The Lessons of the Boondock Saints and Tanya Lewis Lee
by Courtroom Mama
I recently took a vacation from the internet. It was nice because, apart from letting me do things with my non-kid time like going to the gym so my preschooler can stop asking me if “there’s a baby in there,” I got to step back for a moment and look at things from a perspective other than that of the bloggy echo chamber. Two things that I did that ended up having a surprising connection:
- Watched “The Boondock Saints” for probably the fifteenth time, and
- At Jill’s suggestion, finally saw Tonya Lewis Lee’s 2009 documentary, “Crisis in the Crib: Saving Our Nation’s Babies”
I know, right? But hang with me for a moment. For those who haven’t seen these movies: the former is a quirky shoot-em-up action film about a pair of Irish twins (pun intended, I’m sure) who bring vigilante justice to South Boston, the latter is a documentary about the crisis of infant mortality in the black community by Tonya Lewis Lee, wife of director Spike Lee, for the Office of Minority Health’s Healthy Baby Begins with You Campaign.
The lightbulb went off in the beginning of the movie (transcript below)
Monsignor: And I am reminded, on this holy day, of the sad story of Kitty Genovese. As you all may remember, a long time ago, almost thirty years ago, this poor soul cried out for help time and time again, but no person answered her calls. Though many saw, no one so much as called the police. They all just watched as Kitty was being stabbed to death in broad daylight. They watched as her assailant walked away. Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.
Connor: I do believe the monsignor’s finally got the point.
Murphy: Aye.
I have to admit that I put off seeing “Crisis in the Crib” for a long time. Because I knew it would be sad? Because I fancied myself some sort of expert on the issue? Because it seems so far away from my own experience? Who knows. But when Jill sent me a Google Blog Search for “Crisis in the Crib,” my heart stopped for a moment: nearly none of the blogs that I read had covered it.
We’re not talking “my indie film video store doesn’t carry Braveheart.” We’re talking about the very set of people who should be writing about infant mortality—mostly birthy blogs, feminist blogs, and mothering blogs—didn’t mention the film. Sure, there were some; for example, Elita at Blacktating did a quick hit as a part of her Happy Black Girl Day list of “black girls who understand the importance of birth autonomy, breastfeeding and natural parenting.” I don’t read All the Blogs in the World, and maybe I’m not reading the “right” stuff, but it makes me sad to know that I have 1000+ unread items in my Google Reader, probably 3/4 of those about birth or mothering, and none of them will have mentioned the film.
I know that on its face this looks like a classic example of the anti-feminist trope, “Why are you concentrating on X when Y is so much more important?” Nevertheless, the issues are so intertwined that it seems almost disingenuous to call one a crisis without acknowledging the other.
I’m thinking back to a couple of reports that came out within the last six months: Amnesty International’s “Deadly Delivery” and the other a report on maternal mortality in California. Both of them revealed breathtaking defects in our maternity care system, and upped the volume on a meme that is one of my pet peeves: “it is more dangerous to give birth here than it is in [insert country].”
Setting aside for a moment the Americocentrism (what’s the matter with Slovakia, anyway?), I think that many of us birth bloggers are guilty of some tone deafness. The maternal and infant mortality rates are not borne equally across races.
Here is the most recent data from Shelby County, TN, where much of the film was set:
It’s like the white babies are born in the U.S., and the black babies are born in a whole other place (the CIA Factbook 2010 projections say the Solomon Islands). Here, more than anywhere else, it is clear that there are two Americas.
Watching “Crisis in the Crib,” I could see the water I swim in for a moment and realized that I sometimes have “birth blinders” on. I care so much about unnecessary interventions and evidence-based care that it’s tempting to look at our flagging position in rank for maternal and infant health and say “see! It’s the unnecesareans and the pitocin and the EFM!” But the truth, as the documentary shows, is more complicated. The truth is a story that is so big and so awful that it crushes blogs under its tires and we can’t look at it for fear of turning to stone: we live in a nation where the legacy of slavery and segregation is a permanent invisible underclass. Mothers and babies are dying, and I, for one, am not caring enough about it.
So here is my challenge to you (yes, you!) to change that sorry Google Blog Search with a mini blog carnival. If you haven’t seen the film already, you can watch it here in WMV firmat. It’s just about half an hour long, so you can watch it while you’re nursing or folding laundry or plotting to take over the world. Then write a blog post about any aspect of the film or the topic that tickles your fancy. Comment to this post with a link to your post (or any post you’ve previously written about the movie) by July 2, and on July 4, I’ll repost our favorite along with links to all submissions.
