African
Americans comprise 12.3 percent of the U.S. population. White Americans are 75.1 percent.[1] But 38 percent of all foster children are
Black, while only 35 percent are white.[2]
In
many big cities you can walk into a family court and find plenty of white faces
among the judges and the lawyers - but almost none among the families whose
fate depends on those judges and lawyers.
In
Central Harlem, on any given day, nearly one of out ten children was in foster
care in 1998.[3] In Minnesota, a state
with a lower-than-average poverty rate, nearly one in 25 Black children was
taken from his or her parents and thrown into foster care just in one year.[4]
It
is often argued that the overrepresentation of Black children in the foster
care system is solely a function of the fact that Blacks are overrepresented among
America's poor. But common sense, and
plenty of data, say there is more to it than that.
In
a society in which a Black man of any income level is far more likely than his
white counterpart to be followed around a store and presumed a shoplifter, and
then far more likely to be unable to hail a cab to take home what he's
purchased, it's odd at the least to assume that even the best-intentioned child
protection worker always will be able to check her or his prejudices at the
door.
And
the data show that they can't.
For
example, predominantly Latino Hunts Point, in The Bronx, is even poorer than
Central Harlem. The rate of single
parenthood in the two communities is the same (and, in any event, children are
no more likely to be abused in single parent homes than in homes with two
parents, when the figures are adjusted for family income).[5] But a child is almost twice as likely to
be taken from his or her parents in Central Harlem. One in 19 children is taken in Hunts Point versus almost one in
ten in Central Harlem. Compare these data further, to a poor white community,
and there is evidence of discrimination against Blacks and Latinos: In
predominantly white Ridgewood and Glendale in Queens, which has about half the
poverty rate of the other two neighborhoods, only one in 200 children was in
foster care in 1998.[6]
In
San Diego, researchers found similar results.
The rate of poverty among Black and Latino children is almost
identical. But, as Prof. Dorothy
Roberts, a member of the NCCPR Board of Directors, notes in her book, Shattered
Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, (Basic Civitas Books: 2002)
"while Latino children were placed in foster care at a rate identical to
their proportion in the population, African American children were overrepresented
in foster care at a rate six times their census proportion."[7]
· A study by researchers at The
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia found that when doctors examined children,
"toddlers with accidental injuries were over five times more likely to be
evaluated for child abuse, and over three times more likely to be reported to
child protective services if they were African American or Latino."[8]
· A study of decisions to
"substantiate" allegations of maltreatment after they are reported
found that caseworkers were more likely to substantiate allegations of neglect
against Black and Latino families - and the only variable that could explain
the discrepancy is race. [9
· A study of women whose
newborns tested positive for cocaine found that the child was more than 72
percent more likely to be taken away, if the mother was Black.[10]
· A comprehensive federal study
of child maltreatment found that "even when families have the same
characteristics and lack of problems, African-American children and Latino
children, to a lesser extent, are more likely than white children to be placed
in foster care."[11]
· But perhaps most telling is
what happens when caseworkers are given hypothetical situations and asked to
evaluate the risk to the child. The scenarios
are identical - except for the race of the family. Consistently, if the family is Black, the workers say the child
is at greater risk.[12]
Prof.
Roberts writes: "[T]he child protection process is designed in a way that practically
invites racial bias. Vague definitions
of neglect, unbridled discretion, and lack of training form a dangerous
combination in the hands of caseworkers charged with deciding the fate of
families."[13]
But
the harm done by racism in child welfare goes beyond the harm done to
individual children wrongly taken from loving homes.
The
removal of children from impoverished Black homes happens so often that it
inflicts "collateral damage" on entire communities. The loss of so many children demoralizes
their families. Roberts writes that the
removal of these children "disrupt[s] the family and community networks
that prepare children to participate in future political life." And this needless removal of children
reinforces the very stereotypes about Black families that are used to excuse
such removals in the first place.
African
Americans are not the only ones to suffer from the racism of the child welfare
system.
Latino
children may be taken from Spanish-speaking parents and thrown into foster homes
where only English is spoken. In a
otorious case in Texas, a judge threatened to take a young Latino child from
her mother and place the girl with her father unless the mother agreed to speak
only English in her own home.[14]
Starting
in 1958, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, in collaboration with the trade
association for America's child welfare agencies, the Child Welfare League of
America, launched a mass campaign to transplant Native American children into
white adoptive homes. By 1971, nearly
one in four Indian infants in Minnesota was placed for adoption.[15]
When
Congress sought to prevent this decimation of Indian communities, through
passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act, CWLA opposed the law. And it was not until 2001 that CWLA's new
Executive Director apologized to the Native American community.[16]
But
despite the passage of the ICWA, there is evidence that the abuses continue.
