The Unique Challenges of Being Black and Childfree
In this interview with community advocate, sociologist and criminologist, educator, and researcher, Dr. Kimya Nuru Dennis (Keem-ya New-ru Dennis), we discuss the findings of her research on the Black childfree diaspora in countries around the world, as well as the unique challenges of being Black and childfree. We also touch upon the role that patriarchy and male domination plays in the relative powerlessness of women to take control over their reproduction, especially in BIPOC and LGBTQIA communities. Dr. Dennis ends off by discussing the need to have uncomfortable and real conversations in order to engage in authentic equity and justice work.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
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Kimya Nuru Dennis 0:00
Childfree black people will explain how, when they became childfree, it really challenged what they were taught since childhood about religion, which includes stories of Adam and Eve - this notion that biological females, then girls and women, only exist because God created us for human reproduction. So that's how a lot of childfree people and childfree women in particular started challenging religion. Because when they decided to not have children, some of their black family members told them, Well, you are sinning. So it's perpetuating the pronatalist through religion, but also realizing that religion and race always interlock.
Alan Ware 0:37
That was an excerpt from today's interview with our guest, Dr. Kimya Dennis. She's a childfree sociologist who researches sexual and reproductive rights and freedoms, specifically as they relate to the African diaspora. We'll hear more from Dr. Dennis on this episode of the Overpopulation Podcast.
Nandita Bajaj 01:04
Welcome to the Overpopulation Podcast where we tirelessly make overshoot and overpopulation common knowledge. That's the first step in right-sizing the scale of our human footprint so that it is in balance with life on Earth, enabling all species to thrive. I'm Nandita Bajaj, co-host and executive director of Population Balance.
Alan Ware 01:26
And I'm Alan Ware, co-host of the podcast and researcher with Population Balance, a nonprofit that collaborates with experts and other organizations to educate about the impacts of human overpopulation and overconsumption on the planet, people, and animals.
Nandita Bajaj 01:42
In today's episode, we'll talk with Dr. Kimya Dennis about how pronatalism impacts people within the African diaspora, including the unique challenges of being black and childfree. Dr. Dennis will also discuss the importance of having uncomfortable conversations in the field of reproductive justice.
Alan Ware 02:02
Dr. Kimya Nuru Dennis is a community advocate, sociologist, and criminologist educator and researcher. Dr. Dennis connects with local, national, and international community schools, businesses, and organizations. As founder and CEO of 365 Diversity, Dr. Dennis helps change policies, curriculum, class materials and other actions for K-12 schools and colleges and universities. Born and raised in the city of Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Dennis lived in North Carolina for seventeen years and has lived in Baltimore, Maryland since 2019.
Nandita Bajaj 02:39
Good morning, Kimya! We have been fascinated by your work for a number of years, and we were so excited to see you most recently in the film My So Called Selfish Life, which as you know, is a film about pronatalism and the childfree choice. So we are actually thrilled that we can have you here in the studio to have a conversation about your own journey being a childfree person.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 03:04
Thank you so much. Thank you. I look forward to this discussion.
Nandita Bajaj 03:07
Great. Well, Kimya, let's get started with your most recent research that you've been delving into, which is the research on the black childfree diaspora in countries around the world that you've been conducting. Can you tell us more about how you became interested in this research?
Kimya Nuru Dennis 03:26
Yes. So I started the research around 2011, 2012 was when I first initiated this idea. I always knew I did not want children. But when I decided that I was just never going to have children, and I started looking around what are some sources for me to read to learn more, and I'm also sociologists and criminologist, so I looked at this sociologically. And of course, it was not shocking that the most published books and journal articles are white women. And most of the samples in these studies, including when we're looking at qualitative, mostly white women, and this includes if it's trying to expand internationally. So most books, also white women. And you go to the sites, the chat spaces, the message boards - it's mostly white people. And when you go to these sources and bring up black childfree people around the world, Asian childfree people around the world, Indigenous, Aboriginal, non-white Hispanic, non-white Latin X, Latine, Latin O around the world. A lot of times the white childfree people get outraged because they say this has nothing to do with race. And then you get exhausted because we don't have to explain the same way childfree has to do with gender variance, it has to do with sexuality variance, age variance, socio-economic variance, religious variance, nation variance - these are all topics always discussed in these groups. But mysteriously, they wanted to not have anything to do with race. Like they might even mention ethnicity, but they won't mention various ethnicities for thousands of years that became interlocked in racial categories. It's the moment you bring up race, which is unfortunately very common, which is the problem in the origins of racism in the first place. So that's where I had to speak out, and I stopped associating with any of these main stream childfree sources. And I just had to explain I appreciate the childfree authors and childfree sociologists who helped my research. But when I first started this research, it was because I'm not the only black childfree person around the world who was noticing that these places do not specifically address racial variants.
Nandita Bajaj 05:51
And Kimya, why do you think that is? Why was this one aspect being so apparently intentfully left out?
Kimya Nuru Dennis 05:59
It's the same reason as most aspects of our lives that are falsely presented as race neutral and race subjective. So this is what sociologists termed colorblind racism. And it's what we're talking about education, income, religion. White people, in particular tend to dominate these conversations, despite the world being about 12% white. Around the world, white people tend to dominate, and that includes when you look in libraries, school curriculum, K-12, and colleges, universities, and people are learning. But instead of learning about how there's gender variance, sexuality variance, and race variance, a lot of times, white people in particular who create academic programs, medical programs, they tend to want to leave the racial variance out. So then, when we're talking about the decision to never have children, it's the same routine over and over again. I can have entire books on my bookshelf, and there's rarely a black person. And of course, what people will say is that we could not find a black person who can be a respondent for our study. So when I started this research, it really solidified not only my decision to never have children, and how I respond to family and friends back then, before I was in my forties when they used to question me, I just realized very early on that I don't care about their opinions. So that's why I don't argue. I always tell people - they're like, do I argue with people? No, why not? Because I don't care about their opinions.
