Non-human agency: What's a city bus stop bench have to do with infant mortality?

Infant Mortality, the death of a baby before his or her first birthday is still very much a problem in Fort Worth, Texas as well as globally. The highest numbers in parts of Fort Worth are as high as 12 deaths per 1,000 live births. These numbers, representing the loss of African American babies, are twice as high as white babies and it's time to stop asking why. In recent years research has begun to understand this phenomenon by exploring social and cultural factors such as stress levels, support networks, and access to health care that impact African American women of child bearing ages. The connect of infant mortality to institutional racism cannot and should no longer be ignored. This paper will argue for a paradigm shift from understanding infant mortality as a result of human agency alone and instead address the interconnections of human and non-human agency. Can a non-human object such as a bus stop bench impact infant mortality? In what ways? Specifically examining non-human objects such as a bus stop bench, I hope to activate, as Jane Bennett wrote, "the attentiveness needed to understand nonhuman forces operating outside and inside the body" (2010, p. xiv). Is a bus stop bench just a bus stop bench or is it a link to saving our African American babies?