Over the last few years, a number of high-profile Black women, such as Serena Williams, Beyoncé, Shalon Irving, and Kira Dixon Johnson have brought increased attention to the ways in which race and birth precarity intersect to reproduce a consistent narrative of medical neglect. Adamant demands prevailed upon medical personnel prevented almost certain death for Williams and Beyoncé. …
This article is part of the following series: Book forum
Dána-Ain Davis’s Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth (NYU Press, 2019) is a vividly written ethnography highlighting how medical racism shapes birth outcomes for Black women in America. Under the sign of maternal health risk and prematurity, Davis argues, the American medical system forces Black women to participate in a limited array of interventions informed by theories of wellness …
Race Decoded: The Genomic Fight for Social Justice
Stanford University Press, 2012. 280 pp., US$24.95 (paperback)
In Race Decoded: The Genomic Fight for Social Justice, Catherine Bliss explores how arguments against biological race after the discovery of the genome eventually fell back upon older discourses of racial difference. In her book, Bliss “…analyzes genomics’ rapid shift …