2023 Black Mamas Matter Alliance Virtual Rally Comments

Morning everyone and I’m thrilled to be here in both my capacity as a proud Black Mamas Matter Alliance Board Member as well as a researcher and academic. My name is Monica Rose McLemore and I’m Professor in the Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing and Adjunct Professor in the Health Sciences and Population Health Department in the School of Public Health, both at the University of Washington It is a privilege and an honor to be here for Black Maternal Health Awareness week.

When I reflect on the state of our current scientific enterprise, I can say without hesitation that we need to stop describing problems and we need to design and test interventions, we need to invest in assets and strengths, we need to fund community-based organizations and people with lived experience who are already doing this incredible work at far beyond a living wage, and we need debt free education for any Black person who seeks to advance their education in the health professions and social sciences.

Right now, I’m speaking to legacy funders and funded organizations — stop hoarding resources to complete the same dated work. We need new research variables and categories to replace everything from early entry to prenatal care (because that means nothing in the era of Dobbs), to use of Body Mass Index, pulse oximetry, and other algorithmic shortcuts grounded in anti-Blackness, anti-fatness and reinforces whiteness as a default standard of humans.

Let me end with my passion: Workforce Development and Dismantling Health Care Hierarchy. Research is only as good as the teams who design and develop the questions, methods, and analytic rubrics. Our evidence base will remain incomplete if we do not invest in experts by experience as well as experts by education. We need both to do this important work. Let’s stop talking about this work and start doing the work.