Esoterica
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This work by Mikki Kendall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
 
 
 
Parental conduct or home conditions that appear innocent when the parents are affluent are often considered to be neglectful when the parents are poor. A whole host of common circumstances can trigger an investigation of poor parents. As a former caseworker in New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) described her clients, ‘If you are poor and if you have ever had problems with the law, if you have ever been involved in a domestic violence dispute, if you took your child to the emergency room after an accident, if you have ever used drugs, if your children have problems in school, if you have ever been homeless, ACS has been a part of your life.’ Several studies have found that poor children are more likely to be labeled ‘abused’ than children from more affluent homes with similar injuries. For example, an investigation of suspected cases of child abuse referred by Boston hospitals discovered that ‘the best predictor of removal of the child from the family was not severity of abuse, but Medicaid eligibility.’

Dorothy Roberts, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (via thecurvature)

Having grown up in affluent white conservative evangelical churches - a lot of rich white people are abusing their kids who will never, EVER have their children taken away from them - because they are rich and white.

(via jhameia)

I remain convinced that white privilege is why my ex’s mother was able to keep her kids despite them being found repeatedly wandering the streets of their town in the middle of the night. She was educated, attractive, & incredibly abusive to the point that the kids often tried to avoid all contact with her despite the oldest only being 11.

 
 
The racial imbalance in New York City’s foster care population is truly mind-boggling: out of 42,000 children in the system at the end of 1997, only 1,300 were white. About 30 percent of the children who live in New York City are white. Yet white children make up only 3 percent of its foster care caseload. Less than 24 percent in foster care are Latino and the vast majority — 73 percent — are African American. Clearly, child welfare authorities consider foster care a last resort when it comes to white families.

Black children, on the other hand, are separated from their parents with relative ease. One out of every twenty-two Black children in New York City is in foster care. The system’s grasp is even tighter on poor Black neighborhoods, such as Central Harlem, where one out of ten children has been placed in foster care. This means that in every apartment building in Central Harlem, we could expect to find at least one family whose children are in state custody. This is a far cry from the more reasonable odds for white children — only one out of 385. Black children are ten times more likely to be placed in foster care in New York City than white children.

Dorothy Roberts, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (via notime4yourshit)

When my ex filed the phony abuse reports against me (long story short, this was his idea of a way to get custody & stop paying child support), they came to my then 3 year old son’s preschool intent on taking him into custody immediately. Fortunately the report detailed serious bruises which didn’t exist at all. Plus the school’s assistant director had some experience with DCFS & she insisted that they interview kiddo in the building or go get a warrant. They interviewed him, quickly figured out he’d been coached (badly, since he could only remember part of the story), and after a visit to my home & checking with his pediatrician they closed the case. I got through it, but it was clear to me throughout that it was my ex’s stupidity that kept my kid from being taken by the system. If it hadn’t been such a blatant misuse of the system I don’t know that they wouldn’t have taken kiddo from me. I was black, single, living in the projects (see the aforementioned child support which wasn’t getting paid & still isn’t), and getting over cancer. The social worker even made comments about how amazed she was at the cleanliness of my house & the amount of healthy food in my fridge. They expect us to be bad parents so any deviation from the white suburban “norm” can have dire consequences for parents of color or lower economic means.

(Source: thecurvature)

 
 
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