‘Racialized Myths,’ Medical Exploitation, and Dire Results

^{"Office of Dr. J. Marion Sims in Montgomery, Alabama (Jan 2013)" by Richard Apple licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0}

America's maternal mortality gap can be traced to slavery-era medical exploitation.

Black women are up to four times more likely to die due to pregnancy- and birth-related complications than their white counterparts. Among the reasons are a legacy of experiments on Black women by white doctors since the first Africans were brought here as chattel and racist assumptions that underpin gaps in cultural competency today.

“You have to consider the history and the context that the medical profession has been trained in over generations, and a lot of it is rooted in these racialized myths about Black people, especially with this idea of race as biology rather than race as a social construct,” said Keisha Bentley-Edwards, an associate professor at Duke University School of Medicine. “So with that, you can look at J. Marion Sims and his decision not to provide appropriate anesthesia to enslaved women [during surgery] along with Black people being perceived as not experiencing pain in...