Off The Cuff with Aniella Day Abortion Doula

Aniella Day Courtesy of Aniella Day

Ella Moxley News Editor Kush Bulmer News Editor

College fourth-year Aniella Day is part of the Leadership Circle of the Oberlin Doula Collective. The Collective started in 2017 as a volunteer organization where students support people receiving abortions. While much of the group’s work has been on pause for the last year due to COVID-19, members are hoping to transition some of their work to virtual platforms in order to continue to be a resource to people in Northeast Ohio. We sat down with Day to discuss her work with the Collective and her thoughts on recent political events related to abortion. Last month, the Texas Legislature passed a controversial bill that banned abortion after six weeks. On Wednesday, a federal judge blocked enforcement of this new law after the Justice Department made an emergency request to stop the law. Additionally, this term the Supreme Court will hear a case related to a 2018 Mississipi abortion ban after 15 weeks. Oberlin Doula Collective is not affiliated with Oberlin College and is an independent organization.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Could you start with a description of what the abortion doulas do on campus and how you got involved?

The Oberlin Doula Collective was started by a person named Elana Rosenberg, [OC ’19]. She taught my SexCo class. During SexCo, she was like, “Oh, everybody should take this training that we’re offering for abortion doulas.” And I had no idea what an abortion doula was, and most people don’t know what it is when I first talk about it. At the training, it seemed to make a lot of sense that one might want to have a doula [before, during, or after the procedure], a non-medical support person. They are a person who doesn’t know or is not trained to do the medical procedure that they’re a part of. So you could be a birth doula, you could be a death doula, you could be an abortion doula. Having somebody in the room with you who’s your advocate can be a really powerful thing. Our organization has been in limbo for the last three or four years because of a lot of things — because of COVID-19, because of the College administration, and because of the fact that we don’t get paid for any of this work and it’s purely volunteer-based.

What does being a doula look like for you right now during COVID-19? Are you supporting people who are getting abortions or has that been on hold for the last year and a half?

We had a partnership with a nearby Planned Parenthood, and then COVID-19 happened. We’ve really never had people in clinics, and that’s what we’re trying to start now. We’re also working on some virtual support options. We have found these really wonderful people at a clinic in Cleveland called Preterm, and they’re being so nice and so supportive. It’s helpful for us to not only work with them but to work with other clinics in the area. Hopefully, by the end of October, we’ll have some sort of training on virtual doula support and we’ll have a phone number up in the clinics that people can use as a text line or a call line.

Could you speak about your reactions to Texas’ six-week abortion ban? Do you see this type of legislation coming to Ohio?

I can’t say that I’m an expert on abortion laws. In Ohio, we have a relationship with a doctorlawyer person who knows a lot about it, and they have given talks for our doulas before. From what I understand, it is still legal and accessible in Ohio to get an abortion. For most people, there are limits because of age; there are limits because of financial status — socioeconomic status. There are definitely limits to how comfortable doctors can make people feel in terms of their gender identity and expression. So that’s always a barrier for any sort of reproductive justice-related healthcare.

I feel like [abortion bans are] terrifying, but it’s coming and we have to be ready to stand up for what we want. I know a lot of people in this world who are very pro-choice and very active in that belief, but there aren’t a lot of people who are actually willing to do that much about it.

What are some challenges your organization has faced?

I would just say that Oberlin College has rejected us from being a student organization once and has now basically censored our ExCo from allowing us to train doulas. We’re only allowed to teach what a doula is and general stuff about reproductive justice, which is fine, because that’s part of our training. But we aren’t allowed to then say — after that ExCo — they are allowed to be doulas with us. We have to have that separate from the ExCo. So there’s something happening within the bureaucracy of Oberlin that will not allow us to say that we are providing care for people who are getting abortions. I don’t know what that is. It’s a problem. It’s not okay with me. Other members of the leadership circle have felt harassed and scared from the emails that they’ve received from administrators: “You can’t be saying this online.” There are a lot of clubs on this campus that get so much funding and so much support, and they just flat-out rejected us. We are in the beginning of the very long process of hopefully — one day — becoming a full-fledged, non-profit organization.

Students Start Semester with Temporary COVID-19 Precautions

Walter Thomas-Patterson Senior Staff Writer

Students returned to campus this week with enhanced COVID-19 safety restrictions, including required masking in all indoor and outdoor public spaces and no indoor dining. The College will reassess these protocols on Oct. 18.

Campus Health Coordinator Katie Gravens explained that the College was able to observe how COVID-19 impacted students at other schools around the country by delaying its start until October. These observations influenced the administration’s decision to tighten its restrictions.

“We were seeing these outbreaks and these large numbers [of infections],” Gravens said. “Schools were then scrambling, and so in the ninth hour we said, ‘Let’s test everyone on arrival, let’s switch to graband-go meals, and let’s ask everyone to please wear their mask outside.’”

