brown like me

I don’t purposefully allow the accents of your name to fall flat on my tongue like the European English demands or the language to sound chopped and misheard.

If I don’t say your name correctly, don’t shrug and say it’s ok because people have been doing it all your life. Your mother worked hard to name you that name, with all its syllables and apostrophes and hyphens and inflection.

I don’t want to disrespect your heritage, your culture, your great grandmother or grandfather and their struggle.

ma’am???

I had to read that last sentence three times

“the school District was ONLY desegregated in 2017.” Just 2 years ago?!

“An American mom today is 50% more likely to die in childbirth than her own mother was,” said Dr. Neel Shah, a Harvard Medical School obstetrician.

Separately, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released new guidelines saying being black is the greatest risk factor for these deaths. The guidelines say women should have a comprehensive heart-risk evaluation 12 weeks after delivery, but up to 40% of women don’t return for that visit and payment issues may be one reason.

Bleeding and infections used to cause most pregnancy-related deaths, but heart-related problems do now.

“Pregnancy is really a stress test” because of the extra blood the heart is moving for mom and child, said the head of the guidelines panel, Dr. James Martin. That can reveal previously unknown problems or lead to new ones.

The CDC report found that about one third of maternal deaths happened during pregnancy, a third were during or within a week of birth, and the rest were up to a year later.

Globally, maternal mortality fell about 44% between 1990 and 2015, according to the World Health Organization. But the U.S. is out of step: Moms die in about 17 out of every 100,000 U.S. births each year, up from 12 per 100,000 a quarter century ago.

Possible factors include the high C-section rates in the U.S. and soaring rates of obesity, which raises the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other complications.

Black women in the U.S. are about three times as likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause as others, partly because of racial bias they may experience in getting care and doctors not recognizing risk factors such as high blood pressure, said Dr. Lisa Hollier, the obstetrician group’s president.

Spoiler Alert, tw: rape, torture

I just watched Get Out last night and it was incredible to say the least. And definitely one of my favorite films that I’ve seen recently. 

What I found most interesting, though, was that aspects of the film were so much more fact than fiction. And many parts had a sadly very real basis in black history.

There is historical precedent which shows that aspects of what happened to the black people in the film has also occurred in real life.

The film is a comedic psychological thriller in which black people are kidnapped, brainwashed into losing themselves and their blackness, and made into body puppets for white masters. As you watch as a black person, you can just sit there in shock and awe at just how evil it all is. 

But the film is not just a work of fiction. There is also historical precedent showing that many aspects of what happened to the black people in the film has also occurred in real life. And as I watched the movie, I immediately thought of slavery and specifically the “Seasoning” that slaves were put through to prepare them to be “proper” slaves on plantations.

The History of “Seasoning” Slaves

A slave’s journey did not end with the Middle Passage. “Seasoning” was then used to psychologically destroy them and make them submissive, “pliant” slaves

If you survived the slave forts known as “factories” on the African coast where hundreds of thousands died or the horrors of rape, beatings, starvation, sickness, humiliation, murder and more on the Middle Passage which killed millions more, you then were trafficked- bruised, sick, beaten and psychologically traumatized for sale to white plantation owners in the “New World.” But your journey of abuse and trauma was just beginning.

For slaves shipped to the Caribbean or South America (Over 90% of all slaves), you were then put through a process known as “Seasoning” which was intended to psychologically destroy you through torture and back-breaking physical labor in order to prepare you to be a “good” submissive, pliant slave.  

(One example of an instrument of torture used on African slaves. Image credit: Atlanta Black Star)

“Seasoning” involved torturing and breaking the person completely so that they would submit totally to your will and no longer resist or fight back. This is comparable to the practice of “breaking horses” so they will follow your commands and orders without question (x). 

The “Seasoning” period typically lasted 3 years and also occurred in large torture and forced labor camps, the most notorious ones being in Jamaica. And some reports document ~25% of new slaves dying during the 3 year “seasoning” period (x).

You were tortured, brutalized, progressively stripped of your African name and identity and anything that did not serve your purpose as a beast of burden for your white master. You were tortured for years to make you into (what they saw as) an “empty vessel” that they could pour themselves into and mold as they pleased.

Sound familiar?

Get Out embodied quite literally for me this very real history of “seasoning” slaves in action. Psychological torture and physical brutalization when you do not comply, and striving to completely break you as a black person and turn you into a submissive, pliant vessel for the wishes and orders of your white master.