Segregated Medicine

 Segregated Medicine is the Rule

• Reduced quality of care: Segregated care has diminished the quality of care available to Black patients.
• Medical mistrust: Segregation has fuel medical mistrust in Black and other communities that have experienced historical mistreatment.

What you saw in that video wasn’t “hospital chaos.”

It was obstetric violence — the kind Black women have survived for generations.

A woman in active labor was begging for help.

Her water was already broken.

Her contractions were seconds apart.

She asked for an anesthesiologist.

She told the staff her induction date, her due date, and that she needed to be moved immediately.

And the nurse still said,

“I can’t help you.”

That wasn’t confusion.

That wasn’t short staffing.

That was the same old pattern:

Black women treated like they’re exaggerating, lying, or disposable.

And behind her screams was another sound most people missed —

her mother realizing she couldn’t protect her own daughter.

No matter how grown a Black woman is, she is still her mother’s baby.

And that mother had to stand there and watch her child collapse into pain while the people trained to help refused to move.

She wasn’t filming for “drama.”

She was filming out of fear — the same fear Jim Crow maternity wards carved into our lineage.

Because Black families know the script:

Raise your voice and you’re “aggressive.”

Ask twice and you’re a “problem.”

Demand care and you’re met with security before compassion.

This wasn’t a one-off incident.

It was the afterlife of segregated medicine playing out in real time — is the rule in America and the system didn’t even flinch.