Nandita Bajaj 07:28
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 07:28
Like, you know, if you don't care about their opinions, and they can feel whatever they feel, just tell them to go on about their day. So when doing - starting this childfree black research, and having the wonderful childfree scholars and authors help to advertise research and get more people to participate, seeing the responses from some white childfree people saying this has nothing to do with race. It's racist to make it about race. And that's not what racism means, of course. But that just really confirmed that if the childfree groups do that, same as a lot of pronatalist groups do as well. When we talk about parenting, people expect you not to bring up racial variance in parenting and corporal punishment. Right?
Nandita Bajaj 08:12
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 08:12
And if that's happening all around the world, of course, that's going to shake the medical and health professions. That shapes access to gynecologists, that shapes access to birth controls. And if we choose to get sterilized, that shapes all of it. There's no such thing as racial objectivity and racial neutrality. Anywhere around the world, even when they claim they don't have racial categories, they do because they know how to behave when they're in spaces in which they're expected to fit into a certain category.
Nandita Bajaj 08:41
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 08:42
And so that's why this really shapes me personally, and also me as a sociologist, and criminologist, because it's very common for nearly every childfree online space, and if you go to meet-ups and join childfree groups, it's almost impossible to find childfree groups in which Indigenous people, East Indians, black people, the list goes on, come into these spaces and realize they will not be the only person.
Nandita Bajaj 09:10
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 09:11
So sometimes we have more and more, you know, Indigenous and black childfree groups, but that's still very rare. And then when people's lives get complex, they leave these groups and these groups go away. But the white childfree groups, they tend to very much remain very active because that's based on population representation in some nations as well.
Alan Ware 09:29
What are some of the main takeaways from that research of the black diaspora childfree?
Kimya Nuru Dennis 09:35
Yes, so when doing this research, we find that more childfree black people in parts of the world really want a collective that focuses on childfree black people so we can discuss how race also contributes to religious standpoints. So this was also a platform in which I met quite a few black agnostics and black atheists, because race always connects with religion, spiritualities. When you look at the, of course, histories of the more common religions and parts of the world, such as Christianity and Judaism and Islam, and then also how health ties into this. So I created and taught the childfree course. So although I have not published the research for peer-reviewed journals, I did not do that because I realize that most of the people actually need this research are not going to read peer-reviewed publications.
Nandita Bajaj 10:25
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 10:25
I always have to explain this as an academic - peer-reviewed publications tend not to be for the general public to access and learn. Most of our colleagues never read it. They congratulate you based on the cover letter. So it's really to build up your CV and all that stuff, and to build up grant funding for research. So that's why the work that I do, I try to give it to the general population. And so a lot of childfree black people will explain how when they became childfree, it really challenged what they were taught since childhood about religion, which includes stories of Adam and Eve - this notion that biological females, then girls and women only exist because God created us for human reproduction.
Nandita Bajaj 11:05
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 11:06
So that's how a lot of childfree people and childfree women in particular started challenging religion, because when they decided to not have children, some of their black family members told them, "Well, you are sinning." So it's perpetuating the pronatalist through religion, but also realizing that religion and race always interlock. Historically, in terms of how we were forced different forms of religion, through colonialism, Christian missionaries, and transatlantic slavery, and then what it means when people try to learn some of the original forms of religions, but the original forms are almost impossible to find over thousands of years, right?
Nandita Bajaj 11:45
Yeah, that's right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 11:46
So people hold on to this pronatalist notion that, you know, it's a very traditional, conservative notion of gender, and also race that ties into that and social class. This idea that owning property is only about owning a family, and a family has to have children.
Nandita Bajaj 12:04
Exactly.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 12:05
So that's a common thing. And mental health comes into that as well.
Nandita Bajaj 12:09
And I'd love to hear more on that, too. But I wanted to add a quick comment about the differences of experiences of people from different races and cultures. And religion is an interesting one because if you look at some of the childfree spaces in the West, for example, especially if they are more liberal women who are following a childfree path, the reasons for being childfree are very different, or the experience of being childfree is very different from someone like you who has a lot of other layers attached to you, or someone like me coming from a very pronatalist culture and ethnicity. They're just different experiences. They're not superior or inferior. But I'm highlighting how there's a layer of expectation or guilt attached to traditional aspects of being childfree. As you said, you're sinning if it's religiously motivated. Or you are letting your family down, which may not be equivalent to a more liberal family in the West. Some of the reasons are well, you may not find fulfillment, because so much is attached to individuality rather than groupings that exist in traditional cultures like ours.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 13:29
Yeah. So if I can speak on that, that's a very European, white foundation. When we talk about the core of individualism in which white people in particular pretend to hold on to the individualism, while also celebrating forms of human capital, social capital, cultural capital, right? Forms of capital are impossible if your life is based on individualism, right? I mean, even when we talk about how this land on Western Hemisphere was stolen, it's supposed to be anti-British, but British was really brought here. I mean, it's still here in terms of everything about the forms of morality, the forms of the laws, the court system, the legal system, how pronatalism is shaped. And so we always have to explain that this falsehood of individualism, and then of course, we talk about the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, it's all into this notion of working hard, and you'll get your reward, and it pretends it's just all you despite the networking components. And so I've always explained this in childfree spaces that are actually open to discussions, because even childfree agnostics and atheists and Hindus and Muslims and Jews need to understand how the Protestant ethic is, of course, based in Protestantism, but it's still taught to people. And that's all we talked about learned behavior. Learned behavior does not always fit in categories. And a lot of times people think they're challenging the category by becoming childfree. But then when you read their writings or listen to what they're saying they're challenging pronatalism by not having children, but they're conforming to traditional cisgender, heterosexual gender norms such as men of head of household, women need to be the main cleaners, or something to that effect. And how they'll rationalize it is by saying, "Well, this is my personal choice," as if it's, they have that selective vision that it's not fitting in line with thousands of years of certain cultures.
