This is a word a podcast from Slate. I'm your host, Jason Johnson. Spare the rod and spoil the child. That's how many people remember the Bible verse and how some parents justify spanking their children. And among many African Americans, there's also the persistent idea that beating a child can somehow save them from white violence. What's the cost for our families and for our children's health?

If beating black children were a prerequisite for success, then black people should be ruling this country right now.

Preventing child abuse coming up on a word with me, Jason Johnson. Stay with us.

Welcome to a word a podcast about race and politics and everything else. I'm your host, Jason Johnson. April is national child abuse prevention month.

And our society's understanding of what does and does not meet the definition of abuse varies widely. And many parts of the African American community, there are persistent cultural expectations that the only proper way to discipline a child involves hitting them.

But it's a time to retire the idea that physical discipline is ever necessary and to embrace a wider definition of abuse.

Joining us to talk about is Dr. Stacey Patton. She is a writer, a child abuse survivor, and the author of the book Spare the Kids, why whooping children won't save black America. Dr. Stacey Patton, welcome to a word.

Thanks so much for having me. Glad to be here, Jason.

How widespread is child abuse in the black community? What are some of the numbers behind it? Who are the primary perpetrators of child abuse in the black community?

It's a pretty widespread problem. Let's just start with the number one risk factor for physical injuries and fatalities. It's hitting children, whether we call it spanking, beating, popping, whooping or whatever. So hitting a child always puts them at risk for either an injury or a fatality.

The data tells us from sources like child trends, which conducts the surveys of parental attitudes on things like corporal punishment, tells us that the majority of American parents across race and ethnicity support hitting children or actually use it as a punishment practice.

Now, there isn't a huge statistical difference between black folks and these other groups where just embrace the practice at slightly higher levels in terms of proportion, but the majority of American parents are hitting their kids.

Now, when it comes to legal definitions of child abuse, it varies state by state. So you can hit a child one way and miss a zippy and maybe even injure them, but you try to do that same thing in Vermont.

And you might go to jail and there are also 19 states that still allow physical punishment of kids in public schools. Every state with the exception of New Jersey and Iowa allows corporal punishment in private and charter schools. We don't know how widespread the practices.

Now, in terms of abuse, substantiated cases of abuse, African American children are disproportionately affected every single year. You can look at the annual trial maltreatment reports and see the numbers.

So we have significantly higher rates of substantiated cases of physical abuse and also fatalities.

The last numbers that I saw from 2020, there was over 500 black children who were killed by their caretakers. I pull data. So I often hear black people say, if I don't whip my child, the police will kill them.

So I've been able to look at the numbers for the past five years in terms of the number of black children who were killed by cops. This is over a five year period.

And this comes from data from the Washington Post fatal force database. So you can go on that database and disaggregate victims by race and age. So I disaggregated black children.

And during that five year period, it was something like around 40 black children who were killed. But then when I put those numbers next to the child maltreatment reports, there were more than 2,300 black children who were killed by their parents during the same time period.

So the reality is, is that black children are more at risk of being seriously salted or killed by their own parents and caretakers than shot by the police.

What do we know about who is perpetuating this violence?

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