Radical Doula Profiles: Claudia Booker

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This is a series highlighting folks who identify as Radical Doulas. Are you interested in being part of the series? Email me.

Photo of Claudia Booker in purple dressUp until now, I’ve always featured Radical Doula’s here who have provided the content for their profile directly. I’m making an exception this time because Claudia Booker is a doula and activist that I’ve admired for quite some time. I also know she was down to be part of this series, but it looks like life and her many pursuits have gotten in the way.

Lucky for me she was recently interviewed for the Midwives of North America (MANA) newsletter, which she posted on Facebook.

Here are some highlights from that interview, which illustrate exactly why I consider Claudia to be a Radical Doula.

Claudia Booker CD (DONA) (ICTC), CCCE, LLLI, BPC, and BPCPA, midwife apprentice, resides in Washington DC, her home town. She comes from a family in which community development, service, and responsibility along with race consciousness and pride were ingrained and are a part of the fabric of her life. Claudia has been on this journey to become a midwife for over five years.

Claudia beautifully articulates that birth is politics. Birth is political because it is an opportunity to create change in our communities. Pregnancy and birth give us ten to fourteen months in which we have the opportunity to educate, guide, and provide a woman with the information, tools, self-esteem, and perspective to empower herself to change her relationship with herself, her children, partner, family, and her community. This change can be replicated throughout her community as this mother leads by example. This has the potential to be a global empowerment, rebirth, and redemption. We are agents of change in society. When I work with a mother, I meet her where she is, whether she wants a natural birth or an epidural. I serve her, support, and am “with her” in the way she needs, without judgment, because maybe this experience has the potential to empower her to walk another step, get a new chance to rebirth herself as a woman, mother, partner, and role model.

“It is imperative that the broader community of midwifery understand, appreciate, value, and support the unique ability of women of color to serve each other. For us, being with women who look at us as their sisters, aunts, cousins, and/or mothers reinforces a care provider relationship that cannot be duplicated with any cultural sensitivity training,” Claudia states. “Every woman of color I come into contact, be she a “round the way girl,” soul-sista, earth mother, or up and coming corporate woman, all are viewed though my eyes as a long lost cousin, niece, aunt, sister, and I treat them accordingly.”

Learn more about Claudia on her website.

Speaking: Yale University

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And the tour continues! Next up is Yale University on Wednesday.

I’m particularly excited to be at Yale because I blogged about the feminist campus community’s response to the antics of a Yale fraternity during rush.

Flyer for Yale event: Feminism's Identity Crisis

As always, if you’re interested in bringing me to your campus or community I’m still booking events for the spring. Get in touch!

In search of: Radical doula in Durham/Triangle, NC

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Another request for a doula. See below and respond directly to her if you might be a good fit.

I’m a 36 year-old African-American woman, 29 weeks pregnant, due April 1, 2011. My partner and I are interested in finding a doula, perhaps a woman of color, who has real perspective on how pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering interact with race/ethnicity/class/culture. In other words, I feel like there is a particular legacy and experience around black womanhood and black motherhood, and I want to work with someone who has some knowledge and sensitivity around this. And, preferably we’d find someone with experience working with survivors. We are open to both well-established doulas as well as doulas-in-training. Thank you!

Contact: dannettesharpley@yahoo.com

In search of: Spanish speaking doula in Chicago

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I got a request for a doula in Chicago via email recently. I often get these emails from folks looking for a doula with particular politics/background/values and hope to help them find the right doula. Here is the info:

My boyfriend and I are searching for an experienced, Spanish speaking doula in the Chicago area to prepare for the birth of our new baby boy – due April 7th.  We really would like to work with an Latina doula but a doula who is fluent in Spanish is fine also.  Ideally, I would like someone to help me try to have this baby without drugs and without tearing, which are my biggest fears.  While my boyfriend and I are fluent in both English and Spanish, my mother, who is a Spanish speaker will be in the delivery room and she is a nervous nelly, the doula would almost be as much for her as for me.  So if you are an experienced Latina or Spanish speaking doula in Chicago, or have the contact information of one, please email me at mdiaz@sanchezdh.com. Thx!

Contact her directly.

Speaking: Oklahoma

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Next week I’ll be heading to Oklahoma for a mini speaking tour. I’m excited to visit a state I’ve never been to, as well as engage with activists dealing with progressive politics in a decidedly red state.

The first event, on January 21st, is a symposium hosted by Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. I’ll be speaking on a panel in the afternoon called Birthing Rights and the New Eugenics, alongside Lynn Paltrow and Andrea Smith. I’m very excited to speak alongside those two incredible folks, and especially Lynn, who gets serious credit for inspiring me to start this blog. I’ll be talking about abortion doula work and the full-spectrum doula movement.

Then on Monday I’ll be visiting the University of Oklahoma in Norman. There I’ll be giving my talk, Feminism’s Identity Crisis. The cool flyer that Stephanie at the Center for Social Justice made is below. In case you are in Oklahoma, the event is on January 24th, from 1:30-3:30pm in OMU, Regents Room.

I’ll be spending the weekend in the OKC/Norman area, so if you know of cool things to do or places to visit I’m open to suggestions!

Flyer for event, Feminism's Identity Crisis, with blurb and photo included.

Thanks to OSU and OU for inviting me. These two events are the start of my spring speaking gig. I’m still booking new events, so if you’re interested in bringing me to your campus or community, get in touch.