Nandita Bajaj 15:32
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 15:32
And so that's why I always tell people that childfree people are actually, we're countered with some components, but whenever you meet childfree people who pretend that they're just anti-establishment, everything, they're dismantling the establishment - it's false, just like when you hear atheists say the same thing, and then they pick up their tea with their pinky hanging out and like, you know, you're still doing learned behavior, you're still complying, whether you're anti-fascist, whatever you are, you're still complying to learned behaviors in some way. Because humans we're learned behavior since birth, most things we do are not biological, and most things that are always considered biological are not. They're just considered biological because humans want to understand things that they can't explain quickly. So the same thing when we're talking about childfree collectives. There's a lot of divide, because there's a group that thinks that they are the know-it-alls, and the representatives of childfree. And then when different cultures and identities of people come in, the cultures and identities of people who are new are expected to assimilate and comply. And that's unfortunately, what's represented. So when I created and taught the childfree course, my students from different cultures and identities were actually excited at the oldest traditional women's college in the nation. And so some of the students already had children.
Nandita Bajaj 16:51
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 16:52
Some of the students plan to have children. What they appreciated, was shaping it into their choice and no longer feeling forced when they're around their children who already exist.
Nandita Bajaj 17:02
Wow. Yeah, you're absolutely right, just by deviating from one prescribed choice, that is considered our default path to fulfillment or getting closer to God or whatever the motivation of that choice is. It's only one choice that you're deviating from, you're not really dismantling the entire system by choosing this one choice. I still think it's a revolutionary choice for people to be making, because our reproductive capacity has been so bound up with our identity, that choosing not to procreate is, I think, a pretty big deal. But we have to remember that we are still tied up in a lot of the other shoulds. And we have to continue to dismantle these ideas, these learned behaviors are still very much guiding us. And in fact, what reminded me of learned behaviors was this conversation with Orna Donath, also a sociologist, in Israel, who talks about our emotions being learned as well. So we have been taught from a very young age, what we must feel excited about, what we must regret, and even our emotions are so deeply socialized and mediated that we can't really separate our authentic desires and experiences and feelings from the mediated ones. So because we only see procreation and pregnancy always being celebrated in culture, we have been socialized from a young age to only look at that as a positive, happy experience. Meanwhile, there are a lot of people who are quite miserable, and have had very difficult experiences of suffering and confusion and mental health issues through procreation, which hardly ever get depicted in culture. So there is a lot of manipulation that goes on in terms of dictating not just what we should and shouldn't do, but how we should and shouldn't feel.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 19:15
And that's what we talk about, of course, is social psychology that interlocks sociology with psychology to understand how this is shaping everything. So when we talk about people's negative emotions is also specialized in mental health. It's important because a lot of childfree people have a mental health condition. And so one explanation for why they're not having children is they think it is completely selfish and disrespectful to pass mental illnesses and other illnesses from generation to generation. Because every family has health conditions on both sides of the family. And of course, most families do not know health conditions because most people don't go to the doctors. And you know doctors have existed for hundreds of thousands of years around the world in different forms, but still, most people don't keep up with medical records.
Nandita Bajaj 20:06
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 20:07
And people who do, a lot of them still reproduce, whether it's unplanned pregnancy or not. And they'll just say, "Well, love surpasses everything." And that's where a lot of childfree people and childfree black people in our groups that we still keep in touch with will express that. They'll say, "We can say that positive energy, prayer, whatever can keep up with stuff." But when your child gets the schizophrenia that you have already, and your child's schizophrenia starts expressing as the child gets older, you really can't blame anyone but yourself. Because you literally knew that you were on medication, you had to get off the medication while you were pregnant, and the list goes on. And so that's why that's another component of pronatalism, because never do we ever tell people with health conditions that they should not have children, right? Because that is ableist, to take that approach. But instead, we want people to understand that it should be a choice.. You should have the choice to have children, because it's not that people with health conditions should not have children, instead, it should be a choice. You should not be told, "Well, you have a health condition, you're going to die. Therefore, you need to reproduce so that, you know, you create the world's next population generation."
Nandita Bajaj 21:23
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 21:23
That's another form of pronatalism in which it's not based on what the person wants, it's instead telling the person, "You're gonna die before you get fifty. Therefore, time to pop it out."
Nandita Bajaj 21:32
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 21:33
That's a very harmful, dangerous component for people to think about. Even if they talk about love.
Nandita Bajaj 21:38
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 21:39
Right? This falsehood that love is instant, it's automatic. They choose selective vision when we have literally centuries of writings of girls and women who talk about how they felt when they've been pregnant. How they felt, whatever you could call it, postpartum depression, whatever the official medical terminology is -there's many stories of people being absolutely miserable. And very alone, because boys and men and in many cultures are told that this is your part-time job.
Nandita Bajaj 22:07
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 22:07
It's her full time job, right. And so that's why this is always something that we have to address.
Alan Ware 22:12
But you just mentioned men, and wondering how much patriarchy and male domination is tied up with the relative powerlessness of women in these situations and what you saw in your research of the black diaspora?
