Book Talk: Khiara M. Bridges — Expecting Inequity - with Akilah Johnson

Watch author Khiara M. Bridges' book talk and reading at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.

An unsettling exploration of the persistence of racism in reproductive healthcare in the US—and why even affluent Black women are imperiled by substandard care.

From a leading expert on race, class, maternal health, and reproductive rights.

Racism in maternal healthcare is not reserved for the poor. An unsparing picture of inequities in prenatal care and childbirth in the US, Expecting Inequity reveals that not only are Black people three-to-four times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause, but racial disparities in maternal mortality persist across income levels. That is, wealthier Black people are much more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or the postpartum period than their white counterparts. Focusing on a San Francisco obstetrics clinic that caters to the affluent, Khiara Bridges looks at the choices around prenatal care and childbirth that class-privileged, pregnant Black people are making in order to survive what has been called the “Black maternal health crisis.”

Khiara M. Bridges is a professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law. Her books include Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization.

Bridges is in conversation with Akilah Johnson, who joined The Washington Post in 2021 as a national reporter exploring the effect of racism and social inequality on health. In prior roles at ProPublica and the Boston Globe she covered the intersection of health, race, politics and immigration. At ProPublica, she won a George Polk award, National Magazine award and was Pulitzer finalist for examining covid-19's toll on Black Americans. .

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