Reading this made me want to cry. I remember going to a babysitter’s when I was young who was also a foster mother. The children were treated horribly under her care. They were abused, beaten, locked in the room, raped, insulted constantly.
I realize at this point I should write something like: Until we recognize xyz, we will not be able to solve the problem of foster care systems, racism, violence, capitalism, etc. etc. etc. But I dont think that raising awareness really makes a great impact. I dont have a pat intersectional answer to stop the devaluing of black children.
crossposted from
Here’s one sobering fact: Adopting a black child can cost half the amount of adopting a white child. And although every state has its own rules and regulations regarding adoption, many adoption agencies have separate programs that provide fee reductions for parents willing to adopt children with special needs or those of African descent.
Anyone who has taken a basic economics course can draw conclusions about what this price structure reveals regarding the relative supply and demand of black children versus white ones, as distasteful as it is to think about the lives of children in terms of market dynamics.
……
Contrary to popular belief, most children who end up in the foster care system are put there due to neglect, not abuse by their parents, according to adoption expert Jae Ran Kim:
Neglect covers a wide berth of issues including a lack of or inadequate shelter, supervision, nutrition, and education. The standards for these differ from state to state. In Minnesota, for example, a child 12 or over is considered responsible enough to get themselves to school. A child who misses 25 days of school in a semester would be considered truant if the child is 12, but the parents would be charged with educational neglect if the child is 11.
Racial discrepancies in the ways cases are handled suggest that social workers are far more likely to place children of color in foster care than they are white children:
A 1997 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study found that social workers were more likely to place African American and American Indian children in foster care [rather than] in-home services when compared to white children with the same family issues. Once in foster care, African American children typically stay there twice the length of white children. Often this is a result of bias all the way from the social worker to the judge.
All I can say right now is that I am thinking of my daughter. And I am thinking of the recent documentary of black children still picking the white doll as the good, pretty one and the black doll as the ugly, bad, stupid one. And I am thinking of the number of people I heard who just couldnt believe that in this decade the results of the doll test are the same as they were in the 1950′.
You can see a news report on the video here:
peace and love,
Mai’a