Kimya Nuru Dennis 22:25
Oh thank you. And so I'll also bring that up historically in terms of African cultures around the world for hundreds of thousands of years, some of which are matriarchal. But people need to define matriarchy, because a lot of times they'll define matriarchy the same way they define the black woman is the head of household. Usually when they say black woman is head of household, it's still very motherly-nurturer role. So she's taking every power, but it's not in the sense of independence, it's in the sense of your whole existence is based on these children and your extended family, what's happening in the household, everything is based on you, and you're oftentimes risking your own health and life because you're not taking care of yourself. So that was also something captured in the research because it was this notion of challenging how most of our people don't know as much as we should about African cultures from the continent of Africa, because, of course, transatlantic slavery and missionary and colonialism that put us around the world and, and took us from our family on the continent of Africa. So being childfree and doing this research actually took us around the world to find African women who are interested in resources and addressing how in their nation, while while there have been hundreds of thousands of years of birth control options, contrary to what people oftentimes say, in Europe, Canada, and United States of America, that somehow birth control was only created here. We have hundreds of thousands of years of humans with different birth control options that people still use. But that's just something I was interested about this research - where African women who, for example, live in Europe will tell you that this is the difficulty, they might feel a sense of freedom when they're in Europe, but when they go home to visit their family, they're still told you're not living how you should live. So that's unfortunately been an example of how some women have had to separate from their families, and from their traditional cultures and traditional nations, and their original origins regarding religions and spiritualities as well. So on one end, we can say that's a form of confidence and independence, but it's very lonely, it's very isolating.
Nandita Bajaj 24:43
Sure.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 24:44
And it also increases the prevalence of white childfree, because if you have to abandon your African cultural origins, what tends to happen is you end up in nations like Europe, Canada and United States of America, where now you're forming collectives with predominately white childfree spaces.
Nandita Bajaj 25:03
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 25:03
So it's like, so a lot of some people feel guilty because they feel like they're abandoning their culture, and trying to be in white childfree spaces because these are the spaces that were the only spaces that would accept them, unlike their, their family. And regarding the gender variance, I was not surprised when it was difficult, and still is difficult to find childfree black men, whether it's locally, nationally and around the world. So although I interviewed a few childfree black men, and for our Facebook group, we have some childfree black men who are really excited to be part of this. And they always explain constantly, because they're the ones who oftentimes have to explain as well that they really are childfree, because although women are told, "You'll change your mind," or "You'll accidentally get pregnant", which is also very cisgender heterosexual standpoint. But childfree black men will tell you that they oftentimes are assumed to change the mind because it's, it's this notion that their decisions are 100%, based on what their mother tells them to do and what whatever woman they find in any given moment decides. So that's why when I did the research, years ago, time really does fly, some of the childfree black men, I had to take them out of that category and put them childless. And they're in the appendix. They're taught that boys and men just show up.
Alan Ware 26:24
And like you'd mentioned having the kid - their commitment's part-time.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 26:28
Yeah.
Alan Ware 26:29
And the mother's full-time.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 26:30
Yep. And I was disappointed. I was not shocked. But I was disappointed that it just complied with that.
Alan Ware 26:36
Yeah. And that's why it seems women making the choice of childfree they're seeing the full-timeness of it, and making that choice. And men are more, "Well, it's a part-time job." You know, that they can make it that lower element in their life, make the decision more cavalierly, maybe?
Kimya Nuru Dennis 26:55
Yeah, and some of them do, even if they're challenging their family and their culture. It's still oftentimes families and cultures that are based in patriarchy. And, you know, you can be annoyed with a man, but it's up to the man either way. And so when we can also talk about that when men decide to get sterilized by choice, and how it tends to be an easier process for them. And so it's the same thing that just goes on and on and on to let boys and men believe that they can just make whatever decision they want, and it's not going to be difficult.
Alan Ware 27:29
Yeah, we interviewed Esgar Guarín who's a vasectomy doctor who mentioned that, yes, six times as many tubal ligations are performed as vasectomies, even though vasectomy is a minor operation.
Nandita Bajaj 27:42
Right. And I want to also pick up a comment that you made Kimya, about women in various different African countries who are making the decision to be childfree. On the one hand, they are defying deep-rooted cultural norms to make that choice, which is incredibly difficult, especially when you add the components of them having to depart from a lot of their other identities that are a big part of who they are, such as their spirituality, their religion, their traditions, because those layers of their identity will not accept their choice to become childfree. So on the one hand, they are trying to re-identify themselves as liberated, authentic childfree people. On the other hand, the edge of what they were trying to prove, is getting lost because their other identities are, in a way, forcibly being taken away from them, but just because of a lack of acceptance of that choice.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 28:45
Yeah, humans are very much, again, based on learned behavior and also very categorical.
Nandita Bajaj 28:51
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 28:52
I mean, we talk about categorical distinctions, categorical inequalities, and I always tell people, when you think you're different, now you fit into another category. There's no such thing as independence and individualism in the sense that you never fit into any category.
Nandita Bajaj 29:06
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 29:07
And sometimes people think that they are, you know, anti-everything, but I tell them, well, now you're part of the club that's anti-everything. Alright, that's how humans operate. There's no such thing otherwise. So when we're talking about studying this, and we're looking at like, antinatalist societies, it's very difficult to find much data on antinatalist societies. There's no real evidence of antinatalism in on the continent of Africa, and also on these lands before they became continents, because you know, most data and most - contrary to what a lot of people are taught since preschool, there are hundreds of thousands of years of research and teachings, I always have to explain this to people, that unfortunately, a lot of people are taught in history books and classes, including in PhD programs and indie programs, that humans were just roaming around the world for hundreds of thousands of years, but we know nothing until about five centuries ago.
Nandita Bajaj 30:04
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 30:05
That's the mystery, right? That's not true. Unfortunately, a lot of knowledges have been lost as lands have shifted, natural disasters, humans are huge litterers, for hundreds of thousands of years, get rid of stuff, a lot of knowledge is stolen, you'll find it in museums, you'll find it at predominately white universities around the world, they'll call it their collection of knowledge, which means that the general population does not have access to that knowledge. And unfortunately, that also shapes when we're talking about reproductive rights, and pronatalism, or antinatalism. A lot of people's knowledge of anything is based on what they can find at a library, in books, or in a classroom.
