We Are Not Consumables — Stop Treating Us Like We Are

Growing up as a Black girl in a white patriarchal society means learning that not only are you not really a person, but having your existence commoditized, dissected, abused, dismissed, and discarded in innumerable ways. It means fighting to be in spaces that should have been safe and welcoming. It means fighting to be heard in spaces where people should want to hear you. It means learning that very few people care about you as much as they care about what they can extract from you, be it pleasure, comfort, culture, artistry, domestic and emotional labor, or children — it is always about what they can extract from your existence. And, as demonstrated by Henrietta Lacks, the victims of the MOVE bombing of 1985, and now Adriana Smith, that extraction continues even after your death.

And just so that we are clear, this grotesque thing they are doing to the remains of Adriana Smith is research for how they can create and maintain human incubators without the pesky autonomy of the human needed to birth them. This is being used to learn what they can supply to a dying/dead body to still have a “successful” pregnancy. And if you can’t see how fucking disgusting and horrible this is, then you probably hate women.

Being a Black woman means that you will be loved for all the things people can take from you. And that shit will confuse you…