparently, I deleted a database????). I was not there, and due to the different stories I was told, I would not have handled it the same way. But, my mistake was affirming the ED’s actions and not asking them did they understand how that situation came to pass? Did they understand how they had enabled that doula’s boldness? That they get a pass for the lack of queer/transgendered inclusion because of the power of Whiteness? This is what it is to be in the belly of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex beast.
This is where I was harmful. I allowed a lot of fuck shit to come from this person’s mouth. I was silent, accommodating and pliable in many situations where I should have been stern and striking. The ED stated to me personally that I did not need a doula certification, but also did not acknowledging the structural, capitalist, White supremacy nature of doula certifications towards Black bodies. Did not acknowledge nor understand that we have to have all of the things to be allowed into rooms that they float into. But White women can use Black bodies for certification, and never serve those bodies again? How many times did I listen to verbal harm from this person’s mouth towards Black femme organizers? Mama Sana Vibrant Woman (MSVW) apparently was “biting GALS style” by deciding to go into hospitals, and wearing purple shirts per this person. Incapable of data collection and analysis per this person. MSVW only got a grant from Austin Public Health because they knew them better, per jealous words. Healing Hands Community Doula Project (HHCDP) was only around because its founder also took from GALS. The later complaint being said to me before a Texas Collaborative Health Mothers and Babies session in which the founder was speaking. Let me reiterate……a White, cisgendered, femme took issue with two Black-led and run organizations because she felt that they were imitating and inadequate in their eyes compared to GALS. I listened and diverted so many times. And if I was truly my sister’s keeper, I failed immensely. The current optics give inclusion. The real optics are gate-keeping and image-hawking for accolades. The real truth is that at any given moment, they will use Black bodies against each other for personal affirmation. The truth is that there are/were many Black bodies used for their education on White supremacy. My internalized self-hatred led me to be another brick in the building of their NPO and public image. I realized me being light-skinned had quite a bit to do with their lingual laxative….and they get the pass because of power and privilege. I got to hold the bullshit.
I dismissed all of these things. And like a true masochist, believing in a friendship……..I came back to the organization after the ED learned for the umpteenth time (despite it being in all of my professional collateral) from my personal social media page that I was fluent in French. Apparently, the ED was being sought out for birth support for a non-english speaking individual by MSVW. I did not know at the time that the ED was working on a collaborative with MSVW, HHCDP, BlackMamasATX, and a few other perinatal health groups. I went into this situation with the information relayed to me by the ED. Upon rejoining the platforms used for GALS, I saw that it was the same shit, different damn day. I asked as many questions as I could and those questions being birth related questions, but resolved to focus on the family in need I was brought on for assistance. They divulged information concerning projects to project their power and partnerships they were fostering. Hindsight understands that is a tactic used to keep a power dynamic alive. I still did not trust my instincts which said I was being lied to and there was more to this request.
“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
― Alice Walker
This family needed child rearing supplies, like many of us do when we have kiddos. Let me make this clear, when I say that it is peak White supremacy when people donate low quality/damaged goods to those in poverty…….the GALS storage closet was a shining example. Clothing, bedding, breast/bodyfeeding supplies that were not just soiled, but dirty. Infant formula well passed its expiration date. I mean pump parts, phlanges and pumps themselves encrusted with human milk. I mean crib sheets, rompers, onesies, bibs stained permanently from soiling. I spent a whole day, sorting, organizing and disposing of items in that storage unit because my dumb ass did not want to leave something the way I found it. I legit grabbed each and every single thing sufficient for the family and would need immediately and in the future from that unit without shame. Make it make sense to me. If we are in a pandemic, and at the time it had not been declared by the health authorities that this virus was NOT transmissible via respiratory and oral fluids on surfaces, why would I give this family anything that had evidence of bodily fluids upon it? And why was there not a protocol in place that items containing signs of bodily fluids/stains would not be accepted? Because poor people do not deserve items that are clean/unused/new/sanitized?