Nandita Bajaj 30:47
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 30:48
Or on a standardized test, because that standardized test is supposed to tell them, these are the facts of the world for hundreds of thousands of years. And that's false, but people still hold on to that. And unfortunately, school decision makers perpetuate it for every generation. So that connects, when we're talking about things like body health courses, taught in the courses. We're talking about sexual health, reproductive health - they're literally teaching, like, even when we include knowing LGBTQIA, it's still very much a pronatalism thing, because if you're learning about different forms of sexuality and gender identities and non-identities and asexuality, it's still oftentimes teaching people that you have to prove that you are a human and not an alien. Maybe you should go start babysitting as a hobby, maybe you should go adopt a child or something. In other words, it's so, it's still the life script of teaching you what it means to be a normal human quote, unquote. And then you have to prove you're not an alien life form. By doing something, you know, go to a playground, but not in a creepy way. But just like, tell the children you love them, right. And that's because again, most people, and this includes most people who are specializing in anthropology and other forms of sciences, they don't know anything about what humans have done for hundreds of thousands of years, including birth controls, and everything, and abortion. And they really go based on this new creation by Europeans. And like when we talk about reproductive rights, people insist on talking about white women's form of feminism, women's suffrage, women's liberation, like literally women in East India, Middle East weren't doing this stuff for hundreds of thousands of years. And it's really insulting, including when we're talking about childfree spaces, because, you know, people are taking pride that they're making their own personal decision, but they need to also think about how they're contributing to what future generations will have access to do for themselves as well-
Nandita Bajaj 32:45
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 32:45
And not pretend that this stuff really just started. So this is what holds people accountable. You can't just have one title and declare yourself equity for everyone, forever.
Nandita Bajaj 32:55
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 32:56
You have to really do more than that. And when you're held accountable for inconsistency and inadequacy, you can't be mad, because anger is 100% because people have never been told to self-reflect. They've been told to blame a political party or politician. I always tell people, "Look inward and say, it can't always be everyone else. What can we do to make these changes, and to understand how the changes shape literally, locally, nationally, and around the world as well."
Nandita Bajaj 33:25
It's a never ending journey of dismantling our deeply rooted psychological structures, isn't it? A lot of the work really has to happen from within. And that takes a lot of effort and self-knowledge.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 33:38
And this happens a lot when people are debating abortion and pro-choice. And the - I don't call them pro-life, but I call them anti-life - when that issue happens in childfree spaces, there are childfree spaces that say you can't be childfree and against abortion. And I agree with that, in a sense, right. But I also want childfree people in certain nations to be able to have this discussion in a very culturally conscious and culturally inclusive way. Because although I am pro-choice, I'm pro-abortion, meaning literally I believe in having access and safe access. I also want it to be based though in understanding thousands of years of different forms of birth control and abortion. So this is where when we're talking about childfree and dismantling pronatalism, it has to be from a world standpoint. Even before these racial categories were created five centuries ago for the purpose of colonialism and trade and capitalism, we have to understand the origins of this to understand how people's bodies have changed over thousands of years, reproductive choices have changed, they vary around the world. And so I want childfree spaces to, instead making a battle against pro-abortion/anti-abortion - I want more spaces around the world to understand how even abortion has different meanings around cultures. And instead of people being holier than thou, like they have discovered the solution, they need to say, "Okay, I think that my approach is correct when talking about safe abortion access, but I want to learn about what your culture has done for thousands of years," so that we can present this not in a scary way based on catchphrases and hashtags on the internet, but instead based on a learning and understanding way, so we're not forcing like European, white, capitalist nation standards on everyone and saying, "We're the only way to be true for humans, the rest of you are controlled by your government." So now the list goes on, right? That does not work. That is only like the same thing as giving people an ally award that's to build people's confidence. It's not an equity approach.
Nandita Bajaj 35:51
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 35:51
An equity approach is when you go around and you say, "You know what, none of us are know it alls. Most of us only know what's happening in our nation." Most of you don't even know what's happening in their nation. They know what's happening in their family, sometimes not even in their own neighborhood.
Nandita Bajaj 36:05
Right. You know, a lot of people are choosing to go childfree for a variety of reasons. It could be for concern for their prospective children, it could be based on health issues, mental health issues, physical health issues that they don't ethically want to foist upon their children. It could be purely personal to have more time to do things that you love doing. It could be for selfless reasons. It could be for selfish reasons, just like having children could be for selfless reasons, or selfish reasons, or a spectrum of anything in between. And I appreciate going into this nuance. You know, there are a lot of different experiences, and there are a lot of different reasons for why people make decisions about procreation or non-procreation. And the other thing is, there's this assumption that if you are challenging pronatalism, you are automatically advocating for antinatalism. There's an entire spectrum in between the two choices - pronatalism versus antinatalism - that gets left out, it gets reduced to another binary form of thinking. Childfree people who are challenging pronatalism are not all, some are, but not all anti-creation. In fact, antinatalism has its own worldview that it abides by, which is, you know, to exist is to suffer and that human life is filled with suffering, therefore, we shouldn't put that on anyone else. That's not what everyone believes. But you could really revere the life that you've been given, you can look at the planet from a place of reverence, rather than a place of suffering. They're both worldviews that are pushing a certain value system on society, rather than allowing people the in-between gray space of making decisions through informed, responsible thought.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 38:04
Yeah, thank you for saying that. Because I agree. And that's another example, though, of it being very economic based. It's oftentimes, when we talk about pronatalism and then the extent of antinatalism, even when people are financially struggling and that's their explanation for being childfree, they tend to still be using a very middle to upper economic standpoint regarding antinatalism. Because it's again, based on this notion that either everyone cannot have sex, and that includes non-consensual and rape, right? And it's based on the assumption that everyone can have access to birth control if they do have sex. So, and you'll oftentimes hear even very lower income people have adopted that middle-upper class standpoint, because that's what the education system is based in, the education system is not created for by poor people. And that's around the world, right? And it's also still very European, white based, because they use a European, Canadian and United States of America standpoint, which is also how birth control, access and health access are distributed around the world in a way that erases thousands of years of approaches, and instead say this European approach, created by men as well, is going to be the standard for reproductive choices. So that's something also I want people to think about when they're talking about pronatalism and antinatalism, because most antinatalists, including if there are people within our cultures, East Indian, Asian, Middle Eastern, black, Indigenous, they tend to adopt a very European standpoint of saying, "Well, people just need to stop reproducing."