The film that turned me into a birth activist

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I often get asked how I got into doula work. This is the answer:

Screen shot of film, Born in the USA

It’s kind of cliche. I was always interested in women’s health. Had aspirations of being an ob/gyn. Then I went to college and took organic chemistry. It was a bad scene, and I promptly said goodbye to the idea of medical school.

Then I took a class called The Anthropology of Reproduction at a nearby women’s college. We watched this video, and I walked out of class knowing my life had just changed forever.

I was so fired up by the film, Born in the USA, and the screwed-up culture of birth it documented. It became my big issue. I was only a sophomore in college, but I talked to everyone I could about how wrong we were about birth, and how badly we were treating mothers and babies in hospitals. Within a year I had become a doula. I wrote my thesis on my time spent in as a volunteer doula in a public maternity ward in North Carolina.

I was obsessed. Seriously.

Ask my college roommate.

The rest is history, as they say.

I think Ricki Lake’s film The Business of Being Born serves a similar role to the film I saw and it’s much more widely available.

My first day as an abortion doula

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I arrive at the hospital around 9am, head up to the right floor, showing my volunteer ID badge to the security guard as I head toward the elevators.

I round the corner and enter the floor, delicately labeled Women’s Choices where the procedures will take place. I walk into the makeshift office/empty procedure room where the Residents/Doctors who will be performing the procedures sit debriefing the morning’s cases. I’m greeted by the Doula Project coordinator/Counselor at the hospital, and she debriefs with me about the folks on tap for the morning. While everyone is in for a first trimester abortion, the stories are different. Some are elective procedures, some are wanted pregnancies with medical issues–ectopic, fetal demise, etc.

I walk into the waiting room where the women are already wearing hospital gowns and socks, sitting nervously, quietly, waiting their turn. They are asked to arrive really early–7am–with the hope that it means most will be there by 9. I offer blankets, sometimes speaking in English and Spanish, sometimes using hand motions to communicate with patients who speak another language.

Everyone has been fasting since the night before, adding to the discomfort, tinging the air with acridity from hungry breaths. I sit, introduce myself to the patients, make polite conversation. Everyone responds differently, some want to talk, some want to sit quietly. Mostly I listen, try to remain attuned to the signals they send about whether they want company or silence.

Continue reading →

2010: What a year it has been

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Hi folks!

I have not been blogging as much as I’d like here. It’s the sad result of my recent realization that to stay afloat, I need to focus more on my paid work and less on my unpaid work. I have at least two posts in the works (including one about the film that made me a birth activist and one about my first day as an abortion doula) which I will be getting up soon.

But in the meantime I was inspired by my friend Sinclair Sexsmith to do a post reflecting back on 2010, what I’ve done, and maybe a bit about what I hope to make happen next year.

Continue reading →

On the death of the DREAM Act

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The DREAM Act died this weekend.

Ever since I saw the news on Twitter I have a felt a heaviness in my chest. A sadness, a disappointment at my lack of surprise, my resignation. These two years of the Obama Administration feel like disappointment after disappointment. The wins are barely wins, most are just compromises.

I know that this is the way our political system works and that radical politics are rarely reflected in policy. I know that.

But then there are the injustices.

There are many in our country–too many to name.

But this one hits close to home.

I’m the child of immigrants. I’m the first generation born in the United States. My parents could have been DREAMers. They both came to the US from Cuba as pre-teens.

Two weeks ago I wrote an article for Colorlines about the privileged status Cubans have been afforded in the US:

Ever since the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, Cubans who have made it the United States have been put on an automatic path to citizenship. Cubans in the U.S. have reaped the benefits of this special status, my family included. My parents came to the U.S. with their families as pre-teens in the first wave of exiles from Cuba. Their respective families had different motivations for coming, but both were fleeing the new Castro government and its intrusion in their lives and their businesses. What for them, as for many who came over in the original wave, was meant to be a temporary visit until Castro was defeated, has become a multi-generation resettlement. I was born here, along with some other 652,000 Cuban-Americans, all of us with the advantage of parents who have been able to work and live legally since day one. It’s virtually impossible to be an undocumented Cuban in the United States.

If it wasn’t for this policy toward Cubans (fueled by Cold-War anti-communist fears) I wouldn’t be where I am today.

It’s not just that my family and Cuban community has had such access to citizenship and other immigrant groups have not.

It’s not just that the political whims of FIVE PEOPLE can close the door on the possibilities for millions.

It’s not just that our governmental policy is still motivated by hate, fear, racism and zenophobia.

It’s not just that no amount of fighting, of DREAMing, of pushing can change our intractable system.

I worked with a mother recently in my role as an abortion doula (more on that later) and she told me about her son. He’s a DREAMer. He’s a stellar student, he has big business ambitions, wants to open up hotels and restaurants. He knew about the DREAM Act and it sickens my stomach to think of him and all the other DREAMers out there who lost their chance (after ten years of pushing this damn bill) because of FIVE PEOPLE.

Where is the justice in that?

Speaking: Young Women & Feminism at the Brooklyn Museum

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I’ll be speaking on a panel on Saturday, December 11th, about young feminism. It’s connected to a book that came out this fall, Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. My essay in the book is called Pillow Dancing and Other Failed Hetero Adventures.

I’ll be reading an excerpt from the book, and also hopefully speaking about the issues I brought up in this post about feminism’s identity crisis.

Details:

Saturday, December 11, 2010
2 p.m.
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Forum, 4th Floor

Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn NY