On Thursday, actress and model Kim Porter was found dead in her home due to a potential cardiac arrest episode. While it is still not entirely clear how Porter died, she had been suffering from pneumonia-like symptoms weeks before her death. The night before she died she called her doctors telling them she still didn't feel better but doctors did nothing to help.
Her death adds to the growing concern for black women as they face a negligent medical field. While there has always been racism in the field, efforts are being made to draw attention and reform the system that does not even protect celebrity black women.
Similar to Porter's case, Serena Williams almost died when giving birth to her daughter due to completely preventable circumstances she continued to tell her doctor about. Speaking out about it, Williams drew attention to the little-known fact that the risk of pregnancy-related deaths is 3 to 4 times higher for black women than White women.
Affluent and well advantaged black women still suffer negligent medical care and often face highly preventable deaths. Black women such as Shalon Irving, an epidemiologist at the CDC, are still ignored and left for dead from high blood pressure or cardiac issues. Even a PhD or an abundance of public spotlight and prestige cannot stop the neglect.
So what is to say about the average Black woman excited about her new baby? What is to say about the low-income Black woman who knows her body doesn't feel right, but her doctors don't care? What is to say about the Black woman who does not even have access to health care?
Black women, no matter what social standing, face terrifying statistics. Black women are 22 percent more like to die from heart disease than White women, 71 percent more likely to die from cervical cancer, and a ridiculous 243 percent more likely to die from childbirth complications.
As a Black person, you are conditioned from birth to know the racism that you will face and how to steel yourself against it. You know your classmates won't take you seriously in your studies. You know you'll be watched as you walk through a store to buy a pair of jeans. You relate to the people on the news who speak out about being arrested from a coffee shop for trying to use the restroom.
But as a black woman, to know your life could be cut shorter than any other woman by a simple health complication is terrifying and hard to prepare for. You fear for your mothers and your daughters and the black women around you who deserve nothing but a beautiful life. You fear for yourself because you don't know if the pain in your chest is nothing to worry about or actually the end of your short life. You already carry the weight of society's standards for Black women, but now you must face the fact that your death could also be a highly racist event.
What is most terrifying is no amount of money or social prestige can protect black women from these ridiculous medical disparities. If arguably the greatest tennis player in the world can almost die from childbirth, what happens to the average Black women across America?
When America start caring about Black women?