Happy writing!
Jill
Tonya Lewis Lee’s named is spelled with an “o”, not “Tanya” as in the title. However, if we change the title, it will change the URL and any links to the post will not work.
Reader Comments (40)
Kick ass post. Can't wait to see the film and discuss. Thanks for putting it out there!
I actually wrote about Tonya's work another time, when she made a promo for the campaign, "A Healthy Baby Begins With You." I was pissed that the spot talked about getting prenatal care, putting your baby "back to sleep," but never mentioned breastfeeding. http://www.blacktating.com/2009/02/healthy-baby-begins-with-you.html
I went on a recent sponsored blogging junket and met another blogger named Nichelle Stephens who lives in NYC. She had attended a screening of Crisis in the Crib along with a few other invited bloggers of color. I wasn't invited & I don't live in NYC but I told her I really wanted to see the doc. She had plans to help host Mother's Day screenings in various cities across the country this year and I told her I definitely wanted to hold one in South Florida. Not sure if it ever happened, but if it did, no one ever notified me.
Anyway, another blogger wrote about her experience seeing the documentary. http://mommyfactor.blogspot.com/2010/02/tonya-lewis-lee-crisis-in-crib.html
I'll be honest with you, I had forgotten about it. I was never able to get my hands on a copy and you know, out of sight, out of mind. I had no idea it was available online, but I am wondering if that may be a recent addition to the website. I am definitely going to check it out now that I know it's online, so thanks for letting me know. I appreciate you hosting a blog Carnival about this and I am going to publicize it on my blog and Facebook fan page as well. I'll be REALLY interested to see who takes part because my Google reader is full of a lot of birth blogs, too.
Oh, and even though this was filmed a couple of years ago and in TN, this is a huge problem across the country. There was a recent article in a Milwaukee paper saying black babies are worse off there than babies born in developing countries like Sri Lanka and an article in the NY Times from a day or so ago stated that black women are 7x as likely to die in childbirth than white women in NY State. A HUGE problem, so yes, why aren't we talking about it more?
YES. This.
I'll be watching and writing. Thanks for giving me the kick in the ass to do so.
Thanks so much for bringing this to my attention. Among the gazillion of blogs I subscribe to, none ever mentioned this either (including some black breastfeeding/pregnancy blogs). Hope I can get to see the movie soon. I'll have to convince my husband to delay watching the next episode of Lost. Might be a tough battle..
For this, I can suck it up, ignore my exhaustion, morning sickness and extreme desire to lay on the couch all day a mope! Thanks for writing this post Court Room Mama! I look forward to reading the other blogs about this as well.
I haven't seen the film yet, but I wanted to submit an earlier piece I wrote on this very topic just in case life happens.
http://kariannafrey.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/better-off-in-a-third-world-country/
Great topic and I am glad to participate.
I would love to participate in this carnival. Unfortunately I'm having trouble viewing the film because I don't have Windows. I look forward to reading the carnival posts though.
As for raising awareness, the film gets an A+, and since I think that was its intended purpose, I'll try not to be too hard on it. But raising awareness is only ever step one.
One thing in particular bothered me about the film. Disparity doesn't always equal racism. Racism would imply that someone is intentionally sabotaging or neglecting mothers on the basis of their race. I haven't seen any evidence of that happening. Maybe it is, but I haven't seen the evidence. Innocent until proven guilty. That said, obviously the disparity is a big problem, and what ever factors contribute to the disparity occur more often in colored communities. I think my major disappointment with the film was that I wanted to see a list of possible reasons why this disparity exists. Maybe no such list exists and we really have no idea. It makes me really want to find out though!
it has been shown repeatedly that White [medical] providers treat patients of color differently (as in a bad way). that is disparity=racism
Health disparities are one of the most troubling, persistent, and difficult to tackle problems in public health. A lot of people really do care. Health professionals dedicate their lives to reducing disparities. Academic departments are set up to study the causes and consequences of health disparities (Maryland, http://medschool.umaryland.edu/minorityhealth.asp; Michigan, http://www.sph.umich.edu/ciahd/; Hopkins, http://www.jhsph.edu/healthdisparities/). The CDC has a department devoted to eliminating health disparities and so does just about every major medical and public health organization. Yet, change is so incredibly slow. Why? What can we DO about it? Who is succeeding (Jennie Joseph is one that comes to mind!)?