Nandita Bajaj 39:42
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 39:42
Without thinking how that has different meanings around the world, also different economic meanings. And they also have to think about our nations that are predominantly white intentionally do tax breaks for people with certain size of families, and they do tax incentives when people are not reproducing, particularly when white people - white middle class - do not reproduce. Yeah, that's something that's not expressed outward, they'll use cold language, so that we don't understand the meaning, but that's what it means when they do demographic breakdown and they see that we have high mortality but we have this lower birth rates.
Nandita Bajaj 40:19
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 40:19
And they know it's not because of health issues, it's because people are now making economic decisions. That's when politicians step in. And they say, "Now we need to help these families." They pretend they're helping families, but they're really encouraging people to keep reproducing. And not just people in general, but particularly white people and middle class people. Because remember, the tax breaks are based on economic level-
Nandita Bajaj 40:43
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 40:44
That is proportionally impacting white people in certain nations. So that's the list that goes on and on. So people have to remember whether you're pronatalism or antinatalism that connects with everything, including the economic system, everything about the political standpoints, medical services, and the schools. That's how schools are shaped because if reproduction is decreasing, the schools are like, "Okay, we have fewer students, how are we going to keep these school systems going?"
Nandita Bajaj 41:11
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 41:11
So that's how the school decision makers - they'll deny it every day - but the school decision makers are hanging out with politicians.
Nandita Bajaj 41:17
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 41:18
When you criticize the accreditation, and the curriculum, school decision makers will say, "Well, the blame is on the politicians," the blame is on all of them.
Nandita Bajaj 41:25
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 41:26
Because they're literally all doing this together, because they're protecting each other's careers and salaries, right? So that's where childfree people have to understand that our decisions, we have to understand the full scope of what's going on.
Alan Ware 41:40
Well, I was gonna mention that you had left academia to start your own consultancy, and that you'd moved into not diversity, equity, and inclusion, but equity and justice. You make a point of saying you want to have challenging conversations, not just easy to take and forget type conversations. So I'm wondering what your experience has been with that, and how people are prepared to listen.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 42:05
Thank you. So yes, I left full-time academia two years after reaching tenured associate professor and I had created an academic program, done the curriculum thing, done annual program assessments. I always explain that, because when people pretend that you can't change schools, schools did not get created out of the moon, they did not become horrible because alien life forms. Its people. Therefore, they can be changed, every day. And so when I left full-time academia, that's when I left North Carolina and moved to Baltimore, Maryland. And I do part-time work, I do part-time academia as well. And I also have the business in which I do results-based work. So I do trainings for medical and health students, medical and health professionals. I do Get Work Done workshops, where we're actually changing policies. So you can't send your employees to me who are not the decision makers, because now you've just wasted time and their time because they thought they were going to take some notes and bring it to you. And you say no. So the work I do is not, I don't believe in bias trainings, I don't believe in anti-bias trainings, I don't believe in assessments in which you take like a survey to determine your beliefs regarding race, gender, religion - I consider those a waste of time. Black people and Indigenous people have done racial justice work for five centuries. Black people, in particular, have done racial justice trainings for white people since the 1960s. Even before we were getting paid for that. We've created and taught racial justice courses for generations. A lot of times students will be mad, a lot of times students want to only learn about like, they want to talk about white power, white, quote, unquote, supremacy, but they don't want to learn the origins of their own racial identity. So that's another problem when talking about the issue of racism as well. And so so with the work that I do, it's beyond talking. I tell people, "By the time you get to me, we're not going to define stuff."
Nandita Bajaj 44:05
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 44:05
Like, you're not going to come to my conferences and presentations and my trainings and I'll say, "First, let's define racism. First, let's define transphobia." I tell you the moment you contact me and hire me, that this is what you all have to accomplish, fight it out with each other, whatever. But by the time you get to me, we're actually changing the curriculum, we're actually changing the policies and planning the annual assessments part. And a lot of unfortunate a lot of people declare themselves DEI experts, anti-racism experts, bias experts, because they want to build profit and become wealthy. I tell people, "If you're wealthy as an equity expert, that means you're not doing equity work." They're not. I mean, the people, the decision makers, the power majority, are not going to make you wealthy if you're really changing the power structure.
Alan Ware 44:54
Right.
Nandita Bajaj 44:54
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 44:55
Right. Like if you're talking about anti-capitalism and to increase wealth access without exploiting labor, because that's what capitalism is, right? If you're talking about showing people how to do equity line of credits and other resources to build wealth without pretending you got to oppress people, capitalists are not going to pay you to teach that.
Nandita Bajaj 44:55
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 45:13
You're dismantling their capitalism, right? Things do not have to be required by policies and laws. Same thing, we're talking about COVID-19. People who are foolish enough to care that their governors gonna say, "Hey, you don't have to wear masks," don't understand medical and health inequities.
Nandita Bajaj 45:31
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 45:31
You don't understand five centuries specifically of medical racism, scientific racism. Thousands of years of medical and health sexism, in which our sicknesses, our deaths did not matter. They were just crunched into data and turned into data reports and research publications. Politicians don't care about minoritized people's health. So I tell people, "Do not go based on what the governor says. If they say you don't have to wear masks anymore, that means you got to buy us more N-95 masks." They're looking at economic shifts, they're not looking at whether Indigenous people are disproportionately dying. Same thing with the opioid crisis. Indigenous people, black people, generations dying from opioid addiction, it did not become a crisis for the nation and conferences until middle class white people.