At the same time, Gravens indicated that these restrictions — particularly the outdoor mask mandate — are also about setting a precedent that enables Oberlin to distinguish itself from the rest of Ohio.

“It’s a reminder that masks truly are important, because, quite honestly, the state of Ohio does a terrible job with masking,” Gravens said.

For Lorain County Health Commissioner Dave Covell, the presence of these mandates reflects the importance of a layered health strategy, but the most effective defense against COVID-19 is vaccination.

For some students, the College’s outdoor mask mandate was particularly irritating given the high rate of vaccination on campus and the scientific data pointing to reduced transmission in outdoor settings.

“I feel the approach of exceeding the CDC guidelines on a highly vaccinated campus is frustrating,” said double-degree second-year Oscar Duffield. “Breakthrough cases are extremely rare and usually mild. I think the statistical insignificance of breakthrough cases doesn’t warrant such restrictive policies, especially masking outside, which according to the science is not particularly effective. Regardless, I intend to comply with the policies.”

For Conservatory fourth-year Ohad Nativ, who lives off-campus, the sweeping nature of the College’s outdoor mask mandate created confusion.

“An outdoor mask mandate is a little superfluous,” Nativ said. “For one, how does the College define what is considered on- and off-campus? As an offcampus student, how am I to know when exactly I enter and exit the boundaries of the College? I would have preferred if the outdoor mask mandate had been more specific and applied to only groups.”

For other students, the lack of indoor dining options is disappointing, but the temporary nature of the guidelines gives them hope.

“It especially sucks to have to eat outside or alone in our rooms, mostly because it doesn’t build a community,” said College second-year Aidan Duffield and twin of Oscar Duffield. “However, I’m fine with how it is right now because I can look forward to lifted restrictions in the future.”

Ohio Legislative Update

Second Amendment Protections

On Tuesday, the Ohio State Senate advanced Senate Bill 185 out of committee. The bill declares that the Second Amendment should remain protected in emergencies and that the sale of firearms is “life-sustaining” and “essential.” During the 2020 lockdown, Governor Mike DeWine declared gun outfitters as essential services that could remain open during the pandemic. Senate Bill 185 codifies this decision in case of future emergencies.

Proposed Redistricting Hearings

State Senator Vernon Sykes, who serves on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, has asked for public hearings in major cities around the state about the proposed Congressional District Map. The proposal comes after the Ohio Legislature missed a deadline at the end of September to introduce a map. Now the committee must try to draw up a map this month despite the fact that a previous attempt at creating a map is currently being challenged in the Ohio Supreme Court. Ohio lost a congressional seat in the last census and will drop from 16 to 15 seats.

Responding to Bribery Scheme

An Ohio House Committee is reviewing House Bill 389, which would restore some programs removed by House Bill 6, the latter of which was part of the $61 million bribery scandal that resulted in former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s resignation last year. The bill, which was introduced in August, has bipartisan support and allows utilities to propose energy efficiency programs to help customers save money. While the legislation is not as aggressive as Ohio law that existed before House Bill 6 was passed, Ohio environmental groups are still supporting the bill.

OPINIONS

October 8, 2021

My Experience Relying on Mutual Aid

Reginald Goudeau Columnist

Recently, my financial troubles have been the most consistent and substantial barrier to my happiness. Since my second year, I’ve worked multiple jobs at a time, which takes quite a toll. Unfortunately, a big chunk of my earnings goes toward tuition, and another goes toward helping my family. Due to the low pay of most on-campus jobs, I’m generally not left with much money at the end of the redistribution. Resources from the school only help so much. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act is a tremendous resource that gives grants of up to $1,200. I give at least half of whatever Oberlin awards me back to my household, and I save receipts so that my family and I can use funds from ObieCares for gas and food reimbursement. When the Coronavirus Oberlin Mutual Aid Fund was still providing grants, I filled out any available applications.

I’ve done nearly everything I can to improve the financial situation of myself and those close to me. However, it’s highly demoralizing to be unable to escape poverty no matter how many resources are available. It certainly makes resilience harder. I have it rough, but I cannot imagine how others manage to survive without easy access to necessities like food or water.

Despite all my work, for a long time I blamed myself for somehow not doing enough, even though the complete opposite was true. That changed when the pandemic happened, and I began to see many others online in similar or worse situations, pleading for help. Seeing these mutual aid requests reassured

See The Imperfections of Mutual Aid, page 6

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Established 1874 Volume 151, Number 1

Food, Community, and Black Joy: The Legacy of Black Agriculture in Cleveland

Imani Badillo Vera Grace Menafee

Editor’s note: This is a reprint from the August, 2020, Special Issue. Find a copy near you!