Thanks for organizing this blog carnival. I'm looking forward to reading.
@ Heather - Respectfully, racism is not only about intention. Racism is systemic not just about individual biases and behaviors.
::nods in agreement with NavelgazingBajan:: "-isms" are about systems of power and injustice; individual actors (in this case, doctors) do not have to be *prejudiced* in order to perpetuate a racist (or sexist, etc.) system.
On another note, is there a way for us folks without birth blogs to contribute???
Sabi, I'll check with Courtroom Mama. Maybe we can do a series of guest posts? We'll come up with something.
Nutritional deficiency is a big component of the worse outcomes for black women in America. Combine that with systemic racism in hospitals and even alternative birth culture and you have a recipe for sky-high maternal and infant mortality and poor outcomes.
The problem with nutritional deficiency is that nutrition research is only just beginning to understand and get hard data on the importance of certain key nutrients, and more to the point, that supplements are not a perfect cure-all (witness the attempts to put the crucial nutrient DHA into formula, only to make babies consuming that formula very ill). Better food, with careful use of individual, discrete supplements would improve outcomes, but American food culture has such warped ideas of what is healthful and what isn't, in addition to the perverse incentives embedded in farm subsidies (including WIC) that it seems unlikely the needed changes will happen. Plus there's the ugly reality that some Americans, including some who drive health policy, are happy that most of the horrible infant and maternal mortality statistics don't fall equally on all races.
You reminded me of these quotes:
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing
(according to http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke source/exact quote unknown)
and also
"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...)
Your silence will not protect you. -- Audre Lorde
"I have come to believe, over and over again, that what is important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood." -- Audre Lorde
Yeah, I like quotes.
Thanks everyone for such thoughtful responses!
Elita - thanks for jumping into this with both feet, and I'm thrilled that you are going to participate and join in challenging your readers to do so as well. I've seen lots of tweets from other bloggers I love reading, too, so I think this will be great.
Heather - As others have pointed out, racism is much more complicated than simply an aggregation of individual intent. Unfortunately, people can unwittingly be part of the problem. I'll find some stuff for you on institutional racism if you're interested in learning about it.
"Another Rachel" - YES, I love the quotes. I've definitely thought about "First They Came" in the context of the issues I care about.
Sabi - I'm not too sure, but we'll think of something. Do you have a Facebook where you could make a publicly visible Note? or maybe you could make your post a long comment here and we can link to that. Or you can email me your post and I'll post it on my own blog as a guest post and link there. I'm open to any suggestions, because I want to hear from as many people as possible!
Rebecca - I'd really love if you wrote something about disparities and how they're addressed by public health experts, since you have some expertise that lots of us don't. I think I've written at length about my love for Jennie Joseph. Ah! Why do you have to be studying for the bar?!
@ Mari- I think nutrition is a big part of the pregnancy outcome disparity, just from my own personal experience with younger black women. I took a friend of mine out to lunch once to a healthy restaurant- a kebob place with meats, rices, veggies, etc. She said that she had NEVER eaten anything like that before- basically she said that she always ate fast food, and it didn't bother her "because she was still thin". She really didn't seem to have any concept of healthy food and nutrition. She and I live only blocks from eachother, and the place we went to eat was only blocks from her house, but she said that she always ate fast food. And from other people that I've known in her community, that's pretty common. We know that a diet like that isn't good for adults, and it surely isn't good for pregnant mothers and their babies either.
Sabi, Courtroom Mama and all,
I'm thinking that we can just link to a comment left here. I'm not sure what the character limit is, but I've written essays in the comments before! If there are any relevant pictures of graphs, you can just e-mail them to us.
I'm so glad you're participating! This is great idea, CM.
Jill
Hi Jill, Glad you saw "Crisis In The Crib". There was not a dry eye in the room when I saw it last fall. Hi Elita, there were plans to do screenings around the country, but the budget got in the way. I have been told that you can contact the Office of Minority Health to get a copy and maybe you can host a screening in your area.
Do I get any "points" for having at least written about the Healthy Baby Begins With You Campaign last month on the Citizens for Midwifery blog? For whatever reason, I did not see that this film was available via their Campaign's website though! (and I still don't see it if I don't use your link, but instead go straight to the website). I'll definitely be watching it!