As both a woman of colour who has received maternity care from the NHS, and as a midwife who advocates for justice and dignity for marginalised women, I have always been keen on investigative documentaries that expose institutional injustices. I therefore anticipated watching <a href="https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-black-maternity-scandal-dispatches">The Black Maternity Scandal</a><a href="https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-black-maternity-scandal-dispatches"> by Channel 4 Dispatches</a> to see the metaphorical glass ceiling being broken by words and actions of truth. Keen public interest in maternity care has always been present due to the vivid experience the majority of women face when giving birth, tying all mothers together through a sense of shared humanity regardless of race. After all, birth is possibly the most intensely emotional, spiritual and physical experience of a woman’s and birthing person’s life.
The comfort of having access to the NHS in a high income country means we often take live births for granted; any deviations from this expectation appear to be relegated to a long lost pre-anaesthesia past, or across some far away border in a country seemingly too poor and undeveloped to help itself. But negative birth experiences, even traumatic ones, are very much present in modern, high income countries too. Although maternal mortality rates are significantly lower in the UK than in countries still suffering the ischaemic insults of colonialism, a <a href="https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/assets/downloads/mbrrace-uk/reports/MBRRACE-UK%20Maternal%20Report%202019%20-%20WEB%20VERSION.pdf">report by MBRRACE UK</a> published in 2019 that collected data on all reported maternity incidents between 2015 and 2017 in the UK, exposed a shocking statistic: that Black women were five times more likely than white women to die as a consequence of pregnancy and childbirth. This statistic raised many eyebrows in the UK as such an indication of inequality was not thought possible in a society that considers itself post-racial.
More recently, The Lancet released a systematic review of nine studies <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/series/miscarriage">analysing miscarriage in Europe and Northern America</a>, and concluded in their key findings that Black women were more likely to experience miscarriage in comparison to white women. The study did not expand on why this has arisen, but added that risk factors included stress from night shift work and environmental factors such as ingesting pesticides. These are more likely to affect impoverished communities which largely include people of colour. The study thereby reflects social neglect of Black women in relation to their wellbeing and reproductive health.
Though the UK’s maternal mortality inequality was known in 2019, and many were advocating for change around race in maternity and healthcare, it was only after the murder of <a href="https://www.platformonline.uk/tag/george-floyd/">George Floyd</a>, the most viewed public lynching in history, and the subsequent anti-racism campaign, that institutions were shocked into holding conversations about the racial disparities they housed. A consequence of this activism led to Channel 4’s The Black Maternity Scandal, a 30-minute documentary, which bravely delves into this racial disparity.
Presented by Rochelle Humes, a singer and TV presenter of mixed white and Afro-Caribbean heritage, the documentary did well in bringing to the forefront the bitter inequality of Black women suffering higher maternal mortality than every other ethnic group, but unfortunately, it did little to address the true source of these disparities.
The documentary did include well-known professionals in the maternity world such as Mars Lord (Activist and Doula) and Professor Marian Knight whose name is first on the authors list of the MBRRACE UK report. The inclusion of these voices added credibility to the investigation, and well-complimented the anecdotes of other women interviewed about their respective harrowing experiences in facing maternal mortality and morbidity, which worked to solidly humanise the people behind the statistics. This was a much-needed element in the discourse around this unjust topic.
As a midwife, I understand the instinct we sometimes have to defend our work and colleagues when confronted by media that calls into question our practices and clinical outcomes, but this confrontation is vital in building partnerships with the women we serve, to develop care for all, and to tackle inequality. The documentary did well to highlight the NHS’ responsibility to Black mothers, one that it is evidently not upholding, but it did not even scratch the surface of institutional racism, the effect of colonial history, or actually even mention the word ‘racism’, which insinuates a hesitancy in the editing, and belies the urgency of its opening message.
Though The Black Maternity Scandal did mention that ‘the system’ is biased against women with social complexities, and fleetingly touched upon class, there was very little discussion that unpacked these multi-layered components which lead to the shocking and important disparities in maternal mortality in terms of race. It can be argued that 30 minutes was not enough time to enter such a thickly complex topic, but this proved to be the documentary’s most potent handicap. The need for more time meant that discussions around unconscious/racial bias, the role of poverty, migrant experiences, mental health complexities, difficulty accessing healthcare and austerity were left wanting. These conversations, had they happened, could have been contrasted to the experiences of affluent white women to reflect inequality not just in healthcare but in all fabrics of society.
This silence on institutional racism runs in parallel to the recently released <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/974507/20210331_-_CRED_Report_-_FINAL_-_Web_Accessible.pdf">Sewell report</a> by the UK government’s ‘independent’ committee on race and ethnic disparities. The document gallingly declared that there was categorically no systemic racism in the UK, that minorities experience poorer outcomes derived from their cultural ‘attitudes’ rather than any misdemeanour the British may have imbued in their systems, and that remarkably, the UK is a beacon example for racial equality which European countries should endeavour to replicate. Not only is this negated by the findings of the MBBRACE report, but it is also a concrete insult to women of colour who face very real threats by our current healthcare systems.
On the subject of class in particular, I was expecting more commentary, as the UK is persistently classist and class is profoundly predictive on a child’s prospects, but unfortunately the issue of class seemed to be blanketed over by the notion that it didn’t matter all that much – that a Black middle class woman would be just as affected by racial disparities as a Black woman from a working class background. I strenuously disagree because, from my experience, the impact of institutional racism is more severe and insidious for working class Black women. This is reflected in my own work in healthcare, where Black working class women are more likely assumed to be ‘difficult’ or uneducated, and is explored further in an article by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/28/toxic-concoction-women-colour-pay-highest-price-austerity">Maya Goodfellow that describes the extra burden</a> working class women of colour face through austerity. By neglecting to address the extra burdens of Black working class women and their maternal health outcomes, the narrative of the documentary held a very middle class gaze.
Though I appreciated the documentary attempting to conclude with remedial actions to correct the racial disparities, such as ‘Continuity of Carer’ also known as case-loading, I was frustrated by the brevity with which it was mentioned. Continuity of Carer is a model of work which ensures that a pregnant woman or birthing person receives the majority of their care through one midwife. This enables good relationship-building, less room for inconsistencies, and is a <a href="https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/national-maternity-review-report.pdf?PDFPATHWAY=PDF">proven method</a> to protect health and promote dignity. However, it is a model of work that is not feasible for all midwives and is often employed by staff without children of their own, as the work requires high availability and commitment to many on-call shifts through the night and day. Of course, having children is not needed to be a good midwife, but considering the forcefully female dominion of midwifery, many of the workforce continue to have children of their own (such as myself) making work as a continuity of carer midwife incompatible with having a family, and calling into question the longevity of the plan. The documentary visited Newham Hospital and briefly interviewed a continuity midwife and her client, who both expressed positivity, and though this was encouraging to the viewer, lacked much needed fibre to fully understand the benefits and difficulties of the continuity model in our current healthcare system.
Midwifery professionals of colour also face disparities in the workplace, which was just jointly reported on by the <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5fc52bcaf7cf8c754046992e/t/6092d7853bb4505b999ac766/1620236167034/What+we+need+to+thrive_+ASAM+and+SoAC+report+2021+%283%29.pdf">Association of South Asian Midwives and the Society of African &amp; Caribbean Midwives</a>. The report displays the shocking treatment these staff face, and if staff are not well supported in the NHS, then women and birthing people will undoubtedly be inhibited from accessing the best care the NHS could give.
Overall, the documentary is a decent watch for advocates against racial disparities in health, as it does bring to the forefront of societal awareness the appalling racial inequality and indignity faced by Black women in the UK, which is certainly needed in order to bring about change. The documentary was not long enough to do justice to the ‘whys and hows’ of this racial disparity, which was unfortunate and frustrating, but it inspired hope that change, or at least awareness, is on the horizon. What is now needed is for institutions, organisations and government to take heed of these warnings, commit to further research into the effects of institutional racism, and step up to the responsibility they hold, in protecting the lives and wellbeing of the most vulnerable women in our society. This they can do by critiquing their own established systems which metastasise institutional racism, and holding the people within those systems to account.

