Dani McClain is a writer and award-winning journalist who reports on race and reproductive health. Her work has been recognized by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She is mother to one daughter and author of the book We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood, which was published in 2019.
In this conversation, we go deeper into Dani’s personal motivations for the book. We talk about the state of affairs in the US, about ‘Motherwork’ and what it means to belong to a black family and community today. Dani reflects on her own upbringing and her personal experience and considerations of mothering her young daughter outside the normative nuclear family model.
“Dani McClain’s work is more than a reimagining of motherhood. It’s an equally soulful and skillful immersion into the questions of how we go beyond survival in a nation intent on the suffering of Black mothers and their children.”
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Key Themes:
- The role of Reproductive Justice and Birth Activism in unpacking the Black Maternal Health Crisis in the US.
- Understanding health disparities – “The American experience tears away at the Black body.”
- How do we move beyond survival and not be steeped in fear and anxiety all the time?
- The importance of nurturing real community
- Let’s challenge the negative stereotypes of single motherhood.
- Marriage and Patriarchy – Why the nuclear family isn’t the ‘fix all’ we’ve been taught to believe and aspire to.
- Mothework – “I aspire to engage in Motherwork. I aspire to be worthy of the communities we are a part of.”
- Being Black and Buddhist, the importance of ‘Sangha’.
- Can we imagine more freedom and joy unfolding for our children in the future?
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Reproductive Justice Framework
- Motherhood So White by Nefertiti Austen
- Breathe; A Letter to my Sons by Imaani Perry
About Dani
- Dani’s Website
- Buy Dani’s book – We live for the we, the Political Power of Black Motherhood via Amazon
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Thank you and much love, Nehanda xx
“I think it’s important to look at the ways in which the Black family has looked and survived over time and place what we look like today within that context so that we can take some pride in who we are, and not just let this dominant narrative tell us that we’re broken and we’re less than.”
Dani McClain . Ep 3 -The Soul Mama Podcast