Black Feminist Rants

Maya Hart (all pronouns), mama, postpartum doula, lactation counselor, and reproductive justice organizer, joins Black Feminist Rants to share their pregnancy and postpartum journey.  Maya has dreamed about becoming a mother since childhood. However, their vision of motherhood radically transformed once they became a parent.  Maya shares their experience raising a child in COVID-19, coping with grief, and embracing identity and lifestyle changes. Since giving birth, Maya has founded Diapers for Black Durham, a donation-based program that supports families in their local community with free diapers and lactation education.

In celebration of self-love, BFR host LaKia reflects on one of her greatest accomplishments: leading Black Feminist Rants!  LaKia shares lessons from her healing journey.  She discusses everything, from growing the podcast team to recovering from perfectionism and defining herself outside of work. 

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Having abortion pills available before someone becomes pregnant could be life saving. As the courts continue to strip our reproductive rights from us having an advance provision of abortion pills, or having pills on hand before someone is pregnant, can help ensure that people receive the care they need. In this episode LaKia discusses what an advance provision of aboriton pills is, how it is community care, and how in-clinic reproductive healthcare can be inaccessible for certain communities, including immigrant populations. 

This episode was made as part of Plan C Pills Creative Fellowship. To learn more about Plan C Pills visit their website. If you or your organization would like to partner with Black Feminist Rants or request to sponsor an episode please fill out our partnership form. 

To conclude the Black Youth Sexuality season BFR is joined by Danielle Jenkins (they/she), a Spelman student and asexual person. They lay out what asexuality means for them, why it’s important to care about the rights of people across the country, and how gender can be boring. She also talks about queerbaiting, the importance of silence on social media, and how the Reproductive Justice movement is for ace people too.

Welcome to our third installment of the Black Youth Sexuality season with Alexis Nicole (she/they/star), an organizer, poet, and activist based in St. Louis. Star speaks on everything from the role of pleasure in stars life as a disabled person, what disability justice is, and how the health care system can ignore consent. Alexis and LaKia also discuss the stigma of certain mental illnesses, the importance of sex ed for disabled people, and how capitalism is ableist.

We’re continuing the Black Youth Sexuality season with Amaya Jacques (she/her), a youth advocate/activist and model in New Orleans. She joins BFR in discussing how and why she centers young people in her activism, the harmful effects of school dress codes, and the sexualization of young Black girls’ bodies. Amaya also talks about getting rid of the cop in your head and how modeling has opened up new avenues for her to explore her self-expression.

Welcome to the Black Youth Sexuality season! We’re kicking it off with Caleb Strickland (he/they), a sociologist, Morehouse student, and member of the House of Juicy Couture. He talks about the lack of sex ed in Arkansas, the history of ballroom, and how ballroom helped him explore his gender expression. They explained the importance of community in ballroom and their theory of the matrix of liberation.

Sabia Wade (she/they), doula, entrepreneur, and angel investor, joins Black Feminist Rants to give the rundown on what angel investing is, putting money into the futures we want to see, and what luxury can mean for Black people. Sabia discusses how they got their start as a doula, putting your ego aside when you’re doing the work, and platonically raising kids with her friend. They also share about their new book coming out later this year and the publishing process.

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Learn about how organizations are increasing access to birth control through youth-led advocacy! Rochelle Rodney (she/her), the Director of Advocacy for the New York Birth Control Access Project (NYBCAP) joins Black Feminist Rants in discussing the work that NYBCAP does to make birth control as accessible as possible for New Yorkers. Rochelle talks about the emergency contraceptive in vending machines initiative, helping young people do advocacy, and pharmacist-dispensed birth control.

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Chasity Wilson (she/her), the Executive Director of the New Orleans Abortion Fund (NOAF), joins Black Feminist Rants in discussing the struggles of doing work that is so intertwined with your lived experience. Chastity also shares her experience leading an abortion fund post overturn of Roe v. Wade (Dobbs decision) and being the first Black Executive Director of NOAF. LaKia and Chasity talk about how Chasity balances being a first-time mom and Executive Director of an abortion fund.