Black Maternity Scandal

Channel 4’s Dispatches missed out important factors on class and institutional racism in its brief exploration of maternity care experienced by Black women.

The Black Maternity Scandal: A Lens on Racial Disparity in Healthcare

after Charlotte Nichols MP
I didn’t know the meaning 
of &#8220;incursion&#8221; or “dealt with” 
the negative connotation until this morning. 
Didn’t realise the possible definitions 
of “parasite”, “rubbish dump”, “bad human material”. 
Didn’t know until this morning the connotations 
of “dismantle”, “pikey”, “assimilate”. 
The negative meanings of “scum”, 
“child thief”, “branding iron”. 
Didn’t know “dirty”, “asocial”, “expel”. 
The connotations of “a people involved 
in the manufacture of human freaks.” 
Didn’t know the meaning until now 
of “Rahoonery”, “pollutant”, “Pharajimos”. 
The problematic side of those over the age of five 
being taken away and civilised. 
Didn’t know the meaning of “The Devouring”, 
“The Cutting Up”, or “behind concrete walls”. 
The negative connotation of “whoever kills one, 
shall be guilty of nothing.” 
Didn’t know the meaning of “deport” 
until I saw it done this morning, 
clean as a Police Superintendent’s signature 
or a Councillor’s campaign for re-election.

Poem: The Candidate Explains

The tributes amass, the media chimes 
out the pre-rehearsed phraseology: 
“a life of service &#8230; a man of his times”
and woe betide anyone who begrimes 
with a smear of truth this man’s memory. 
The tributes amass. The media chimes
its dull carillon of state-approved rhymes: 
nobility &#8230; dignity &#8230; history &#8230; 
a life of service. A man of his times,
a racist lording it in foreign climes, 
the natives expected to bend the knee. 
The tributes amass, the media chimes:
world leaders weigh in. Their quotes are sublime, 
teleprompter whitewash used liberally: 
a life of service, a man of his times.
Flags at half-mast. Follow the sad clown’s mime, 
black-armband a myth, mourn self-consciously. 
The tributes amass, the media chimes 
a life of service, a man of his times.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unveiling_Young_Darwin_statue_HRH_Prince_Philip_2009_Christ%27s_College_Cambridge.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></pre>

Unveiling_Young_Darwin_statue_HRH_Prince_Philip_2009_Christ&#8217;s_College_Cambridge