I was done done when despite the visits, education and counseling, I discovered that the family did in fact have a doula already despite stating they did not in their spoken language. The other doula was called a “friend”, but was in actuality a student midwife and I am well aware of territorial words and behaviors. When I realized that I had been used for resources, but what felt like a test run of this collaboration without adequate information from the two governing organizations….I deuced out. The family had the support and resources they needed, and I was done being used by this ED. I also was not going to be in the midst of trauma-bonding with a language barrier between this family and doula. The internet flung the student midwife into my algoritm and I was triggered af because this person had case management listed……but I had yet to see that materialized with this client. Then I realized my involvement was exactly that, case management.
Regardless how anyone feels about GALS or the ED (because that is their business), I cannot align with someone that I know, that I know, that I know, that I know is a colorist, and fetishizes my people. This is exactly why I am not a part of various doula collectives. The most prominent doula collectives in Austin are White-led and run. They use light-skinned bodies to appear inclusive, use dark-skinned bodies for their marketing and trainings. Or they collect affiliation/association with the prominent Black figures in order to vouch for their “doing the work”. Collecting bodies like American Girl dolls of affirmative action. The rhetoric is “Did you see our anti-racism training? Did you see our resident BIPOC doula(s)? Did you see our contribution to this Black student midwife/midwife/NPO? Oh, we are doing THE WORK!” But in all complete reality their communities, confidants, homes, hobbies, cares are just as insulated with White supremacy as their internet algorithms. The work is always outside facing, never inside changing. If you are really “doing the work”, why does it need to be publicized and marketed? Why can’t y’all let the “work” speak for itself? Imagine if the hard conversations, the finances, the trainings, the biases and all of the “messy stuff” had to be as public as they are about their opinions on Black pain, death, grief? The rhetoric would be the deleted portion of that Born Into This Conference on repeat. Because they allllll still harm. They all still exclude and spew micro- and macro-aggressions. Because the expectation is that Black bodies accommodate White fragility immediately, and Black bodies ingest White supremacy infinitely.
Yes, I absolutely did this to myself. Yes, I absolutely agreed to this to be able to serve families AND get a med school recommendation. Yes, I assumed that all of the pouring into others would lead to collaboration, and networking back to me. Yes, I absolutely confused “friend” with “colleague”, and “acquaintances” with “community”. Yes, I absolutely caused harm via free emotional labor, White silence, White privilege….yup, White supremacy. Yes, I am absolutely sure I lost track of what a damn good doula I am for the benefit to be accepted by a connection that required conformity. But, that is the complexity of a fire. Fires keep us alive, but remind us that these bodies burn. It is the fire that purifies gold, creates the crystal-latticed diamonds, cauterizes the arteries/veins to prevent hemorrhaging, keeps hearts beating when cold seeps in to steal breath, and protects lives when predators seeks to procure prey. So, I did indeed agree to this fire. And I did indeed lose myself, and my mission in the midst of it.
But, I did gain my magic.
People-pleasing, which is derived from the need for validation from others… is something I became active in dissolving within myself, after compounding losses of foundational souls in my life between 2018-2021. I can completely be honest that my skills as a doula early in this journey were derived from a desire to help, but fortified via people-pleasing. I tried to keep the efforts in support for those of us in marginalized, racialized bodies, and those I considered close to me. As time transpired, my focus on the vocation of my life diminished for the desired feeling of “doing good” or “doing the right thing”. All of the doing left me with no thing. No thing to look at in the mirror and love. No thing that could make me feel as if I was inherently valuable. A phenomenal voice at making others feel what I felt I needed to feel within myself. There are sooooo many of us who feel called to care for and support others that are choosing validation over verification. Do not make my mistake. Validation is looking for someone to approve if the fire is good enough. Verification is knowing that people are being kept warm, and led by it. If you are moved by this blog, please seek out mental and behavioral health support to begin your own journey towards the destruction of people-pleasing in your life. There is liberation in loving the self.