The below message was excerpted from an email sent from PTBi Community Engagement Specialist, Daphina Melbourne, to PTBi's Community Advisory Board on May 28th, 2020.
Hello, My Sisters,
I want you all to know that the pain you may be feeling right now is palpable, real, and heavy. We fight every day to make sure our babies can make it to 40 weeks, that our birthing folks, feel seen, respected, and valued in their birth choices, and to change research to be focused on equity and righting past wrongs.
All of this work, only to watch their lives snatched away through bias, environmental racism, educational and housing discrimination, disinvestment in business, and infrastructure. Unfortunately routinely, state violence in the forms of mass incarceration and police brutality.
Even if it appears that we overcome all of that with education, entrepreneurship, recognition in our various worlds of influence, we are still murdered. Reproductive justice is not only about making sure that our children are born healthy and on time, that moms make it home to their families, but also that our children can live full happy lives, free from fear. Reproductive Justice is Black and Brown families not having "the talk" with their children, and that one day their children will themselves have children if they choose and be able to enjoy all the beautiful things that being someone's parent has to offer.
We don't bring children to this world to have this world take them away. I have no solutions. I have no kind words to wrap up this message. I wanted to speak to my sisters and say my heart is with you, when you cry, know that I am crying too. We will get through this by loving ourselves and our communities and holding those we love close to us the best we can in person or by phone or video.
To be silent is to be complicit. I could not be silent.
In Solidarity,
Daphina Melbourne
Community Engagement Specialist
