I remember feeling intense shame even though I had done nothing to be ashamed of.

I was 15 years old when I went to an emergency room after experiencing several days of what appeared to be food poisoning. I expected the physician to help me understand why I was sick. Instead, almost immediately, he asked whether I was pregnant. I emphatically told him no. Yet, without explaining why it was necessary or what I should expect, he proceeded to perform my first pelvic examination. I later learned that the examination had been performed to rule out pregnancy or a sexually transmitted infection.

I felt embarrassed, violated, and judged.

But the shame I experienced in that examination room did not begin there.

The Messages We Carry

Five years earlier, when I started my period at age 10, my mother gave me a warning:

“Keep your panties up and your dress down!”

I had no idea what she meant.

I did, however, understand that something about my changing body was serious and taboo. There were things good girls did and did not do, even if I did not yet understand what those things were.

Years later, I would begin to understand that message differently.

My mother was not trying to teach me to be ashamed of my body. She was trying to protect me. She was raising a Black girl in a society in which Black female sexuality has historically been scrutinized, stereotyped, and judged. Her words reflected her understanding of what could happen to girls who were perceived in particular ways.

My mother was communicating protection. I experienced shame. Both can be true.

That tension would stay with me.

The Encounter That Changed Me

When I found myself on an examination table at 15, the messages I had received about sexuality collided with the assumptions being made about me by a healthcare professional.

The physician's actions communicated something, too.

I had told him that I was not pregnant, yet I felt that my answer did not matter. I did not know why I needed a pelvic examination. I did not know what was going to happen to my body. I was frightened and embarrassed. My only solace during the examination was my mother holding my hand.

Afterward, she reassured me that all gynecological examinations would not be like that one. Over time, I came to understand her words and decided that one negative encounter would not prevent me from caring for my health.

That experience became a defining moment in my life.

From Lived Experience to Inquiry

I eventually became a medical sociologist and began asking questions about Black women's health, sexuality, and experiences within the healthcare system.

I became particularly interested in communication between Black mothers and daughters about sexual health. My research challenged me to think differently about what we often call silence.

I began to understand that what appears to be an absence of communication can have meaning.

In my research with Black mothers and daughters, mothers described concerns about pregnancy and their daughters developing negative sexual reputations. Their communication reflected an awareness of how race, gender, and class intersect in society's construction of Black female sexuality. I came to conceptualize some of these practices as sexual silence as rational protection.

That understanding allowed me to revisit my own mother's words with greater compassion and complexity.

“Keep your panties up and your dress down” was no longer simply a message that had produced shame in a 10-year-old girl. I could also hear the voice of a mother trying to protect her daughter with the knowledge and tools available to her.

But recognizing protection does not require us to ignore impact.

That is the space in which Mama Said... was born.

Why Mama Said...

I founded Mama Said... because I believe we need spaces where Black women can explore the messages that have traveled between generations without beginning from judgment or deficit.

I am interested in what Mama said.

But I am equally interested in why she said it, what she was trying to protect us from, what we heard, what remained unsaid, and what we want to say to the generations that come after us.

Some of what we inherited may continue to serve us. Some of it may need to evolve. And some of it may take on entirely new meaning once we understand the social and historical circumstances from which it emerged.

The same is true of our experiences within healthcare.

My experience at 15 taught me that health communication does not occur only between patients and healthcare professionals. We enter healthcare spaces carrying histories, identities, relationships, cultural messages, previous experiences, and expectations. Healthcare professionals and institutions bring histories and assumptions of their own.

Improving Black women's health, therefore, requires more than telling Black women to communicate better or make better choices. It also requires listening to Black women and understanding the social and structural conditions that shape our experiences.

Years ago, I argued for a Black female-centered approach to understanding Black women's reproductive and preventive healthcare experiences. I shared both my personal experience and the larger questions it raised in my published commentary, Doctor, Don't Judge Me: African American Women and Reproductive/Preventive Health Care Experiences.

[Read my commentary: Doctor, Don't Judge Me ]

Mama Said... is one way I am continuing that work.

My Story Is One Story

My experiences inform why I founded Mama Said..., but they do not tell me what other Black women have experienced.

That distinction matters to me.

I do not want to create programs based solely on what I believe Black mothers and daughters need. I want Mama Said... to create opportunities for Black women across generations to tell their own stories, identify what matters to them, and help shape what we build together.

Our lived experiences are not anecdotes to be collected after someone else has already decided what the problem is.

They are knowledge.

And they belong at the center of the work.

We Begin With Us

June Jordan wrote:

“We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

Those words capture what I hope Mama Said... can become.

We can honor the mothers and women who came before us without assuming that every message must remain unchanged. We can recognize protection while talking about unintended harm. We can celebrate cultural wisdom while creating new knowledge. And we can challenge healthcare systems while strengthening our ability to navigate them.

Most importantly, we can do this together.

I founded Mama Said... because I believe the wisdom needed to begin these conversations already exists within us. Our task is to create the space to hear it and to decide, together, what we want to say next.

Lari Warren-Jeanpiere, Ph.D.