https://www.goodlistening.org/yvette-perry/black-girls-sing-of-freedom<br/>

"I'd tell her it's OK to be loud...it's OK to challenge and to bring all of you into these spaces where no one looks like you..."

This began a list of things this Black OB-GYN resident said she would tell a childhood version of herself. During our session, she had relayed multiple stories of challenges she faced as a Black physician, as well as stories of the experiences of her Black female peers and colleagues.

These experiences, which she described as highly impactful and demoralizing, demonstrated how Black women interact within a system they aspire to be part of that "knocks them down at every turn."

Often this knocking down came about through interactions with White healthcare team members. She related how they would often question the expertise of her and other Black physicians--even veteran physicians with many years of experience--in ways that they did not treat physicians of other races. Yet often it was her who was reprimanded for speaking out about this treatment. "How am I supposed to show up to work as my best self when I have to worry about their hurt feelings instead of the health and safety of my patient?"

Reflecting on her medical school application essay, she recalled that initially she wanted to practice medicine in a specialty directly working with children. During medical school, however, she realized that the best way for her to help children is to save their mothers. When I asked her what her own childhood self would think of her now, she replied, "I think she'd be proud of me."

Listener Poet Yvette Perry

Health4Equity OB/GYN Residents Project

April 2023

Black Girls Sing of Freedom

Texas-Bama girls,

Negro nose with J-5 nostrils:

It’s alright

G’on and be too loud

too Black and too proud

It’s alright

to have “tone”

and a stance all your own

It’s alright

Speak unapologetically

whenever you have need to be

It’s alright

to keep on going through

for all of those who need you to

It’s alright

Fill up with your faces

those small, frigid spaces

It’s alright

to still be scared

though you know you’ve prepared

It’s alright

Deflect their white tears,

their ridiculous fears

It’s alright

to weep your own cries

drowning out all their lies

Black girls, sing

(and keep it Trill)

of future unreached

but fought for still

Your voices roar

from every hill

Black girls,

sing of freedom

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