Continuing with host Ali Muldrow’s feminist book club series, on today’s show, Muldrow speaks with Annie Menzel, author of Fatal Denial: Racism and The Political Life of Black Infant Mortality. They discuss white racial innocence, the birth justice movement, and the history of obstetrics. Menzel diagnoses how white expertise and authority shape the world of reproductive health for mothers and birthing people. 

Fatal Denial reframes the conversation about Black maternal health away from viewing Black parents as problems. Instead, as Muldrow asserts, the book makes clear that the conditions of Black America are the conditions that white people have created. 

The two also discuss how the anti-abortion movement has shied away from discussing infant and maternal mortality. Menzel says that the myth of the “true baby” as a white cherubic innocent upholds a white patriarchal domestic order. And we can see this myth alive and well in the phenomena of trad wives and nostalgic maternity. Instead, Menzel discusses what it means to be on the side of life. 

Annie Menzel is a political theorist, former midwife, and Associate Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at UW-Madison. Her work focuses on understanding how white supremacy, colonization, and gender-based oppression shape human reproductive life, health, and care. 

Featured image: a remix of the cover of Fatal Denial: Racism and The Political Life of Black Infant Mortality. 

The post Race and Reproductive Politics with Annie Menzel appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.