The most pure, instant, and undeniable love is between a mother and her child. And one of the greatest tragedies is the loss of that child. We may know families that have suffered the loss of an infant.  We know the love they have for the infant never dies. It is the deepest loss a human can endure.

It is no wonder that medical and public health professionals continue to work diligently to reduce our infant mortality rates.  During the 1800's, as many as 300 out of every 1000 babies died by the age of 5. It should be no shock that African Americans, many of whom were enslaved for over half of that century, experienced a higher rate of infant mortality, approximately 350 per 1000 infants, as compared to 250 per 1000 infants for whites.

Most infant mortality is not due to genetic problems like heart or lung defects. Globally, most is due to infection, disease, and/or malnutrition.  In the US specifically, we can point to poor prenatal and neonatal care, drug addiction, and other social causes that are on the rise.

The challenge continues to be even greater for Black families.  We can celebrate a world where the U.S. brought infant mortality numbers down to 5 white infant deaths per thousand, and we continue to chip away at it every year.  But we have to ask: Why is it that 10 Black babies per thousand still die annually?  Why do twice as many Black mothers have to endure that excruciating loss?

As we wonder how this can be, we begin to discover the invisible power of Racism.  Only the most deranged person full of hate would wish for another human's baby to die. This is a level of hate we only see in calamities like the genocides designed by Adolf Hitler or Mao Tse-Tung.

So without a collectively conscious decision to target and kill Black children, those children still die, leaving parents to grieve for a lifetime.  To understand Racism, we need to begin to peel back the underlying causes behind these statistics. We need to ask hard questions and look at our own reluctance to ask those questions. 

Your practice today is to remember the first infant loss in your extended family that you learned about.  The infant could have been a sibling or cousin that died before you were born, but still caused grief in the eyes of your grandparents.  The baby could have been your own.  Whomever it affected or whenever it happened, it is a memory you can summon immediately and probably still feel a good deal of the pain.

Think back through the blame and guilt that circulated around that infant death.  Did you immediately blame the parents?  Or did you immediately look for ways to reassure the parents that it wasn't their fault? 

Now think about your immediate reaction when you read that Black mothers lose twice as many children as white mothers.  Did you blame the mothers or did you begin thinking about how to help them shed their guilt? Did you blame their individual actions or forces beyond their control?