Womanly Interview: Taja Lindley (founder of the Birth Justice Podcast) by Amy Woehling
Photo by Jaime Richards, Design by Jeremie Rose
Words by Amy Woehling
Taja Lindely is the founder of Colored Girls Hustle and host of the new Birth Justice Podcast NYC. The podcast creates a space for dialogue and debate to address one of New York’s most pressing public health and racial justice issues: birth.
Where does your journey begin? How did Colored Girls Hustle and start?
Ever since I was little, I've always questioned authority and wanted to live life on my own terms. Right after I graduated from college, I was working at an organization that I was very excited and enthusiastic about at first. But after a few years, it fell out of resonance for me. So I quit my job at the end of 2011 and used 2012 to figure out what my pivot would be. I wanted to live more creatively. It was during this time that I explored different art practices like making jewelry, performance, and visual art. I began making earrings and sought out opportunities to sell them at different places. The first place I set up shop was in the Bronx at an event called Momma’s Hip Hop Kitchen. Since then, Colored Girls Hustle has become more than just selling earrings. It's about creating spaces and opportunities for women and girls of color to celebrate and honor themselves as we create a world that honors us.
Tell us more about the Birth Justice Podcast NYC’s story. How did it get started?
There’s a lot to say! I do a deeper dive into its origins in the prelude episode, but the most recent history is that I've been working as a consultant with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) since 2016 by supporting projects around sexual and reproductive health and justice. In 2019, I became a Public Artist in Residence (PAIR) with the City Health Department to work on maternal health projects that focused on maternal mortality in the Bronx, which has some of the highest poor health outcome disparities in the entire state of New York. While I was working on my art project, I was having lots of conversations with people one-on-one and in small groups around their reproductive healthcare experiences. These conversations centered around reproductive oppression and birth injustice in New York City. They inspired me to peel back the statistics and look deeper into personal experiences because maternal mortality is really just the tip of the iceberg. I had been in the process of organizing a Bronx Birth Justice Gathering before COVID happened and was playing with the idea of a podcast as a way to share the stories, information, and resources that were going to be shared during The Gathering. So when COVID cancelled the event it made sense to bring the podcast project to the forefront as a way to have intimate conversations online.
What other issues does the Birth Justice Podcast cover?
Maternal mortality is the tip of the iceberg, and while there are other related issues that lie beneath the proverbial surface (the rest of the iceberg), the question that I'm asking on the podcast is: what's in the water? Birth and reproductive justice require us to zoom out and look at the web that has created our present-day conditions. When we zoom out, we begin to see that racism is not something that just happens at the moment of death. There are other experiences and outcomes that happen during pregnancy, before pregnancy, and postpartum. The podcast examines many different kinds of reproductive experiences — such as miscarriage, abortion, and birth — and puts them in conversation with the maternal health crisis so we can address the totality of the issue. We also discuss the history of reproductive injustice for Black people in this country pre and post slavery. Other communities that experience medical racism and reproductive oppression are also included in these conversations. Through the podcast, I make connections between this history and present day to remember things that have happened so we can ensure that they do not happen again.
Why do you encourage other people to return to their own birth story?
I learned so much about myself, my mother and my family when I interviewed her in the first episode. I know it's a privilege to be able to have these conversations — some people's parents are deceased, some people are estranged from their families, some people have experienced harm, violence and ostracism, some people have been dispossessed by their families, and some people are adopted and may not know who their birth families are. However, if people are in a position to ask questions, I’d encourage them to learn more about where they come from because this history helps you learn more about yourself. Examining your birth and rebirth stories may help reveal cycles to learn from, heal from, or continue. I also believe that birth stories are not just when we are physically born. There are metaphorical, symbolic, and spiritual births and deaths that happen in our lives and we can recreate or rebirth ourselves over time.
Who should tune in?
The podcast is for anyone who's interested in the intersection of public health and racism, birth work, and grappling with the maternal health crisis. There are new episodes every Wednesday! The episodes are long, but there is an interview outline in the show notes for people that need to stop and come back to the episode.
How do you manage your physical and mental health while doing this work?
I try to remember to pour into my own cup before I try to pour into someone else’s. I choose to tune out what's happening online and tune into myself. Having intentional quiet time and spending time doing things that feed my spirit and my soul: meditation, prayer, doing altar work, journaling, reading sacred texts that keep me inspired and on my path. I'm a very sensual person and appreciate beauty in my environment. So I keep a pleasure practice by eating food that tastes good and having things in my homes that smell good. I just really like to do things that I enjoy and make that an integral part of my life so that when I tackle challenging things they don’t become the only information I'm consuming.