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Sarah Michal Hamid (she/they), a doula and birth worker, joins Black Feminist Rants in discussing what birth work entails, the impact of settler colonialism on reproduction in the past and present, and the importance of doulas operating outside of the capitalist health care system. Sarah and LaKia talk about how all forms of reproductive health care need to be high quality for everyone.

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Self-Managed Abortion is a necessary component of abortion care. Join BFR Host, LaKia, as she provides vital information on self-managed abortion using abortion pills: what it is, how it works, and resources to make your experience as positive as possible. LaKia also discusses how the Western medical industry prioritizes profits over people and attempts to erase the history of community care around abortions.

Celebrate Self-Managed Abortion (SMA) Fest hosted by Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE). 

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Black Feminist Rants lives up to its name in this episode with host, LaKia Williams, discussing (or ranting, depending on how you view it) her recent experiences starting therapy, finding an identity outside of the reproductive justice movement/non-profit work/organizing, and the need for Repro organizations to pay employees a living wage.

LaKia discusses her recent conversations in therapy surrounding feeling like her entire identity is centered around the work she does, something that she believes is common for young Black women, who are taught that they need to succeed at any costs. LaKia discusses working through unlearning this and the pains that comes with it.

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Dr. Jamila Perritt (she/her), an abortion provider, OBGYN, and Reproductive Justice advocate, joins Black Feminist Rants in discussing the impact of abortion bans on patients, trying to use medicine as a tool for liberation, and the concept of fetus viability. Dr. Perritt is the president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health, an organization that educates and organizes health care providers to shape legislation and practice and advance access to reproductive health care for all communities.

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Brandi Collins-Calhoun (they/she), a doula, writer, and RJ activist, joins Black Feminist Rants in discussing philanthropy’s role in Reproductive Justice (RJ) movement spaces, the evils of capitalism, and the nitty-gritty of funding RJ organization’s who do the work. Brandi is the Senior Movement Engagement Associate for the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). NCRP is a philanthropic watchdog that ensures that funders and philanthropic organizations are being held accountable for their funding practices. Brandi also shares their experience as a teen mom and how she found community in the RJ movement.

Become a BFR member to get member-only reproductive justice content and commentary! 

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Larada Lee-Wallace (she/they), an abortion storyteller and organizer, joins Black Feminist Rants in a discussion on accessing abortion care multiple times, in different states, as a young Black person. Larada is an Advocates for Youth Abortion Out Loud organizer and ACCESS RJ board member. Larada shares their experiences accessing abortion care, the barriers they experienced, adverse experiences with healthcare providers, and how people can best support people in getting abortion care.

Join BFR Host, LaKia, for a reflection on what liberation looks like in practice, her hopes and goals for Black women globally, and how movement space’s practices can oftentimes contradict the liberatory goals we are working to accomplish.

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The Lawyering Project's Senior Counsel, Rupali Sharma (she/her), discusses the facts behind Texas' unconstitutional abortion ban, SB8, and the Supreme Court's failure to strike down the unconstitutional attack on people's healthcare. Sharma goes into detail on how the Supreme Court's decision will impact the efforts to codify abortion access for everyone in this country.

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Welcome back to BFR! This week we are unpacking birth control as simply contraception or a way to control one's reproduction, and the legacy of its distribution, or lack thereof, in America. Birth control is necessary for the full liberation of people with uteruses, and is a critical component of full reproductive health care, but we cannot discuss birth control without mentioning its racist inception in the US.

BFR Host, LaKia, sits down with abortion and reproductive justice activist, writer, and organizer, Renee Bracey Sherman to talk about the importance of abortion storytelling, centering Black and brown voices in abortion storytelling, and the myth of "pro-life feminism" as well as other timely topics related to abortion and RJ. Renee Bracey Sherman is the founder and Executive Director of We Testify, an organization that supports and amplifies abortion storytellers. 

