This documentary seeks to understand the culture of poverty and teen pregnancy that is behind this health crisis. The narrator mentioned that one of the impetuses for this was the deep segregation of this city, with nearly all the white families and middle/upper class black families fleeing for the suburbs. Another impetus was the 1968 sanitation strike in the city. What was left in the inner city was a community of uneducated, underrepresented, and uncared-for people, who live in a city with the second highest homicide rate. These women that are left in the community tend to either miscarry or go into labor early because of stress or because of their inability to receive prenatal care. If the babies survive birth, they are almost all taken to one hospital, the MED, which is struggling to pay its bills, because of the lack of revenue coming from these uninsured women. The babies that do not make it are sent to basically one cemetery, which has been unofficially renamed as Babyland, because of the thousands of babies that are buried there. What is even more sad is that these babies lie in simple wooden boxes and were buried by the county morgue, because their parents cannot afford a funeral. These babies should never had died, they and their mothers should have received the care that they deserve, simply because they are Americans and human beings.
If anything could be a reason for universal health care in this country I believe that the high infant mortality rates in African American communities would be it. I would hope that anyone who saw this documentary would support giving health care to these women and their babies, no matter how much it cost. If not, I would be very disappointed in the citizens of this country.
What they really need is to be taught to think of the needs of their future children and to get educated, married, emotionally secure and financially responsible before bringing their precious babies into this precious world. They need it to be stressed that they, and only they, are most responsible for their children's well-being. Skirting that crucial point, pretending that the color of their skin makes them powerless victims, is the most non-compassionate and racist way to approach this degenerative societal issue. No number of Pampers can reverse this cycle. Changing the way others view their situation doesn't change the behavior that creates the situation. This cycle of poverty is an intergenerational one; a perpetual one. Society doesn't bring these babies into poverty, there own so-called "parents" do. We need to set new standards for people. Stop the madness of the "baby momma" and "baby daddy" mindset. They are not equipped to parent. Period. Children need parents who are equipped to tend to their numerous emotional, mental, psychological, physical and financial needs. Trying to hold others accountable for this problem is a futile endeavor that breeds resentment more than compassion. The most compassionate thing to do is tell them flat-out: Stop having sex; stop having babies you're not equipped to raise; stop asking for my money, my "understanding" and my Pampers. The most intelligent and compassionate among us understand the issue perfectly well and we believe in the power of these individuals to turn their behavior around, if only people would tell it like it is to them and stop "babying" them to the detriment of new generations.
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