A number of our MCH students attended the 2021 Black Maternal Health Conference, hosted by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA), April 16-17, online. What follows is a post from one of the attendees.
By Margaret Major, BA
I recently completed a literature review on the relationship between neighborhood conditions and child maltreatment. Early on I realized a major methodological challenge. Child maltreatment, as captured by official police and child protective services data, appeared to reveal more about what types of people were more likely to be reported or investigated by police or CPS, or which neighborhoods were more likely to have heavy police surveillance, and less about the factors that lead a care giver to abuse or maltreat a child.
In her talk, “BLACK MAMAS MATTER!: Interlocking Oppression, Resistance and Liberation” at the Black Maternal Health Virtual Conference, professor and author Dorothy Roberts, JD, elaborated on the violent American history of the dehumanization and criminalization of Black mamas and their wombs and bodies, and how Black women have had to actively fight against both blatant and subtle laws and policies in this country that perpetuated the belief that Black women had no right to make their own reproductive decisions , to parent and raise their children, or to have autonomy over their bodies and families.
She refers to the child welfare system as “family policing,” and described it as “another aspect of the structural surveillance and punishment of Black mamas.” I thought immediately of the research I had done and how this seemed like a more accurate name for this system. “Black mothers,” she stated, “disproportionately have their children taken away from them, basically in most cases because they simply lack the resources, they need to take care of their children, and because of these kinds of vilifying ideas about Black mothers being unfit to take care of or have children”. This aligned with what I found in the research- the vast majority of reported and substantiated cases of maltreatment are due to neglect, Black children are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system, and poverty is the most consistent risk factor for child maltreatment.
“Black mothers disproportionately have their children taken away from them, basically in most cases because they simply lack the resources, they need to take care of their children, and because of these kinds of vilifying ideas about Black mothers being unfit to take care of or have children.”
Dorothy Roberts, JD
With all the money being spent on the surveillance and policing of families and communities in the context of rising inequality, a lack of affordable housing, a lack of living wage jobs, a lack of family leave and affordable childcare, we must ask ourselves: Does our current family policing system really protect children? If neglect is violence, are not the conditions that leave families without the means to take care of children also violence? How can we do more (or do better with the resources we have) to support Black mamas, Black families, and all families, to raise, protect and uplift their families?
Professor Roberts noted that there has been increased activism, with Black mamas at the forefront, to abolish the current child welfare (Family Policing) system. Speaking as a White woman working in maternal and child health, I think it is so important to have the courage and humility to not only call out what we are doing wrong in our research to measure or prevent health outcomes, but also to study, explore and advocate for the ideas and agendas set forth by these Black mamas, because they have always led this fight.
Margaret is graduating with her MPH in Maternal and Child Health in a few weeks. She hopes to work as an applied epidemiologist within the world of MCH at the state or national level. She enjoys learning languages (and all things), playing soccer, and traveling.