You can read Sherman's Buzzfeed article here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emaoconnor/employees-calling-out-reproductive-rights-groups. 

The season 2 finale of BFR features guest, Yemisi (Yemi) Miller-Tonnet a Reproductive Justice fellow, feminist book seller, and domestic violence legal advocate. On this episode Yemi and LaKia talk about anti-abortion tactics, the struggles of youth organizing, and more. Yemi also talks about her experience working at an abortion clinic and hihglights the importance of collective organizing. LaKia wraps this episode with her reflection on the progress of BFR, her appreciation for all of the supporters and thoughts on the transitions she's made mentally, emotionally, and physically during 2020. 

In this episode LaKia discusses the exploitation that students face specifically from unpaid internships, universities that expect student leadership and activism labor, and her specific experience as a Resident Advisor (RA) for Tulane University. LaKia touches on how systems create competitive job markets that incentivize students and young people to seek internships, often times unpaid, so that they will be marketable in the job market. However, many low and middle class people can't afford to take an unpaid internship which widens the class divide that already exists. 

In this BFR episode LaKia sits down with recent college grad and Reproductive Justice Organizer, Tia Coleman. LaKia and Tia discuss Louisiana's upcoming anti-abortion constitutional amendment aimed at denying Louisiana residents the right to abortion. Tia has been mobilizing and educating young people across Louisiana on the importance on voting No on this amendment to safeguard our reproductive freedom. The conversation naturally progresses and LaKia and Tia begin discussing their experience as Black women in higher education, LaKia reflects on her time at a predominately white institution, while Tia touches on her memories at a historically black university. 

Join BFR for a discussion with Doula and Reproductive Justice Organizer, Aura Nicole. In this episode we discuss birth justice, doula work, and what it means to be a young Black person organizing for social and reproductive justice today. This episode is full of laughs and realness, where we talk about imposter syndrome, burnout, and working towards liberation while also being forced to work within white supremacy culture. 

Follow Aura Nicole on Instagram @Auranicole_ 

Follow BFR on Instagram @blackfeministrants and Twitter @Blackfemrants. 

BFR is back for Season 2! Join Host LaKia for the season 2 premier brought to you by URGE! In this episode LaKia discusses the #FreeThePill movement, the importance of contraception equity and what young people have been doing on the ground to increase reproductive healthcare access to all! LaKia gets into the details of how a program she started called Big Easy EC came to fruition. Big Easy EC provides free emergency contraception (Plan B), condoms, and pregnancy tests to uptown New Orleans students. 

The season finale of BFR includes guest speaker Irma Garcia who is a sex educator based in Texas. 

Irma is a certified sex educator in Texas and client services manager at Jane’s Due Process, where she helps Texas minors exercise their reproductive rights to an abortion. Prior to joining the JDP team, she was a sexual health and abortion counselor at a local Austin clinic, as well as a birth doula. Now as the sexpert on staff and for the community, her focus is to connect the harm of sex-negative anti-abortion rhetoric into a wider sex-positive reproductive justice framework where marginalized people are not shamed and robbed of their autonomy. She believes that when Black, Indigenous, and other people of color experience pleasure on their own terms, it’s an act of protest, but most importantly--self-care.

Join BFR for a Black feminist rant on the politics of a post racial society, the concept of color blindness and the controversy surrounding affirmative action. 

Join BFR in a discussion with SisterSong's Lead Trainer Christian Adams who is co-planning the Reproductive Justice Summer Institute with BFR Host, LaKia Williams. In this episode Adams talks about her RJ story which includes, teenage pregnancy, abortion, and medical neglect. We also talk about organizing for Reproductive Justice virtually in the COVID-19 era and the importance of including young people in the movement. 

In this episode of BFR, host LaKia discusses imposter syndrome and her experiences with it as a young Black woman attending a Predominantly White Institution. The conversation evolves into one about respectability politics and so much more! Be sure to follow BFR on Instagram @blackfeministrants and Twitter @blackfemrants