How We Value Black Women’s Health in the US and Abroad

This week, host Farai Chideya interviews longtime TV and film producer and now co-director of the Sundance award-winning documentary Aftershock, Tonya Lewis Lee and one of the film’s featured subjects, reproductive justice advocate Shawnee Benton-Gibson. Benton-Gibson’s daughter died in October 2019 after giving birth – one more fatality in a long epidemic of Black maternal mortality. Farai also speaks to Lewis Lee one-on-one about how her work in media and experience as a children’s author led to her work as a maternal health advocate. Then, in our weekly segment Sippin’ the Political Tea, Farai interviews legal analyst and NYU Law professor Melissa Murray and University of Pennsylvania Ph.D History candidate Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon about the impact and implications of the highly politicized conviction of WNBA star Brittney Griner in Russia.

Our Body Politic · Farai Chideya, Nina Spensley, Traci Caldwell, Emily J. Daly, Steve Lack, Natyna Bean, Emily Ho, Teresa Carey, Lauren Schild, Mike Goehler, Archie Moore, Tonya Lewis Lee, Melissa Murray, Kimberly St.Julian-Varnon, Bianca Martin