Nandita Bajaj 46:18
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 46:19
So the work that I do, I tell people, "Knowing facts has to be - you have to be against news stations. News stations are not teaching you based on knowledge. They're teaching you based on like the cliff notes because they understand that you're going to be a consumer and a customer without actually reading on your own and learning stuff."
Nandita Bajaj 46:36
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 46:37
So I tell people, when they get to me, they have to be ready to challenge all of that nonsense, and work towards actual changes.
Alan Ware 46:45
So that must be pretty rewarding that you you don't step into the room till they have signed on.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 46:50
It's rewarding for places that actually want changes. They want to go beyond an official statement. But unfortunately, a lot of places prefer official statements and they're afraid of outraging the decision-makers. Like, if we're talking about changing Indigenous history in the history books, a lot of times schools will tell you whether it's black history or Indigenous history, they'll say, "Yeah, we care about your opinions." But what they really care about are the outrage of the white politicians and the white taxpayers and white voters.
Nandita Bajaj 47:18
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 47:19
Including in predominantly black, predominately Indigenous schools. They don't care about the voices of us.
Nandita Bajaj 47:25
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 47:25
It's actually predictable. So that's why I tell people, "By the time you get to me, you can't still be shocked by this stuff. This stuff has literally been going on for centuries. On the western hemisphere in particular. And we've told you this, we've written proposals to schools, we've written proposals to police departments, we filed patient advocacy complaints to medical and health facilities. We've done this for a century."
Nandita Bajaj 47:48
I want to pick up what you said just about how mortality and illnesses and the inequity in our health system, really, it just gets baked into demographic data, and it's not really made available in a nuanced and transparent way. And I want to tie that back to pronatalism. It's not a big surprise that the two are intimately linked. So for example, there was a recent editorial opinion in the Washington Post that said, the US needs more babies. Of course, a lot of the baby bust alarmism has been in the news for the last many years, but especially in the middle of the pandemic because people are actually making intelligent, responsible decisions, sometimes being forced to make decisions because of economic uncertainty and public health concerns. The fact that we're in the middle of a pandemic and having a baby may not be the wisest choice for them or their child. But interestingly, what this editorial focused on was that more people are dying from the pandemic. Life expectancy has declined, reflecting the effects of drug abuse, obesity, suicide, and other factors that are afflicting people, both young and old. But they ended off by saying a lower national birth rate means that natural replacement is not keeping pace. So we are, as a country, we are ignoring the fact that people are dying of illness, obesity, mental health issues, suicide, economic issues - none of that is actually being talked about. How do we invest properly in services that uplift people's individual well-being and rights. Rather, we're talking about people as commodities - babies, women, immigrants - as commodities, to keep our economic engine going. We're still looking at people as numbers. And of course, at Population Balance we have taken the position that pronatalism, especially the coercive kind, we've been mired in that over the last few years. A lot of countries are turning to coercive means of blocking reproductive and contraceptive services, which has been happening in BIPOC communities for centuries. But now nations are taking that on to increase their population growth. And we've taken the position is that the fact that we are overpopulated is not a coincidence. It's a result of centuries of coercive pronatalism and reproductive injustice. And I just wanted to see if you had any thoughts on any of the stuff I've just said.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 50:40
So this is where I hold people accountable. As I tell people everyday, and particularly quote, unquote, black and brown people, "Never trust a politician, never trust a political party, never trust a school decision maker." I'm gonna say it again, "Never trust the politician, never trust a political party, never trust a school decision maker." It's kind of like my rant earlier, right? We have to understand that these people are wonderful actors, in the sense that they will tell you that they don't know how something happened, they don't know why something happened, but it's not them. It's someone higher up. And it's, you know, it's like that pyramid formation where it's like, everyone's talking about higher people at the very top point of the pyramid, like top 1%. Now they're looking at alien life forms, like that wonderful movie, Alien Versus Predator now, like they're fighting each other, and we're just at the bottom like I mean, all of you probably look like it's your fault. So but they they keep doing this because they know that most people will comply. And we know that most people will comply when we're talking about any kind of equity work. So that's why when we're talking about whether it's anti-racism, whether it's talking about increasing reproductive rights, whether it's dismantling homophobia and transphobia, we have to just realize that even most minoritized people will not participate in the equity work, because people have to go to school, they have to go to work, and they might not have the resources, and sometimes not even the interests to contribute to the changes that need to be made.
Nandita Bajaj 52:14
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 52:15
And that's a realistic thing that I always address. Because unfortunately, most people, including during COVID, are all over social media falling in love with hashtags. And they really think that this social justice thing is everyone's involved. And I'm like, "No, you seeing millions of people doing a hashtag means nothing for their life." Like their hashtag, like school teachers do a hashtag about like changing the books - 99% of these teachers are not changing anything. And I'm gonna repeat that - anything. They're doing professional development sessions, nothing's coming from it. They might change a book in their class, but they're not changing anything regarding the curriculum really, like it's a special topics, which means nothing. They're not holding their colleagues accountable, so even if you do have a new book in your class that's addressing facts, you're still having lunch with the horrible teachers. So like, how do you not have deal breakers now with people who are perpetuating the things that you're claiming to dismantle? So this is why I just say that whenever laws and policies are changing, we can criticize them all we want, but we have to hold people accountable for complying constantly.
Nandita Bajaj 53:26
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 53:27
Like, I'm in Baltimore City now. So people keep expressing sadness, disappointment over what these politicians do. But I tell them, "Politicians are literally going to do the same thing every election."
