December 23, 2023
‘Married To Medicine’ Star Dr. Jackie Addresses Backlash Over Old Comments Saying Black Women ‘Cry Wolf’ Over Pregnancy Difficulties
The controversial video resurfaced as Dr. Jackie sat down with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss the Black maternal mortality crisis.
One of the most popular doctors on Bravo’s hit reality series Married to Medicine is responding to the backlash she’s receiving over resurfaced comments about Black pregnant women. The counterblast ignited after the Dec. 17, episode of “M2M” that highlighted Dr. Jackie Walter’s sit-down with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss the Black maternal mortality crisis. It’s the same session the Atlanta-based OBGYN and VP shared a collaborative Instagram post ahead of the episode.
“Black women are 3 times more likely to die from childbirth in America. This is inexcusable,” VP Harris captioned the video post. “@therealdrjackie and I discussed our nation’s maternal health crisis on tonight’s episode of Bravo’s Married to Medicine.”
But once the sit-down hit the public, it didn’t take too long for some viewers to dig up Dr. Jackie’s previous comments about Black women who “cry wolf” about pregnancy pains. It was a resurfaced YouTube session from 2020 that she hosted with fellow “M2M” star Dr. Heavenly Kimes where they discussed some of the issues pregnant Black women face when receiving medical care.
“Sometimes, as African American women, we’re a bit more dramatic and that you go to the doctor and you complain and you complain and you complain and you’re not taken seriously because you cry wolf the entire pregnancy,” Jackie told Heavenly.
“We wanna also make sure that you’re being serious with your doctor and not playing the games so that could take you off work,” she added. “Because then we see you 25 times in the pregnancy, it’s hard to believe there’s a true problem when there’s a true problem.”
“This the real Dr. Jackie, not that character she plays on Married to Medicine,” one X, formerly known as Twitter, user wrote who shared the old clip. “She sounds like how yt OBGYN doctors bash their Black female patients…Wasn’t she just speaking with Kamala Harris abt how Black women aren’t taken seriously in medical spaces?”
Eventually, the resurfaced video clip gained steam with swarms of people blasting Dr. Jackie for her seemingly hypocritical remarks about the Black maternal health crisis.
“Complaining to take off from work? She’s dangerous to BW because we would trust her and she’s just as complicit with the white medical industry,” one person wrote.
“The racism and indifference many women complain about is coming from a Black woman who is a Doctor,” added someone else.
There were even alleged former patients of Dr. Jackie who took to social media to post video testimonials of their childbirth horror stories they felt came as a result of Dr. Jackie’s misdirection.
Not much later, Dr. Jackie issued a statement to her Instagram Story saying the clip was “taken out of context” on an issue she has advocated for concerning the devastating problem facing the Black maternal health crisis.”
“It has been my life’s work to highlight and attempt to rectify the issues that devastatingly impact Black maternal mothers versus our counterparts,” she wrote.
Dr. Jackie ended her statement by declaring her continued fight to advocate for Black mothers and Black babies.
RELATED CONTENT: Kamala Harris Talks Maternal Mortality Crisis On ‘Married To Medicine’