#384: Our Whispering Wombs
Excellent articles on Black women, affirmative action, substance abuse, and kids
Happy Thursday, Loyal Readers. Today’s issue is classic Highlighter: four outstanding articles on race, education, and culture — from a variety of publications. If you’re new here (22 of you this week!), welcome. I hope you find the articles valuable and our reading community kind and thoughtful. Please feel free to reach out!
Today’s lead article, “Our Whispering Wombs,” is so good, I’m fairly certain you’ll see it again in December when I announce the best pieces of the year. Part family history, part ode to Black women, part history of gynecology, and part resistance to racism, Elsa Julien Lora’s essay is beautifully written. You won’t regret reading it.
If you have more time, the other three articles are excellent as well. They explore affirmative action; the meaning of the 14th Amendment; the pain a father feels knowing his daughter suffers from substance abuse, the comfort a dog brings; and the awful effects of COVID on our kids. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
💬 ARTICLE CLUB: This month we’re discussing “HUMAN_FALLBACK,” by Laura Preston. It’s about artificial intelligence, capitalism, and the stripping away of humanity. I invite you to join our conversation on Sunday, March 26, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. Ms. Preston will be joining us! Here’s more information. Hope you sign up.
1️⃣ Our Whispering Wombs: A Black Family History
Elsa Julien Lora grew up in a home with loving images of her foremothers adorning the walls. There were photographs of her mother and grandmother, daguerreotypes of her great-, great-great-, and great-great-great grandmother. I just want you to know that you can always talk to me, they told her.
This essay traces generations of women in Ms. Lora’s family, beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother Sarah, whose uterus “held the future of the slave economy, and also of our family.” She died at age 35 after raising 10 children. About her great-great-great grandmother Cordelia, Ms. Lora writes, “I don’t know anything about her birth other than that it deepened her father’s pockets.”
Ms. Lora discusses not only her foremothers’ resistance to slavery but also how they navigated the rise of gynecology as a profession. Ms. Lora suspects several women in her family lived with uterine fibroids at a time when doctors practiced on enslaved women without anesthesia. She writes:
The gynecological profession and the institution of slavery had a symbiotic relationship. On the one hand, gynecology was only able to advance as a field as quickly as it did because practitioners were able to experiment on enslaved women’s bodies. On the other, the slave economy depended on enslaved people’s productive labor, which was only made possible by enslaved women’s reproductive labor. Slaveholders relied on the insights and services of gynecologists to keep enslaved women healthy during childbearing years. In the words of historian Jennifer Morgan, “Black women’s bodies are inseparable from the landscape of colonial slavery.”
Ms. Lora tracks the disrespect and dismissal of Black women’s bodies over generations, exploring at length her mother’s experience with fibroids. Doctors often believe Black women don’t feel pain. Doctors often recommend hysterectomies when myomectomies are appropriate. “At your age, what do you need your uterus for, anyway?” they ask. Ms. Lora’s mother resists, getting the operation she desires — the successful removal of 117 fibroids.
Shortly after her 24th birthday, Ms. Lora wakes up with a fullness in her belly. Despite her family history, a nurse suspects it’s a kidney issue. It’s not. “I called my mom as soon as the results came in,” she writes. “ ‘I have fibroids.’ Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes. ‘Well of course you do.’ ” (26 minutes)
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2️⃣ Why Is Affirmative Action In Peril?
The Supreme Court most likely will strike down affirmative action next June. This article explains why. According to journalist and law lecturer Emily Bazelon, it all comes down to understanding Regents v. Bakke, the 1978 decision that banned racial quotas but preserved affirmative action. In order to lure enough justices, lawyer Archibald Cox devised a strategy that centered the benefits of diversity, rather than the responsibility of reparations, as the reason affirmative action should continue. In other words: Let’s forget that the 14th Amendment’s purpose was to give equal rights to Black Americans. In the short term, the tactic worked. The Court sided with Mr. Cox 5-4, and affirmative action has endured despite many challenges, including in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Fisher v. Texas (2016). But now with a much more conservative court, Ms. Bazelon suggests that affirmative action’s “diversity” rationale may be similar to abortion’s “privacy” rationale — way too flimsy to survive. (35 min)
3️⃣ Running With Hank
This piece by Caleb Daniloff is beautifully written, and I urge you to read it — even if you’re not a parent, runner, or pet owner. Content note: substance abuse.
I had taken to writing my daughter’s obituary, revising it week after week. It usually cropped up during a run, as if the movement jarred the sentences loose from the dark place where I hid my fears. But then I’d get stuck. All these sepia-toned memories were of her as a child. I struggled to conjure anything meaningful from the previous 10 years. Where was that impish blond-haired girl who loved to draw and silly-dance to TV theme songs, who didn’t care what people thought?
That kid had been replaced by someone I no longer recognized—a stranger with vacant eyes and sores hidden beneath thick makeup, thin as a coatrack. Addicted to heroin and fentanyl. At 25.
The only thing of Shea’s that I could reach out and touch was her 3-year-old dog, Hank, a 30-pound mutt who was now living with us. I started running with him at the nearby Middlesex Fells Reservation a few times a week after a particularly low point in Shea’s journey. (14 min)
4️⃣ The Other Long Covid
It’s been three years since schools closed due to COVID-19. We are still coming to terms with the pandemic’s drastic and long-lasting effects. This informative Vox explainer both confirms what we already know and offers a clear-headed assessment of the generational trauma that our young people have suffered. The data is stark: For example, 1 million students dropped out or disappeared from school. More than 200,000 children lost a caregiver. Fewer high school graduates will go to college. Mental health is at a crisis. While I’ve read statistics like these in various articles over the years, having them all in one place hit me differently. Also I appreciated author Bryan Walsh’s treatment of “learning loss.” He writes, “Students didn’t suddenly lose what they had already achieved before the pandemic. Rather, they lost the opportunity and the time to build on what they knew.” Even though I’ve mostly stayed away from highlighting COVID-related articles in this newsletter, I found this one succinct and illuminating. (17 min)
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