Racism is killing our children literally

New research recently published has demonstrated that pregnant black women who suffer racism and discrimination then go on to have babies, who are negatively affected by the stress their mothers endure.

What this research demonstrates, is that unborn Black and Muslim babies are the victims of British racism, even before they are born. There can be no greater racial injustice than this, to be condemned by racism before you are born.

What a gross indictment of our supposed civilised, tolerant society.

The implications of this research are both profound and extraordinarily serious. The research conducted by the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity, University of Manchester, Oxford Road and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London has reinforced the now accepted medical fact that there is a strong link between racial discrimination and poor health.

The report reaffirms the reality of ' linked lives' where familial experience of racism lead to an accumulation of ill health among black families. This combined with the fact that Office for National Statistics research show that the death rate among Caribbean babies was 9.8 per 1,000, and among Pakistani babies 9.6 per 1,000, whilst for white babies, the figure was 4.5 per 1,000.

What this means in effect, is that societal, economic and cultural forms of everyday systemic racism is costing the lives of Black and Muslim babies as yet unborn. There can be no greater racial inequality than this. For me this constitutes a 'racial attack' such as that suffered by Stephen Lawrence and Rolan Adams.

This is a racism that infects babies in their mother womb. There can be no greater indicator of inequality than this, that we are as British citizens, victims of racism before we are born. Once they are born, they face a fight for their life as our children die in such huge numbers in their first year of life. That racism has condemned our young whilst still gestating in their mothers womb is a national scandal.

This is a landmark report in my view and represents a profound signifier of income inequality and social injustice.

The report states:

The concept of linked lives provides a useful angle to understand the accumulation and continuity of ethnic inequalities, where systemic, interpersonal, and embodied racially motivated stressors not only affect the health and life chances of one isolated individual, but permeate to other family members, maintaining and reproducing social and health inequalities across and within generations."

Such is the power of racism in the UK that health inequalities exists regardless of the income of the parents. This is the stuff of nightmares, imagine regardless of your economic status, accumulated stress born of living on a racist society, is passed from generation to generation,

The report has this to say about income inequality and racism:

Although upward intergenerational socioeconomic mobility has been documented among some ethnic minority groups in the United Kingdom (UK) (Platt, 2005), this increased mobility is not accompanied by an expected improvement in health (Smith et al., 2009). In fact, not only do ethnic health inequalities persist across generations, but second generations require greater levels of social advantage than their predecessors to achieve the same level of health (Smith et al., 2009)."

For Black and Muslim communities to escape the effects of racial discrimination, in terms of their health, they need to strive ten times harder than their parents. And the report identifies interpersonal racism as very, very detrimental to our health. Imagine that everyday racism, those minor transgressions, those passing insults, the racism faced by children in schools, in nursery. Parents become infected by the effects of racism and this is passed on down through following generations.

The effects on the behaviour of young people, those who parents suffered high rates of stress associated with experiencing racism, has been proven to damage the psychological development and health of young Black and Muslim teenagers.

Britain claims to be a meritocracy, a society where talent not the circumstances of your birth, determine where you end up in life. This study demonstrates we’re living in a dangerous pigmentocracy, where the colour of your skin determines the chance of your surviving your first year of life. A society where racism will affect our children from the point of their very conception.

What hope of defeating racism if its poisonous genetic legacy is experienced whilst still in the womb?

Britain's failure or refusal, take your pick, to recognise the reality of racism, is not just some silly campaign against perceived notions of 'political correctness', this acute failure is much more serious that that, it is quite literally costing lives.

You can read the report here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615300770