During his speech, “Message to the Grassroots Movement,” Malcolm X declared, “Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality.” The reality that we live in today has been built on a history of genocide, exploitation, and displacement. For the descendants of enslaved Africans, tending to the land is intrinsically tied to the history of chattel slavery in the United States and the plantation economy that was the backbone of this country.

While this painful history of land dispossession and discrimination against Black farmers exists, there is an even stronger history of how these communities have resisted endless forms of oppression by maintaining their connection to the land and honoring ancestral knowledge. Throughout the 20th century, Black communities in the South formed “land trusts” and cooperatives, like Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm, to combine their resources and become economically, politically, and socially independent from the American white supremacist state. These farms were extremely important to the Black freedom movement, as many Black-owned farms provided food and housing for activists while also putting together campaigns for voting rights and desegregation.

This communal responsibility has strong and deep roots throughout Black and Indigenous communities and has been carried out by elders and their descendants for centuries up through the present day. During what is called the Great Migration, recently freed Black people in the South migrated to northern urban centers throughout the 20th century to escape Jim Crow laws, job discrimination, and rising acts of white supremacist violence, carrying with them their deep agricultural knowledge. Urban farming organizations rooted in Black agricultural wisdom carry on this history of beautiful resistance. Some of the ones in the Cleveland area guiding the way are Vel’s Purple Oasis and Chateau Hough.

Vel’s Purple Oasis, based near University Circle, was founded by Ms. Vel Scott and her husband Don Scott in 2008. A former owner of the nightclub Vel’s on the Circle, Ms. Vel is a well-known elder in Cleveland; in our experience at her garden, Ms. Vel always offers a warm hug, food or produce, and great conversation. Since 2019, her garden has grown immensely. The advice she has passed on and the community that has formed around her is so vibrant and beautiful. In addition to growing, Vel Scott offers cooking classes at the nearby Don Scott House, which is across the street from the garden. Here, individuals are given the opportunity to cook with high-quality fruits and vegetables not normally accessible to the community while also addressing the high rates of diabetes and heart disease in the area.

The work that Ms. Vel and many other community gardens are doing directly combats food apartheid. Food apartheid is distinct from a “food desert,” which defines a place where car access is required to shop at the nearest grocery store or supermarket or wherever produce remains expensive and low-quality. In contrast, food apartheid recognizes the intentional segregation between predominantly white communities with high-end grocery stores and Black, Brown, and low-income communities that are separated from much-needed nourishment. Ms. Vel connects so many individuals and communities together with her presence, her Oasis, and her love for food and people.

Also based in Cleveland is the vineyard and winery Chateau Hough. Created by Mansfield Frazier in 2010, Chateau Hough rests on three formerly vacant lots. Frazier’s intent in creating this vineyard was to give formerly incarcerated individuals a stable place to work and gain experience. The winery and vineyard is located in the Hough neighborhood, historically known for the Hough Uprisings of 1966 that brought attention to many forms of racism in Cleveland, including segregation, economic inequality, and redlining. Chateau Hough works to introduce a wider audience to the Hough community and actively combats stereotypes of violence and danger in this neighborhood. Mansfield Frazier is another Cleveland elder supporting his community through agriculture, and he remains dedicated to generating paychecks for individuals that are given no other support in the economic system.

Connection to land is essential to the liberation movement. Much of U.S. history recognizes and details the ways in which agriculture has been weaponized against Black people. In order for communities to be self-sufficient, they must reconnect with ancestral land practices and combat this historical violence. While land ownership remains directly related to settler colonialism and the displacement and genocide of Black and Indigenous people, forming and maintaining one’s relationship to the environment and to farming allows individuals to understand that their knowledge and contribution is valuable, important, and a part of revolution.

The knowledge that we cannot return to freedom without the land is the basis for Soul Fire Farm in upstate New York. By using ancestral Black and Indigenous growing practices, Leah Penniman has created a community space for individuals and farmers to learn about sustainable agriculture, ask questions, and to start and maintain their own self-sufficient farms and gardens. Penniman’s work has helped create a network of Black farmers who are using their own knowledge to reconnect with the Earth, achieve liberation on and with the land, and become connected with other farmers achieving the same goal. In Soul Fire Farm’s short lifetime, the soil has been able to reach pre-colonial levels of nutrition and oxygenation while also supporting many families and communities with its produce. Penniman’s book, Farming While Black, reflects on the meaning of growing, teaches new farmers how to successfully run their own farm, and includes a plethora of additional resources that allow individuals to clearly understand the logistical process of growing.

As Farming While Black illustrates, “Each one of us has innumerable ancestors who have endured suffering and emerged intact. Our ancestors are rooting for us, loving us, and attempting to share their wisdom with us. Our job is simply to listen.” As food apartheid and food justice become more widely discussed topics, it is important to learn from the elders in and around us that have been listening all this time.

The hands of Vera Grace Menafee and Imani Badillo in the soil of Vel’s Purple Oasis. Photo by Rachel Serna-Brown