The March

I went to the March on Sunday and it was really, really amazing! Many people saw the march as more of a pro-choice rally but I really was more focused on the part of the mission on the march that goes like this, " To address disturbing statistics that indicate widespread disparate treatment options offered to women due to race, income, and age, to help women protect their lives from breast cancer, over-use of hormone replacement therapies, medical abuses, and other issues that threaten women’s health."

I brought my camera and decided to interview African American women about health care and why they were marching today. As I think more and more about my documentary, I think that in order to make a film about African American women and mental illness, I feel like we have to address the larger issue of how horrible the healthcare system is in this country, especially for women with fewer resources.

The crazy thing is that I interviewed six African American women and four did not have health insurance, one was paying $500 a month personally for healthcare and one had health insurance through her job. How scary is that?! I think the interviews went well though I am bummed that my mike broke for one of the interviews. The woman, Rha Goddess, is a spoken word poet I've seen in Brooklyn though so I can interview her later. Still, I'm bummed about that.

I can't decide if I thought there was a good showing of women of color. I have to say that although there were about 500,000, they say, I didn't feel like there were that many women of color when you think of how much of the population they make up. Still, I was impressed by how the speakers represented such a large and diverse portion of the US.