African American woman in America has a higher chance of dying during or right after pregnancy than a woman in developing areas of Central Europe or Eastern Asia. What’s more, what Williams had to go through is especially revealing about the medical bias faced by black women.According to American College of Obstetrics and gynecology, at least 46% of maternal deaths among African- American women could be prevented (versus 33% for white women), which points to a systematic dismissal of symptoms and patient complaints, and less attention paid overall. Indeed, how race bias affects the medical profession is well documented. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus15.pdf Indeed, even Serena Williams, whose body, as her husband correctly notes, “is one of the greatest things on this planet,” is just another black woman when it comes to being heard in the maternity ward—and when it comes to being dismissed.

“African-American doctors, lawyers, business executives, and they still have a higher infant-mortality rate than…white women who never went to high school in the first place,” Michael Lu