Tonight was an amazing time! I spent the night volunteering at (and enjoying) the Mamas of Color Rising benefit for the Sankofa Birth Companion Project I will be participating in. The mamas linked forces with Detroit based artist Invincible and organized an all women in hip hop showcase at Austin's historic Victory Grill.
The energy was fierce and full of serious love. A lot of information and consciousness raising went down. Paula Rojas my sister organizer with Mamas of Color Rising and studying midwife shared that "In the U.S., 2.5 times the number of black women than white women do not have pre natal care. " and "Infant mortality for black babies is twice the high versus white babies, that means the percentage in which black babies are dying is worse than poorer countries in the world".
Paula went on the share more about what they call "Womb to Prison Pipeline". We know that at an early age children of color are tracked in the school system in different ways for example, to either go to college or prison in what has been called the "School To Prison Pipeline." What Mamas of Color is saying is that this sort of tracking of our children, happens much earlier, it starts in the womb.
The line up was strong and powerful. The Line up included local artists DJ TKAY, Tiger Lily of RAS, Yoli of Public Offenders, T-fly of the Cipher, Queen Deelah, EMT, Gabi, Perseph One, Las Krudas Cubensi, and Detroit's Invincible.
What an amazing and magical event that I was honored to be a part of. What a declaration of community and solidarity and sisterhood! And a personal affirmation that my path to becoming a birth companion and midwife is the right one for me...
check out my youtube channel for more footage!!