Poem: A Man of His Times

For the first half of <a href="https://www.itv.com/hub/oprah-with-meghan-and-harry/10a1332a0001">Oprah with Meghan and Harry</a>, the audience witnessed a Black woman telling her story to another Black woman, making legible her perspective, and reclaiming her humanity. Much ink can be spilled about Meghan Markle’s complicity in propagating the fictions of a racist institution such as the British monarchy. Similarly, the iconic media mogul Oprah Winfrey has profited from the racial, cultural and social forces that created and sustained the myth of American meritocracy.
However, radical Black feminist thought urges us to focus on the systemic mechanisms of racial hierarchy that excludes Black lives from the domain of full humanity. Instead of criticising specific public figures, such as Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, and of course, Meghan Markle, Black feminism gives us the tools to talk about the compounding oppressions that affect the lives and livelihoods of Black women. In this short piece, my aim is to use these tools to address the royal family’s dismissal of Meghan Markle’s plight as an example of superficial diversity that infiltrates much of modern racial discourse, as well as reflect on the TV interview’s evocation of Black aesthetics as a political and cultural category of resistance
<h5>On diversity and inclusion</h5>
For a brief lull, the interracial royal wedding was lauded as a golden opportunity to shepherd the monarchy into modernity. But what does this modern sheen encompass? By incorporating a Black woman into its system of kinship, the modern monarchy appeared to signal the end of racism and locate an endpoint to the glaring realities of the afterlives of colonialism and slavery. In this fantasy, any talk of racism ruptures (white) national harmony, which is mobilised by what the feminist philosopher Sara Ahmed calls <a href="https://feministkilljoys.com/2019/04/29/nodding-as-a-non-performative/">“non-performative” speech acts</a>: words that are not followed by actions. In the ecology of a multicultural society, positive-sounding words, like “embrace” and “love” in Kasie Hunt’s tweet below, neutralise and contain attempts to address race and racism.
&nbsp;
<a href="http://www.the-platform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Tweet.jpg"><img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-13894 size-full" src="http://www.the-platform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Tweet.jpg" alt="Meghan Markle Tweet" width="431" height="241" /></a>
A screenshot of a tweet by Kasie Hunt that says: “Prince Harry alluded to this, but it’s true — his marrying Meghan was a once in a generation opportunity to bring the monarchy into the 21st century and embrace a new version of the family that the modern world could embrace and love [.] They didn’t just fail. They spat on it.” 9:44 PM, March 7, 2021
&nbsp;
What makes Markle’s withdrawal from the royal family radical is the reclamation of her voice and agency after her pain and suffering were devalued and swept under the carpet. In the <a href="https://www.itv.com/hub/oprah-with-meghan-and-harry/10a1332a0001">ITV broadcast interview</a>, Markle criticised the virulent racism of the tabloid establishment, and the royal family’s indifferent response to her cri de coeur. “I wrote several letters,” she said over and over again, about the injustices and indignities surrounding her. The Firm, as she sometimes called the royal family, did not shield her from the persistent structural and cultural vilification as she performed “her job”. The monarchy’s treatment of Markle’s racialised depression and fatigue – “I didn’t want to live anymore,” she confesses – exposes the inner workings of white institutions that ruthlessly silence Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) groups in the name of civility, love, happiness, propriety and tradition. Here, I draw on Ahmed’s identification, in Living a Feminist Life, of civility as one of many strategies that oppressive powers use to coerce minoritised people. In these sentiments, Ahmed locates “the violence and power concealed under the languages of civility, happiness, and love, rather than simply or only consciousness of gender as a site of restriction of possibility”. Indeed, the inequality at the heart of Markle’s disillusionment with the royal family resonates with so many Black and other BAME women in white institutions that fail to support and protect them. In Markle’s case, the trauma of racism drove her towards suicidal ideations, which were dismissed as bad publicity for the institution.
What are the implications of Meghan Markle’s refusal to perform civility, to remain silent, to absorb her erasure until she reached the precipice of death by suicide? The personal and the cultural are always political; Meghan Markle’s personal experience of racism points to a larger, public phenomenon of racialised hierarchies. As minoritised people, we are forced to remain subservient and to paper over our feelings of dispossession. We internalise that we are undeserving of fairness, that the racism we encounter is a figment of our imagination. When we speak out, we are faced with the disavowal of institutions that demand proof of our oppression over and over again. The world does not need Meghan Markle to tell it that Britain is a racist place, that there is a deep-seated investment in white supremacy at the heart of the monarchy. All it takes is a look at the daily news, to learn how <a href="https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/bjom.2020.28.10.718">COVID-19 has affected the maternal mortality rates of BAME women</a>, to see borders closed in the face of refugees, the bodies of Africans drowning at sea. What Meghan Markle’s story cemented is that superficial celebrations of diversity and inclusion, or what scholars call “the politics of representation,” without deep, de-centered, and structural transformations do not constitute change. Quite the opposite, it is a conservative ploy that gives racist institutions a modern veneer. And most damagingly, it demonstrates how feel-good progressivism always defaults to neoliberal fictions that silence the oppressed and affirm the powers that be.
