“The Whole Truth”: a Narrative Exploration of Black Motherhood in Crisis Pregnancies (Mark 5:25-34)
Bernadette Ebri, Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC, UNC School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC
Sometimes people are disenfranchised and disempowered due to geography or socio-economic status, but at other times due to the identities they hold. In the latter cases, societal sin pushes people to the margins, hindering their physical and spiritual capacities to flourish. In this essay, I argue such is the case for many black women in the US, particularly those who experience a lack of financial or social supports. Seen most plainly in Black women dying in childbirth at four times the rate for white women, research shows repeatedly that Black women are sicker and poorer than other groups. Pregnancy itself can isolate and marginalize women who lack access to reliable information and are disempowered in within traditional clinical spaces. It is important that we shift our attention more to Black mothers.
This paper will explore the stories of Black women who are utilizing the resources of a Christian faith-based pregnancy support center in North Carolina. These women are primarily post-pregnancy. As their stories are varied, they will work in tandem to enrich our understanding of women’s experiences in crisis pregnancies.
In her work Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African-American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care, womanist theologian Emilie Townes looks to the treatment and forgottenness of Black people, and particularly Black women, as something worth lamenting. “[W]e can, as communities of faith,” she argues, “question the nature of radical evil in systems of health and health care that deny the humanity of many.” (Townes, pp 24)
The Gospel of Mark 5:25-34 tells the story of the hemorrhaging woman, a story memorable for the care and attention that Jesus shows the woman in this “clinical encounter”. The story differs from most other healing narratives in the New Testament in the fact that the woman is healed before her conversation with Jesus. Even though the healing already had taken place, Jesus still turned around to look at her. The most striking part of this story, however, happens next. Jesus creates space for this woman to be acknowledged by the crowd. After this, “the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.” It is after her “whole truth” is told that Jesus tells the woman she has been healed and this healing narrative is concluded.
Our healthcare system appears to be failing Black women, and yet we lack public consensus on how this might be addressed. Assumptions are made about who Black women are, why they choose to parent or not to parent, and what situations make this choice more difficult.
Churches and faith-based organizations such as pregnancy support centers have begun to do the practical work of walking alongside Black women during and after crisis pregnancies. Mark’s account of the healing narrative of the hemorrhaging woman provides a framework for how they might approach this work. As Jesus acknowledged the woman with hemorrhage, those in these spaces can acknowledge those they encounter. The hope is that they might provide opportunities for women, drawing upon the language of Mark, to tell their “whole truth.”
This paper will explore the stories of Black women who are utilizing the resources of a Christian faith-based pregnancy support center in North Carolina. These women are primarily post-pregnancy. As their stories are varied, they will work in tandem to enrich our understanding of women’s experiences in crisis pregnancies.
In her work Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African-American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care, womanist theologian Emilie Townes looks to the treatment and forgottenness of Black people, and particularly Black women, as something worth lamenting. “[W]e can, as communities of faith,” she argues, “question the nature of radical evil in systems of health and health care that deny the humanity of many.” (Townes, pp 24)
The Gospel of Mark 5:25-34 tells the story of the hemorrhaging woman, a story memorable for the care and attention that Jesus shows the woman in this “clinical encounter”. The story differs from most other healing narratives in the New Testament in the fact that the woman is healed before her conversation with Jesus. Even though the healing already had taken place, Jesus still turned around to look at her. The most striking part of this story, however, happens next. Jesus creates space for this woman to be acknowledged by the crowd. After this, “the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.” It is after her “whole truth” is told that Jesus tells the woman she has been healed and this healing narrative is concluded.
Our healthcare system appears to be failing Black women, and yet we lack public consensus on how this might be addressed. Assumptions are made about who Black women are, why they choose to parent or not to parent, and what situations make this choice more difficult.
Churches and faith-based organizations such as pregnancy support centers have begun to do the practical work of walking alongside Black women during and after crisis pregnancies. Mark’s account of the healing narrative of the hemorrhaging woman provides a framework for how they might approach this work. As Jesus acknowledged the woman with hemorrhage, those in these spaces can acknowledge those they encounter. The hope is that they might provide opportunities for women, drawing upon the language of Mark, to tell their “whole truth.”