Overview:
Haitian American midwife and filmmaker Stéphanie Etienne discusses her debut documentary “Listen to Me,” the urgency of Black maternal health, and the importance of platforms like AfroPoP amid funding challenges.
Haitian American midwife and filmmaker Stéphanie Etienne’s first documentary “Listen to Me,” which examines the Black maternal health crisis in the United States premieres June ...
**STEELMAN**: The strongest version of this narrative is its intersectional framing of Black maternal health as a systemic crisis, not a failure of individual behavior. By centering lived experiences—like Dr. Shalon Irving’s death—and embedding the filmmaker’s own professional and cultural perspective, the documentary avoids abstract statistics in favor of humanizing the issue. The emphasis on AfroPoP’s survival despite funding cuts also highlights the fragility of platforms for marginalized voi...