Woman holding sign that reads "I can't breathe."

Black Women Can’t Breathe

By Michele Goodwin

Years before George Floyd begged to be released from under the knee of Officer Derek Chauvin, Barbara Dawson, a fifty-seven year old Black woman, died begging a police officer, John Tadlock, not to remove her oxygen mask. Her death occurred right outside the Calhoun Liberty Hospital in Blountstown, Florida, shortly before Christmas in 2015.

Just before Officer Tadlock’s arrival, Ms. Dawson arrived at the hospital seeking oxygen. The hospital’s response to Ms. Dawson’s request was to call law enforcement. Photographs show Ms. Dawson slumped next to the police car. A police recording captures the tragic end of Ms. Dawson’s life. Officer Tadlock reprimands Ms. Dawson: “Falling down like this and laying down, that’s not going to stop you from going to jail.”

Ms. Dawson’s life ended on the pavement, feet away from the entrance of the hospital that phoned the police on their patient — because she refused to leave. She lay there nearly twenty minutes before being pronounced dead. It turns out she had a blood clot in her lungs.

In some sense, there is nothing extraordinary about the image of Ms. Dawson, or the interactions of the hospital and officer, which further complicates the deadly exchange. Indeed, the interaction was far too normal: Black women fear for their health and safety when they do not seek care and, troublingly, even when they do.

When I first saw a photo of Ms. Dawson, cloaked in her red church hat and Sunday clothes, it reminded me of the sepia-hued images of southern, Black grandmothers lined up for church. All that seemed normal – just as ordinary as being transported to a hospital in an ambulance, complaining of severe pain, and expecting to receive care. Yet, in the case of Black women, what is common is the fear and risk of being denied appropriate medical services and being turned away.

Officer Tadlock says, “You can either walk out of here peacefully or I can take you out of here.” Ms. Dawson, panting while the officer calmly informs her of those terribly constrained options (notably, neither includes giving her the oxygen she needs), fitfully calls on God. Tadlock then reaches to remove her oxygen mask. “Let’s take this off,” he says. Dawson responds, “You can’t take that off.”

My law students are sometimes confused by how they should relate to this. Officer Tadlock speaks in a calm, almost entreating voice. For many of them, this is not what racism sounds like.

When Ms. Dawson refuses to surrender the oxygen mask, hospital staff gesture to the wall, informing Officer Tadlock that the oxygen supply hose could be disconnected from a port located there. The officer does so; he disconnects the hose. Afterward, Ms. Dawson wails, “Leave me alone, leave me alone … I can’t even breathe … I beg you.” Her options were constrained; there was not much she could do except to beg, in essence, for her life. Within a short while, she would be dead.

Ms. Dawson’s death reveals the troubling ways in which Black women are marginalized again and again, even as they seek medical care. Their health suffers under systemic racism, exacerbated by sexism.

Dire maternal mortality rates bear this out. On a national level, Black women are nearly four times as likely to die as white women due to maternal mortality. At the local level, their death rates compared to white counterparts may be ten or fifteen times as high. Such a system not only snatches women’s lives, but also causes them to suffer in the process.

Indeed, racism in health care, expressed through implicit and explicit biases, is the ultimate form of suffocation. Such racism, often compounded by sexism — not only impedes access, but it stifles the ability to properly advocate for oneself — sometimes, tragically, to a suffocating, deadly effect.

 

Michele Bratcher Goodwin is a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine and founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. 

Michele Goodwin

Michele Bratcher Goodwin is a renowned scholar, advocate, and author who has devoted her career to uplifting the voices, social conditions, and rights of women and children around the globe. A widely cited legal authority in constitutional law, health law, and women’s rights, her writings have been consulted by courts, legislators, government agencies, and civil society organizations. She has advised or given testimony before Congress and state governments as well as the United States’ Uniform Law Commission on privacy, the regulation of the human body, and reproductive health.

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