A video of a little Black girl (allegedly adopted or a foster child) that was taken outside in the cold with just a diaper on in Philly has been circulating recently. A Black man was exposing her for her abuse of the child being barely dressed while the other children that were in tow were fully clothed in coats fitting for the cold weather.
Now I wanna say right now he’s not wrong, and I wanna talk abt this how this small peek into foster care and abuse is not just limited to interracial adoption or fostering and how these issues are never given their full scope of exposure or conversation.
I will see, time after time, in arguments or debates concerning abortion or America’s current actions toward immigration that people will casually bring up foster care abuse and once an argument is “won” that issue is dropped. I never hear or see any more in depth exposure to these issues beyond ammunition to shut someone down on one issue or another. I never have the pleasure of seeing a full post dedicated to these issues or god forbid how to solve them or where to help.
I wanna say that what happens in this video-abuse- is not a rare injustice nor is it particular to this type of interracial adoption/fostering. It’s a wide spread, common issue, and white people aren’t the only perpetrators of this abuse, although it should be considered heavily relevant to her case. Whatever a foster guardian’s background is, it doesn’t and hasn’t stopped them from abusing foster children or adoptees financially, emotionally, sexually, or physically.
When I talk to other foster kids do you know what I hear? That my experiences aren’t rare or in many cases dissimilar to theirs. They are deprived of food, like I was in nearly every single one of the homes I was in. They are berrated, and threatened with displacement-forced to move from home to home if they don’t put up with their foster guardian’s abuse. We get older (16+) and rely heavily on our jobs to provide us with food, keep our phones on, wash our clothes and to KEEP us clothed. All of which falls on our foster guardians to do, that is explicitly THEIR responsability by law with an exemtption of our phones. When we are moved, we could go anywhere-have a job in Brooklyn and all of the sudden be moved to Yonkers. I hope I don’t have to explain to you why being moved is sometimes debilitating aside from mentally and emotionaly exhausting, on top of the fact that these people will sometimes scavenge the few (relatively) valuable items we have including shoes, clothes, emergency phones, laptops, jewelry, etc.
The law and Foster Agencies often give these people as much power and slack they need to co tinue doing this. If multiple children are removed from their homes due an issue, the foster guardian’s words almost ALWAYS take precedent over the child’s accounts unless there are police reports or video evidence of these people puting their hands on us or depriving us of food.
I’m not even close to joking. You could literally try to tell your social workers that you’ve been abused and depending on the level of abuse THEY determine you received, they will normally just move you and put another foster kid in your place, almost always going through the same experiences that you have. There is next to no accountability. The only thing going on in many cases is thinly veild security theatre.
I’ve been in Jamaican homes, Afro American homes, Puerto Rican homes, Guyanese, Dominican, etc. AND THE STORY IS THE SAME. Almost always. This goes far beyond a flaw. It’s systemic. And it’s outta hand.
And I need you to talk about this shit outside of a video, a like, outside of a petty, passing remark in an argument, and broaden your view.
Children in Out of Home Care & Abuse:
Foster Children & homelessness:
Video in Question:
(via naduran12)