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Infant Mortality in Louisiana Double the Rate in Cuba

By Gregory William

Infant mortality is a measure of how many children, per 1,000 live births, die in their first year of life. To lose a child is a terrible thing for a family, but this is a social problem that should concern us all. The rate is affected by all the economic, political, and social conditions that exist in a society. Truly, the infant mortality rate reflects the overall well-being of a population. If the rate is high in a place, or for a group of people, that tells us something about the conditions that people face. The United States has the highest rate among all developed countries and is 30th in the world.

Racism and Poverty Cause Infant Deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama

Louisiana has an overall rate of 7.92. This is pretty bad, considering that Poland’s rate is 5 per 1,000. For white infants in Louisiana, the rate is 5.73. For Black infants it is 11.66. This pattern shows up again and again. Mississippi’s overall rate is an astonishing 9.08. For whites, it’s 6.91 and for Blacks, it’s 11.95.  These high rates for whites reflect poverty and the even higher rates for Blacks, poverty and racism. Also terrible in Louisiana is the rate of maternal deaths during childbirth.  If Alabama were a country it would be 100th in the world rating.

This is an outrage considering that U.S. politicians have long claimed that this is the best, and most prosperous country in the world. Profits may be soaring for the parasitic billionaire class, but how great can a country be when so many mothers and families experience the loss of a child due to poverty and systems of racist oppression? How many thousands of infant deaths could have been prevented if our society was organized in a different way? How many Black futures have been cut short in this way? How many children of working-class families of all races and ethnicities never got a chance in life?

The Cuban Difference

Once again, socialist Cuba shows that it does not have to be this way. Cuba is a formerly-colonized Caribbean country under a U.S. economic embargo since 1962. When the revolutionaries came to power in 1959, the infant mortality rate exceeded 60 per 1,000. In 2018, it is 3.963!

How has a tiny island nation achieved so much with limited resources? Cuban society is organized on a radically different basis from that of the United States. Cuba has made huge strides in eliminating systemic racism. With the socialist system, the Cuban people have access to world-class free medical care. Cuba’s Family Doctor and Nurse Program has 10,869 offices across the country, which is only 760 miles long and 55 miles wide!

In the United States, the wealth generated by the working class is hoarded by the capitalist ruling class, with only a fraction of it coming back to the people in terms of wages or social programs. In Cuba, by contrast, the wealth generated by the workers is used to benefit the workers themselves, whether it be through universal education, housing, or health care. Cuba doesn’t have homelessness. Just think. In Cuba, mothers can afford housing or medical care or lose their jobs if they are pregnant and day care centers are plentiful…

If the Cuban people have achieved these things through revolution and struggle, there is no reason that we can’t achieve them here, too. It is, of course, up to us to organize to overthrow capitalism and white supremacy. The ruling class will not give us the kinds of social advances brought about by the Cuban and other socialist revolutions.

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It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way: Pitting Young Against Old Won’t Work

By Gregory Williams

For several years, the Buzzfeed articles, memes, and all manner of sensational news reports have hammered it into our heads that young workers and retired workers are fundamentally opposed to one another. Every time a retail giant closes, for example, we see a slate of articles saying that youths caused it to tank. “Millennials don’t buy diamonds” – fair enough, young workers are not paid enough to afford rent.

From the other perspective, we see commentary to the effect that older workers ruined the economy or have trashed the environment, leaving future generations to deal with the emerging catastrophes. Nevermind the fact that – even if some of them are of that age, – the top dogs in Washington and on Wall Street are a tiny fraction of the population. The people who have any real impact in shaping the economy, or destroying the planet, are the capitalist elites and their lackeys, regardless of when they were born.

Some of us have probably laughed at a meme poking fun at generational differences. But, as I always ask in this column, does it have to be this way? Must we really have this inter-generational animosity, even if it’s mostly just a bunch of online jokes?

The Need for Inter-Generational Solidarity

I’m not raising this question idly. There is an urgent need for young and older working class people to band together. The fact is, young workers as well as older workers are getting massively screwed, and to think of millennials or baby boomers as opposed groups is to miss the point. We can only avert disaster if we work together.

We know that young people are saddled with debt and low-paying jobs. But let’s take a moment to consider the situation of older workers in this country. One telling measure is the number of seniors filing for bankruptcy.

The Consumer Bankruptcy Project recently analyzed the data from bankruptcy court records and written questionnaires, taken from all over the U.S. They found that bankruptcy among seniors has risen fivefold since 1991. And that’s not just because there are more seniors. The percentage of seniors filing for bankruptcy has radically increased. Now, 12.2% of bankruptcy filings come from households headed by seniors.

It’s not hard to understand why seniors are filing for bankruptcy: There are far more seniors in poverty than there were in decades past. This is especially true for older women.The retirement age keeps going up. More and more older people are in debt just like their younger counterparts. Medical costs keep going up. Very few workers in this country nowadays have real pensions.

None of this is accidental. The capitalist class, represented by both the Republicans and the Democrats, have systematically destroyed the social safety net and most of the protections that workers and oppressed people won through struggle. On an almost unimaginable scale, they have stolen the wealth generated by the society and hoarded it for themselves. And just as they don’t care about the brutality of putting a child in a cage, they don’t blink an eye at the thought of elderly people on the street.

One day young workers will need Social Security. The carefully crafted attack blaming selfish seniors for the falsely reported bankruptcy of the the social security fund, is to cover the grab of this pot of money to hand over to the bankers, Pentagon and super-rich.

To sum up, we need to start thinking about the total situation we’re facing in this rotten, every-worsening society. I don’t care if I repeat myself everywhere we go. We have to organize a fight back, and it needs to be inter-generational.