Aftershock, a grimly revealing new documentary, focuses on grieving families in a system that endangers women of colour
. As Felicia Ellis, a black woman contemplating birth options in Tulsa, Oklahoma puts it in the film: “A black woman having a baby is like a black man at a traffic stop with the police. You have to really pay attention to what’s going on every step of the way.”
Both Isaac and Gibson felt prepared; Isaac’s mother worked at Montefiore for 26 years, Gibson’s as a medical social worker and reproductive justice advocate. But the implicit racial biases in American hospitals run so deep, and the US medical system depends so heavily on risk-elevating c-sections, that awareness wasn’t enough. “We’re black and brown, she’s a woman and she’s having a baby. So why would we think we would be exempt?” Benton-Gibson says in the film.
Aftershock also explores how things could be: a combination of home births, birthing centers and hospitals; a reintegration of and respect for midwives, traditionally a black female profession in the US dating to the days of slavery; and an emphasis on listening to each woman. “The key is choice,” said Eiselt, the film’s co-director.
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