Wisdom from our elders

One of my patients asked me the Monday after the election if I was glad that I was here and not in the US right now. I gave her a resounding yes!

James Baldwin spent many years of his life living in France and Istanbul and he has written many times about how that time away from the United States was vital to his ability to create and to have the energy to advocate for civil rights when back home. I have always been able to find a Baldwin quote to describe where I am in my life. The other day I opened up one of my random notebooks to use a blank piece of paper and came across the above quote. So fitting for this time.

When I watched America show me once again that she is exactly who I thought she was, reading this quote reminded me of how blessed I am and it reminded me of the fact that I am no longer a "tired" Black woman. I have been renewed and energized because I left the United States. I have been able to fight for causes here in NZ because of that renewed energy and faith in humanity. When I lived in the US, I was so busy attending press conferences, giving news interviews, serving on boards and pushing back against ridiculous school superintendents and malicious governors that I couldn't accept requests to work on heading campaigns to improve maternal morbidity and mortality at my hospital. I was so busy trying to ward off the existential threat of racism, white supremacy and mediocrity in positions of power with lives in their hands during a pandemic that I couldn't even use my knowledge and talents to work on professional development.

Within the first year of being in New Zealand, my mind and spirit were free enough to identify protocols at my hospital that needed improving and I was given the autonomy to oversee that. It made me wonder what else I would be able to do with my brain if it weren't occupied with surviving systemic racism.

Two years into living here I continued to serve on the board of a grassroots organization in Arizona working hard to advocate for equity in public school education but then I stepped down and started to serve on the leadership board for a reproductive justice advocacy organization here in New Zealand. Over the past year and a half I have been able to work with an amazing group of women who know all too well how harmful practices in the United States and elsewhere can spread to Aotearoa. I have been able to represent our group in regular meetings with the Ministry of Health and through our advocacy we have been able to get medical bodies here in NZ/Australia to be clearer on their stances when it comes to certain predatory practices that seem to be wanting to plant roots here from the US.

Ironically, those few willfully ignorant people who say that I should have stayed and fought fail to understand something that James Baldwin appreciated- if you are never free to rest, you cannot long survive the battle. There are people all over the world who need help and I am worth more than just what I can do for the United States.

My resolve to fight inequity has only been energized and I am determined to do my part.

So.... the world better watch out. This Global Citizen is ready to keep up the fight!