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Analysis Of Article By Anna Julia Cooper

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Recommended: Race and gender as social constructs

The issue of maternal mortality rates has and continues to disproportionately affect Black women at an alarming rate. In the NPR article, Michelle Jokisch Polo examines Black birth workers, including doulas and midwives, who deliver black babies and prioritize Black mothers, noting how the social context exacerbates this health disparity. In class, we read and discussed the work and impact of Anna Julia Cooper, a revolutionary figure and early black feminist theorist. Cooper’s position as a Black woman and renowned educator shaped her ideas and applying these ideas to Polo’s article offers a unique perspective. A significant component of Cooper’s work explores the intersection of being Black and a woman in a post-slavery American society. …show more content…

Applying this to contemporary society and the NPR article, Cooper would say that because being a Black woman is such a unique position, the increase of Black birth workers is highly beneficial because Black mothers can receive “services of doulas and midwives who look like them” (Polo 2022). As a result, the hope is to decrease the number of Black mothers and Black babies dying during or soon after childbirth, eliminating that health disparity. Relatedly, Cooper identified the family unit as the building block(s) of society and that by focusing on families, the broader scope of society can be understood (Cooper, The Colored Woman’s Office). Connecting this concept to Polo’s article, if Black women are “nearly two times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women,” this means that Black babies, potentially Black daughters, will be devoid of black mothering, which could further the identity crisis that they might feel due to their position in society (Polo 2022). This is also correlated with another feature of Cooper’s framework, where she noted that black women have a central role in the

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