Nandita Bajaj 53:38
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 53:38
Including black politicians. We're told as black people, they tell us, "Vote or die," all these different jargons that they tell us. They tell us vote or die because black people in particular, and this is parts of the world as well, are told to comply, we're told to take instructions, just like we were forced doing transatlantic slavery, take instructions. Don't challenge the people giving you instructions, keep on marching doing that. And then when things don't go as you're promised, if you vote or were big taxpayers as well, don't question those people. Don't challenge the decision makers when they don't do what they told you they would do. Instead, now we have to become understanding that things are not quick to change.
Nandita Bajaj 54:21
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 54:21
We're literally told at the same time. So the fact that people act baffled and confused just illustrates how humans are a very brainwashed collective. That goes back to the categorical distinctions, right? We're just taught oftentimes throughout our lives to just be confined to socialization. And then when something's wrong with the socialization, you know that if you challenge it, you'll be by yourself. So people have to do a cost-benefit analysis.
Nandita Bajaj 54:49
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 54:50
Is this at the time in my life where I need to be by myself? And same thing when men talk about how they're feminist and they're going to dismantle male dominance. I'm like, "Well, you just have to be honest with yourself because are you gonna cut off these men from your lives?" Mostly, no. So that's why just people have to understand politicians understand that. When they create legislation, they understand that people will complain but it'll be just like when people complain at school, when people complain at work - you still show up. I tell people, decision makers don't care about your complaint, if you're going to be there tomorrow, regardless.
Nandita Bajaj 55:22
What is the solution to empower change? Of course, it has to start from deep self-reflective work, we have to take responsibility for where we're at, and how dedicated we are to actually changing the structure from within ourselves before we can start advocating for real structural changes, systemic changes. Where does that leave the general public so that they don't feel completely disenfranchised, given that our policymakers are the ones dictating the rules by which we live?
Kimya Nuru Dennis 55:56
Also, I want individuals to understand how our tax paying and voting shape these policymakers. These people do not get an office mysteriously. They get an office through voting, tax paying, including when we're lectured to about not voting or not voting for a particular group of people, and especially particular minoritized groups are told that everyone else knows the answer for their lives, so you better vote for so and so. Right? This is going to keep happening because people think that changes are quick.
Nandita Bajaj 56:25
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 56:26
They think that you do one thing. Okay, now it's time to go back to sleep. Changes are reversed the moment you turn around.
Nandita Bajaj 56:32
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 56:33
So I always tell people who claim they're doing equity work regarding any inequity which they want to address, because we have, as humans, we're horrible. So we have hundreds of thousands of years of inequities to address. So you people have to just think, what part can they do every day? You know, whatever the case would be, it has to be something small, because if you think you're going to be doing this profound thing, every single moment of the day, you're not going to have a life, you're going to harm your own health, and you're just going to be a miserable person, because you're pretending that you're changing the world in your lifetime. So instead, what I explain to people, you do a component at least once a week where you're changing something, and then you have to always say we're leaving foundation of change for every generation after us.
Nandita Bajaj 57:15
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 57:15
Every inequity is going to exist as long as humans exist. And and I tell people, "Write it down every week. What have you contributed to this week to help make changes?" But not just for your own ego, I don't believe in such a thing as white ally, I don't believe in a such thing as cisgender ally, heterosexual ally, those tend to be people who want to be celebrated, instead of demanded for consistency.
Nandita Bajaj 57:37
Right.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 57:37
So I tell people, "When you're writing down your list of changes, do not write it down in terms of when you're going to get your next ally button. Or when you're going to do an ally training to put in your resume. Instead, write it down because now you're saying you're contributing to the foundation to provide more resources for other people and for future generations to contribute. It's not about you being thanked and celebrated."
Nandita Bajaj 57:59
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 58:00
So that's just what I say.
Nandita Bajaj 58:01
Yeah, it really does come down to the motivation for why you want to make the change. Is it externally motivated? Or is it internally motivated?
Kimya Nuru Dennis 58:09
Yeah, I mean, it used to be years ago, where people would say they wanted to have a meeting with me. And I used to, unfortunately do free meetings. And then those people came out with best selling books and write tapes and trainings. It turned out they were basically taking my expertise.
Nandita Bajaj 58:23
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 58:23
They still don't have my expertise, because my work is based on centuries of black work and Indigenous work before these acronyms like DEI and catchphrases like anti-racism existed. So even when people steal my work and they create their own, I always tell them, "I'm not offended, because I'm a teacher. Like my students, they have my lecture notes, they have my lecture videos. The difference though, is that if my students tried to copy and paste my knowledge in a lecture and do a entire criminology presentation, they're not equipped for people to ask them questions and to hold them accountable-
Nandita Bajaj 59:00
Of course.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 59:00
Beyond citing a book.
Nandita Bajaj 59:02
Yeah.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 59:03
It's easy to to repeat books that you read, to throw around annotated bibliographies. The knowledge is what you know when you can't read these books.
Nandita Bajaj 59:12
Yeah, yeah, no, it's the lived experience that translates into the work that we're doing. Kimya thank you so much for such an enlightening session. I have learned so much from this session alone. And I know we've only scratched the surface of the incredible work that you're doing. We are deeply grateful for your presence here and for the work that you're doing in academia and also in equity and justice.
Kimya Nuru Dennis 59:39
Thank you, I appreciate you both.
Alan Ware 59:41
Well, that's it for this edition of the Overpopulation Podcast. Visit population.balance.org to learn more. To share feedback or guest recommendations write to us using the contact form on our site or by emailing us at podcast at populationbalance.org. You might also be interested In joining our virtual podcast club, which meets monthly on Saturday over zoom to discuss the ideas in a previous podcast episode. Learn more by visiting our website. And if you feel inspired by our work, please consider supporting us using the donate button.
Nandita Bajaj 1:00:16
Until next time, I'm Nandita Bajaj, thanking you for your interest in our work and for all your efforts in sustaining our beautiful life-giving planet