<h5>Black beauty as empowerment</h5>
What is striking about the ITV broadcast is its use of the iconography of Black liberation.
Black feminism gives us the vocabulary to dwell on the political and cultural significance of Black aesthetics. Having analysed the <a href="https://the-rambling.com/2019/01/26/issue3-kafantaris/">fantasy of white British domesticity </a>that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s engagement interview evoked a few years ago, I was struck by the aesthetics of this special, particularly its rootedness in Black self-fashioning. Here, I wish to introduce Zora Neale Hurston’s “will to adorn” theory of Black aesthetics, a concept that illuminates how Black people have understood and willingly performed their embodiment, power and position in a white society. From music, to visual language, to sartorial choices, Black people seek to beautify the world around them as a political stance of resistance, community, and care. I borrow Zora Neale Hurston’s language of intentional adornment here, because I find it useful in my discussion of Meghan Markle’s Oprah interview as a representative of an oppressed population responding to a history of injury. How does this perspective reconfigure our understanding of Meghan Markle’s conversation with Oprah? Allow me to start over.
In a lush, sun-kissed, Southern California garden, across from an olive grove, two powerful Black women testify about virulent racism and institutional violence. On our right, a seasoned and decorated matriarch of American broadcasting wears a pink sweater with a crisp white shirt underneath it. She radiates an air of authority, experience and compassion; her ethics of care unfurl the tessellations of Meghan Markle’s “unsurvivable” life as a senior member of the British royal family. Markle’s sartorial choices are as suggestive of the ethos of this conversation. Donning a black dress, she is visibly pregnant. In her voluptuous embodiment, Markle performs her vulnerability, beauty and power. Where Markle’s wedding dress featured the flowers of the commonwealth, which acknowledged her full immersion in the symbology of colonialism and its aftermaths, the lotus flower adorning her flowy silk dress is packed with meaning. As a blossom floating on the surface of the water, the lotus emblematises regeneration that is always rooted in the slime underneath. I see the slime as representative of the structural racism that devalue a Black woman’s insistence on her subjectivity, her humanity and her personhood.
My work on premodern queenship and racial formations can provide a backdrop for understanding the longue durée of these tropes, or modes of thinking, about elite or powerful women in the public sphere today. The persistent fictions surrounding “good” foreign royal women script them as passive, with their mobility restricted and their desires shaped by the will of the patriarchal institution. This iconography is meticulously fabricated through visual and material culture, and can help us understand how Meghan Markle deviated from the ideal in which she was conscripted.
One telling example is the representation of Anne of Bohemia, King Richard II’s queen, in the early modern cultural imagination. For instance, in the anonymous Thomas of Woodstock (1590s), Anne is portrayed as an exemplary queen who gets absorbed by Englishness, her past identity completely erased. On the other hand, an unruly foreign queen like Margaret of Anjou, who performs her political power without reservation, is demonised as the “she-wolf of France” in William Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays (1590s). Margaret’s refusal to abide by the codes of meek English womanhood renders her as a racialised infection gnawing at the heart of the commonwealth – a cultural, political and physiological infection that needs to be excised.
Meghan Markle refused to remain differential to an indifferent establishment who did not care about her welfare and that of her child’s, and for that reason she was vilified and considered incompatible with true, white-centered Englishness. More importantly, her affirmation of her worth and beauty in an idyllic California garden speaks to a long tradition of an “aesthetic of Blackness” – a lineage, an inheritance, a desire “to bring delight, pleasure, and beauty into lives that were hard, that were materially deprived,” to use the words of bell hooks. Seen in this light, Meghan Markle’s control of her narrative, aesthetics and agency, despite a damaging and dehumanising context, is in itself a radical act. It connects her to a history of Black people’s transformative capacity to love themselves and the world, in spite of a world that does not love them back.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons</pre>