In
Alaska, which has one of the highest percentages of foster children in the
country, Alaska Native children are more than five times as likely as white
children to be taken from their parents.
A worker who helps Native families entangled with the state's child
welfare agency says a caseworker declared one Native family's home messy
because of drying fish, laundry hanging in the living room and puppies on the
porch.
And
though alcohol abuse sometimes is a real problem, those who help Native
families say caseworkers are quick to assume such a problem even when it
doesn't exist.
Even
the head of the state's child welfare agency says "We've got to do
something differently."[17]
In
Maine, another state with one of the worst records in the nation for needlessly
placing children in foster care, the Houlton band of the Maliseet tribe has
suffered greatly at the hands of the state's Department of Human Services
(DHS), in part because the Maliseets are too small to have their own tribal
courts.
Between
1996 and 2001, 16 percent of Houlton Maliseet children were taken from their
parents and placed in non-Indian homes.
That's a rate of removal more than five times the national average for
Native Americans.[18]
And
in an Iowa county where one in ten Indian children is in foster care, the chief
juvenile prosecutor says: "I don't think there's anything in any of these
cases that points to something positive about Indian culture, except the
culture of drugs and the culture of poverty and the culture of abuse."[19]
America's
child welfare establishment needs to do more than say "I'm
sorry." From frontline workers to
agency directors, they need to constantly "audit their feelings" to
be sure that their decisions are based on facts, not personal prejudice. More generally, they need to work to rebuild
the child welfare system emphasizing safe, proven programs to keep families together. Just as the current take-the-child-and-run
mentality disproportionately harms minority families, a system oriented toward
keeping children safely in their own homes will help reduce such
discrimination.
1.http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
2. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, The
AFCARS Report, for the period ending March 31, 2000. Available online at http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/afcars/apr2001.htm
3. Child Welfare Watch, The Race Factor in Child
Welfare (New York: Center for an Urban Future, June 1, 1998) available
online at http://www.nycfuture.org/content/reports/report_view.cfm?repkey=9
l
4. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Child
Welfare Outcomes 1999: Annual Report, available online at
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/publications/cwo99/index.html
5. Thomas D. Morton, “The Increasing Colorization of
America’s Child Welfare System,” Policy and Practice, Dec. 1999, cited
in Dorothy Roberts, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (New
York: Basic Civitas Books: 2002), p.48.
6. Child Welfare Watch, note 3, Supra
7. Ann F. Garland et al, “Minority Population in the
Child Welfare System: The Visibility Hypothesis Re-examined,” American
Journal of Orthopsychiatry 68 (1998) cited in Roberts, note 5, Supra. In this instance, there were more two-parent
families among the Hispanics but, as noted in the text there is no correlation
between single parent status and child abuse, when figures are adjusted for
family income.
8. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Press
Release, Minority
Children More Likely to be Evaluated for Physical Abuse; Abuse in White
Children May be Overlooked, PR
Newswire, Oct. 1, 2002.
9.J. Eckenrode, et. al., “Substantiation of Child Abuse and
Neglect Reports,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 38
(1988) 9, cited in Roberts, Note 5, Supra.
10. Daniel R. Neuspiel and Terry Martin Zingman,
“Custody of Cocaine-Exposed Newborns: Determinants of Discharge Decisions,” American
Journal of Public Health 83 (1993), p.1726, cited in Roberts, Note 5,
supra.
11. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
Children’s Bureau, National Study of Protective Preventive and Reunification
Services Delivered to Children and Their Families (Washington, DC: 1997),
cited in Roberts, Note 5, Supra.
12. Roberts, Note 5, supra.
13. Roberts, Note 5, Supra, p.55.
14. Sam Howe Verhovek, “Mother Scolded by Judge for
Speaking in Spanish,” The New York Times, August 30, 1995.
15. Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield,
490 U.S. 30, 33 (1989), cited in Roberts, Note 5, Supra, p.249.
16. Shay Bilchik, Working Together to Strengthen
Supports for Indian Children and Families: A National Perspective Keynote Speech
at the National Indian Child Welfare Association Conference, Anchorage, Alaska,
April 24, 2001. Available online at
http://www.cwla.org/execdir/edremarks010424.htm
17. Lisa Demer, “Focus falls on Native kids,” Anchorage
Daily News, Sept. 1, 2002, p.B1.
18. Ruth-Ellen Cohen, “Indians question DHS actions,” Bangor
Daily News, Nov. 6, 2001.
19. Lee Rood, “Unfit or Unfair,” Des Moines Register,
February 10, 2003, p.A1.