The Black Women's Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves Second Edition - Softcover

This book is also a heartfelt protest against the racism that cripples the medical establishment and consequently our lives. It says black women have had enough of the statistics that tell us that the life expectancy for whites is 75.3 years compared with 69.4 for blacks; that the infant mortality rate for blacks is 20 deaths per 2000, about twice the rate suffered among whites; that 52 percent of the women with AIDS are black; that more than 50 percent of black women live in a state of emotional distress; and that black women stand a one in 104 chance of being murdered compared with a one in 369 chance for white women.

This volume contains a collection of 41 writings by and for black women about health--physical, emotional and psychological. The contents range from personal essays on how to deal with high blood pressure and memories of incest to a poem posing the question "Have you ever considered suicide?" There are also interviews with midwives and community health advocates, as well as journal passages detailing the challenges of living with lupus. Edited by White ( Chain Chain Change: For Black Women Dealing with Physical and Emotional Abuse ), the book covers the vast spectrum of the black woman's health experience as patient, healer and witness. On becoming a physician, for instance, Vanessa Northington Gamble writes that she pursued this dream in the face of the twin obstacles of race and gender: "I had to face the fact that not everyone believed that a black woman could be or was qualified." She herself was told by a student and colleague "that I would gain admission not because I had excelled in college, but because I would fit the affirmative action plan." By contrast, the novelist Alice Walker describes the discomfort, shame and pain she has felt from a nonracial affliction--her blind eye, "bluish, a little battered-looking but full of light, with whitish clouds swirling around it." She recalls how her daughter asked one day, "Mommy, where did you get that world in your eye?" The question, like the collection itself, assembled from a disparate yet connected group of women, proves that words, as well as deeds, have the power to heal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.