Prince_Harry_and_Meghan’s_carriage_procession_through_streets_of_Windsor_05

Meghan Markle’s famous television interview fits into a history of iconography of Black liberation, just as it exposes the inner workings of a white royal institution.

Oprah, Optics and Oppression: What Meghan Markle&#8217;s Interview Tells Us about the Iconography of Black Liberation

If this boy had been more prudently 
dropped into life on, say, a street 
with trees that throw out their annual yellow 
to make a welcome parade for the sun; 
had as childhood neighbours a Circuit Court Judge 
whose front door had no letter box, 
a Garda Chief Inspector with an opinionated 
and over-confident dog; 
kicked a ball up and down summer evenings, 
dead apart from the occasional well behaved bee, 
with the boy next door (but one) who blossomed 
into a political correspondent 
and now gets to make up truth, 
another way would’ve been found.
But for coming at Gardaí 
with a chemical imbalance, 
what some people are calling 
a machete 
and a totally inappropriate 
post code, 
the only sentence 
was that ethically administered, 
democratically accountable, 
bolt action firing squad.
The eminent and learned 
bottoms we employ to sit 
on the inquiry into this 
need not fret the task ahead of them. 
For their report is already written.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a class="owner-name truncate" style="color: #808080;" title="Go to Paolo Trabattoni's photostream" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mctraba/" data-track="attributionNameClick">Paolo Trabattoni </a>/ Flickr</pre>

