The stark facts sting like a slap in the face:
Black children are twice as likely as white youngsters to be born prematurely. To suffer low birth weight. To die during the first year of life. To be born to a teenager or into a single-parent family. To be suspended from school. To have no parent who has a job.
Black children are three times as likely to be poor. To live in a family headed by a woman. To be assigned to a class for the educable mentally retarded. To be in foster care. To die of known child abuse.
Black children are four times as likely as white youngsters to live with neither parent and be supervised by a child welfare agency. To be murdered before age one or as a teenager. To be sent to jail when they are between the ages of 15 and 19.
Black children are five times as likely to be dependent on welfare and to become pregnant as teenagers. They are 12 times as likely to live with a parent who never married. Only 4 of 10 black children now live in a two-parent family.
Fifty-five percent of black babies are born out of wedlock--up from 18 percent in 1950 and a relentless increase over the last 30 years. This situation ``essentially guarantees the poverty of black children for the foreseeable future,`` says the Children`s Defense Fund, which compiled these melancholy facts.
But what can a caring society do now to help black children avoid these built-in handicaps and get off to a better, fairer start in life?
The usual answers make good political arguments and are useful for getting tax dollars and shifting blame. But the pernicious problems black children face are too complex to be solved simply by increasing federal welfare appropriations and writing more anti-discrimination laws.
For example, a new study of the persistent differences in death rates between black and white infants and children in Boston shows that the problem is not just providing good medical care. With neighborhood health clinics, Medicaid, special prenatal and child services and easy access to special-care hospitals, medical services in Boston are rated ample for both blacks and whites.
But even in Boston, black children continue to have considerably higher death rates at all ages than do whites, according to the study, just reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. Reducing the differences in mortality will involve changing the whole pattern of social and economic inequities, the researchers suggest.
In a commentary on the study, Dr. Robert J. Haggerty emphasizes that
``changes in society as well as in family and personal habits are necessary to lower childhood mortality. Important as it is, medical care has its limits.``
The Children`s Defense Fund urges three immediate steps to help black children: restoration of budget cuts in programs serving poor children; more federal money for health, nutrition, education and other services for children and families; and a high priority for programs to prevent adolescent pregnancy.
But there are also limits to what government programs can accomplish. Government can assure access to health care and to adequate nutrition. But it can`t force pregnant teenagers to eat correctly or to stop smoking or drinking or using drugs.
Government can provide money for sex education and family planning services. But that hasn`t stopped the pernicious increase in out-of-wedlock pregnancies. It can increase welfare payments to single mothers and children in hopes of nurturing a healthy new generation of children. But that won`t assure family stability and may even work against it.
Government can pass anti-discrimination laws and fund job-training programs. But it can`t make unmarried males acknowledge and support their offspring. Government can provide schools--and should expand into early childhood learning programs. But it can`t supply the determination and discipline to learn that characterize other groups who have learned and worked their way out of poverty.
It isn`t fair for black chldren to be born with so many odds against them. But giving them a fair chance requires more than good intentions and tax dollars. It requires the best efforts of us all--and especially of black leaders.