Garda Police

Poem: The Case of George Nkencho

Ominous opening credits theme ebbs 
to silence. Fade in: shaky-cam footage 
from various news agencies; a montage 
establishing time, place and the threat
unfolding unstoppably on a global scale. 
Headlines whirl. Graphs and charts stamp 
stark projections onscreen. Editing ramps 
up urgency, drama, the stakes. The tale
about to unfold is one of humanity 
at its worst and best. The selflessness 
of carers and keyworkers put to the test 
and emerging heroic. Cut to: the inanity,
the dithering, the bullshit of those 
in high office, the Etonian provocateurs 
bluffing and blustering, pitifully unprepared 
for a crisis that can’t be diffused
by three-word slogans and posh-boy jeers 
during PMQs. We’re on shaky ground. 
Any half-aware test audience crowd 
would demand a hero they can cheer,
not some Greek chorus of doorstep applause 
curtailed in the second act as too political. 
This floundering narrative is antithetical 
to mainstream cinema. It’s like Star Wars
from the POV of an admin assistant filing 
the performance review of a storm-trooper 
who got shot two scenes ago, or the blooper 
reel from a public information film on tiling
or basic plumbing for beginners. It’s not 
the film you paid your money to see. 
You didn’t pay to watch the idiot-in-chief 
ignore the science, grin deathlessly, toss off
some half-arsed soundbite, execute 
a soft-shoe sidestep from responsibility. 
Whither the nurses, shop workers, delivery 
drivers &#8211; the real heroes? Let’s reboot
the project, focus on them; let’s weave 
multiple stories, Short Cuts style, celebrate 
the under-appreciated, the underpaid; 
let’s give the audience a reason to believe,,
a grand finale. Let’s put a Hollywood spin 
on this year-long real-time clusterfuck, 
flip the narrative, double-down on feelgood; 
rewrite, recast, re-edit. We can do this thing.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street</pre>

Boris Johnson Coronavirus Update Conference

Poem: The 2020 Movie

for Susan
Whenever I show them the Future, 
they refuse it; 
say: this future has bad hair, 
waves its arms around too much, 
is too Jewish, 
or not Jewish enough, 
too not-a-woman, 
or the wrong sort of woman.
This Future has a face that one day 
might raise the corporate tax rate 
by zero point five percent, 
and is a little too insistent 
that poor people be allowed live, 
give or take, as long as the rest of us. 
That sort of thing scares the people we dine with 
nights we’re not dining with you.
I ask the barman for more finger food, 
picture the ocean raging into the restaurant, 
and them still sat there muttering at the chicken goujons: 
the people we talk to won’t vote for 
such extreme solutions. No one wants to live in Cuba, 
one of them says, as she’s washed out the door.
I pray, when all the futures 
they’ve turned their noses up at 
are safely in the mud 
and the men in boots and leather come 
to escort us all to the Processing Centre 
in the back of a truck 
that I be shot, cleanly through the skull, at the front gate, 
so I don’t suffer their groans 
about the quality of the gruel, 
and how that last beating one of them got 
was clearly in breach of the Human Rights Act 
and worthy of a curtly worded, 
but still civil, letter to The Observer.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/@henniestander?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Hennie Stander</a> on <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/barman-restaurant?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></pre>

Kevin Higgins_hennie-stander-O3oIr1j65EM-unsplash

Poem: Our Posh Liberal Friends

Heart of the Nation: Migration and the Making of the NHS, the newly launched <a href="https://heartofthenation.migrationmuseum.org/">online exhibition</a> from the Migration Museum, is a digital journey through the makings of the <a href="https://platformonline.uk/tag/nhs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NHS</a> over the past 72 years through the eyes of the many immigrant workers who make it tick.
Hailing from a family made up of two generations of NHS workers, from both English and ethnic minority backgrounds, this exhibition was right up my street. Combining photos from the present day with pictures from the NHS archives, it tells a story of the people who have made our public healthcare system possible. The exhibit shines a spotlight on little-known figures like Dr Harold Moody, a Jamaican born, London-trained physician who was repeatedly denied jobs due to the colour of his skin and Mary Agyapong, Ghanaian nurse who, at 35 weeks pregnant, tragically died in ITU after contracting Covid-19 whilst caring for patients on a Corona ward.
Apart from being a little bit frustrating to navigate digitally, Heart of the Nation tugged at my heart strings to no end. Seeing the faces of the people who I have worked alongside for the last seven years of my NHS career filled me with pride. The exhibit begins with the context of <a href="https://platformonline.uk/articles/coronavirus-crisis-ethnic-minorities-on-the-nhs-frontline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Covid-19</a> framing a very different perspective to that of our NHS in recent months. The sudden necessity of NHS workers to carry the burden of the pandemic has raised important questions on who exactly has been looking after us and running this organisation for the last 72 years. It has highlighted all those who remained working whilst the majority of the nation was under lockdown, who didn’t have a choice but to just get on with it, and who would take the hits when it came to light that BAME people had a higher risk of succumbing to the virus.
The exhibition continues with stories of individuals who have immigrated to the UK to work in the NHS or who have found themselves working in it anyway, detailing their experiences, the racism they endured on arrival and what they’ve had to give up to get here. One particularly moving example of this is the story of trainee nurse Gulzar Waljee. Originally from Tanzania, Gulzar was told by her South African Matron that she must pass her upcoming final exams otherwise the UK ward would not be taking on any more Tanzanian girls. Already feeling the weight of her family&#8217;s hopes on her shoulders, Gulzar now had the fates of all future nurses from Tanzania in her hands, purely because some Tanzanian girls had failed exams previously and this was apparently a trait of her ethnicity. She tells of hiding in the sluice crying after repeatedly being told off for her English, the misery of always feeling out of place, and then the weight of being a representative of all future Tanzanian nurses on her shoulders. This particular story of being defined by your ethnic group, rather than your individuality, is something that I myself, and I’m sure many others from BAME backgrounds, feel especially close to home.

gulzar-waljee-in-1959-from-the-migration-museums-heart-of-the-nation-exhibition-image-courtesy-gulzar-waljee

Gulzar Waljee in 1959, from the Migration Museum's Heart of the Nation exhibition (Image courtesy Gulzar Waljee)

These stories of hostility contrast with the sentiment of pride that the exhibition’s participants have in working for the NHS. They show not only pride in what they do, but pride in their colleagues and the diversity of those they work with. My own experiences of working in the NHS have been undeniably shaped by the wealth of cultures and backgrounds that I have had the pleasure to encounter. One of the few silver linings to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic thus far has been recognition of this and I can only hope that the attitudes I encountered in medical school from older, white male consultants referring to &#8220;Begum Syndrome&#8221; and &#8220;Fat, lazy West Indian midwives&#8221; will soon be a thing of the past.
I encourage you all to take a look and immerse yourselves in the stories of those who came from far and wide to build our NHS, and the generations that came after them to keep it running.
Visit the exhibition here: <a href="https://heartofthenation.migrationmuseum.org/">https://heartofthenation.migrationmuseum.org/</a>
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<pre>Featured Photo: Nitha Naqvi</pre>

Dr Nitha Naqvi and sister celebrating Christmas

An emotional journey through a new digital exhibition that shines a spotlight on the contribution of BAME workers to the NHS

Appreciating the Heart: The Immigrant Workers Keeping the NHS Going

Look closely when the Central Line spits 
you out into a river of impatience, 
and you’ll see that angels’ wings are made 
from shop-doorway beds – cardboard.
Drill down into your listening and you’ll hear 
a heavenly voice asking for change to spare, 
above the guffaws of the comfortably numb, 
swilling their pints on the pavements of Holborn.
From time to time, pause under the lights, 
and slowly inhale these squares and streets. 
You’ll sometimes catch a faint seraphic scent, 
through the death stench of asset management.
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<pre>Photo Credit: <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://unsplash.com/@daveast?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">David East</a> on <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/homeless-london?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></pre>

david-east-unsplash

Poem: Look Closely

My butterfly net, 
mindful archive for this Alchemilla leaf 
with its mercury raindrops.
Late on my pillow 
I swipe into the blue light, 
into a mycelium of new smiles, 
endless as waves on the sand.
They say smart. 
But smart enough 
to remind us that the hilltop, 
and the crowded art gallery, 
request our presence, naked-eyed?
to remind us that fingertips are for skin?
We stay smart, 
if we sift the blessing from the curse: 
Foot-soldier of dystopia, 
indispensable encyclopaedia of life; 
bridge, 
wall; 
superstore of infinite shelves, 
leaving nothing to the imagination.
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<pre>Photo: <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/@yanneskiefer?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Yannes Kiefer</a> on <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/phone-train?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></pre>