Child Welfare is the One White Supremacist Institution That is Left Out of the Reparations Conversation and It Shouldn't Be!
The racist [white supremacist] child welfare system/child protection services has and continues to target and destroy countless African American families.
I have been meaning to write this piece for some time now and here it is. But first, let me state the obvious right now. I am all for and support wholeheartedly reparations for the descendants of Afro-American slavery. And now that I got that out of the way here goes. I am not sure how many of you actually watched the recent HR40 hearing, which was held on June 19th in front of The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, but I watched all three plus hours of it on C-SPAN on my television at home.
Needless to say, watching the hearing was an emotional and highly charged experience for me and I am sure it was for many African Americans both those watching at home and those who had the opportunity to be there in person. There were many instances during the hearing that I found myself needing to take a deep breath in order to calm down before I threw something at the television screen in a fit of unmitigated anger and frustration — such was my reaction to the testimony of Burgess Owens and another person (who I will not name lest I give him the attention that he isn't worthy of) who was clearly not qualified (academically or otherwise) to be testifying let alone speak for all African Americans. And then there was a few instances when I found myself actually embarrassed for the speaker— such was the case when actor Danny Glover seemed to be struggling to string a clear sentence together on several occasions.
Indeed, when it was all over and done with not only was I emotionally drained but thoroughly and deeply disappointed in the committee's choice of speakers —almost none of which were from a low-income single parent home or background and none who were unapologetically pro-Black. Most if not all of the speakers were completely removed from the streets and/or the (real) Black community in which most of us work and live myself included. That said, let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with having grown up in a middle or upper class two parent home in of itself. The issue I, and others like myself, take is that most Black/African Americans don't come from the background that most of the Black speakers came from. Moreover, due to their (affluent) backgrounds many of the hearing speakers, especially the anti-reparations Blacks, have a different perspective and that perspective doesn't necessarily reflect that of the struggling majority of African Americans — and that's how and why you end up with the Blacks who were and are against reparations.
Ultimately, the take away of this piece of political theater — and make no mistake that is what this reparations hearing was because nothing came from it nor do I believe it was supposed to — is that Congress doesn’t really take reparations for the African American descendants of slaves seriously. After all, why would there need to be a hearing to discuss discussing reparations for African Americans in first place? And why would there be a hearing with a bunch of unqualified highly removed Blacks — several of whom don’t even have descendants that were enslaved in America? Though I will say that there were a few good points made during the hearing. Those good points were few and far between. That said, I think now would be a good time to state publicly that I DO NOT and WILL NOT support the HR40 bill. The reason is quite simple, it DOESNT do anything. Simply put, HR40 is a bill that calls for a small commission — appointed by the sitting president, mind you — to STUDY reparations and nothing more.
HR40 is an insult to the Afro-American descendants of slaves. Since when did there need to be a bill passed to study reparations BEFORE a country and/or government, including the United States, payed the offended group their reparations? Was there a study before the Native Americans got their reparations? Was there a study before the Jews got their reparations — America payed and wasn’t even involved with nor did we participate in the Holocaust? Was there a study before the Japanese got their reparations for their internment during WW2? Hell, was there a study before the United States federal government payed reparations to the white former slave owners after the Civil War and chattel slavery ended? I am sure you know by now where I am going with this and what the answer is. So why do African Americans need HR40? FYI elected officials, we don’t need a hearing to discuss reparations or a similar do-nothing “study” reparations bill. Anyway, I apologize for going on a tangent, but the whole HR40 thing just really bakes my bread. I mean c’mon. How dumb does Congress think we are? Just cut the check for heaven’s sake.
Okay, so we have finally made it to the reason why I am writing this piece. During the entire HR40 hearing — and including the many articles that I have read on the subject of reparations for African Americans — I couldn't help but notice that the American child welfare system is consistently left out of the conversation — a system that is also rife with white supremacy and structural/institutional racism. For some reason the child welfare system, and specifically child protective services, is never brought up or even talked about in the reparations debate. During the reparations hearing a speaker noted, “prejudicial government actions that have had deleterious effects on the well-being of the African American community.” Another speaker stated that (white supremacist) practices such as “predatory lending and mass incarceration are examples of modern oppression of African Americans.” As an African American and social justice advocate, I totally agree with these assertions because they are inequivalently true.
Other “government actions” and “modern forms of [African American] oppression” that were and are often discussed elsewhere include economic injustice, inadequate public schools and neighborhood redlining. Again, I don't disagree with these examples, indeed all are current forms of systemic African American oppression. However, as an African American and long-time parental rights and child welfare reform advocate and activist — and one who has personally been affected by the child welfare system having unjustly lost several of my own children and seen it happen to many others African American] parents — I found myself hanging on every word during the hearing as Rep. Jackson-Lee, and the other speakers, went down the list of racial disparities that has and continue to negatively impact African Americans desperately hoping that she was going to have the insight and due diligence to publicly list the child welfare system right along with mass incarceration and educational inadequacies. But it never happened. Though I was angered by such indifference and negligence — considering that the American child welfare system has and continues to actively target and negatively impact (and destroy) countless African American families — I can’t say that I was surprised.
Time after time, the child welfare system — especially and specially as a form of government white supremacy, social control and oppression that it is — has all but been wholly ignored by the mainstream politicians as well as social and racial justice activists and advocates — although there has been more than enough mainstream coverage and political advocacy for the 2000 illegal immigrant families separated at the boarder an issue that I will be discussing in a future article. And it is with this in mind that I have spent the last four plus years working to bring this form of slavery and it IS slavery, one that more and more people are starting to realize, out in the open and to bring about positive policy changes — specifically the African American Child Welfare Act.
The aim of this article is not to so much to argue for monetary reparations for African Americans — as that has already been done and done adequately by several knowledgeable individuals— as it is to bring the child welfare system — and the immense damage that it has done and continues to do to the Black/African American family — into focus and on line and level with the criminal justice system, mass incarceration, the war on drugs, as well as education and income/economic inequalities because each are (government backed and sanctioned) modern forms of racial oppression that African Americans are subjected to every day of our lives. Let us remember that reparations are a way for governments to right past and present wrongs to an aggrieved group and as such the American child welfare system MUST be included both in the debate and in any monetary decisions and/or outcomes — it has been an oppressive system for that long and has caused that much harm.
#CutTheCheck #ReparationsNow #NAFPAorg #WhiteSupremacistCPS #AfricanAmericanChildWelfareAct #BlackFamilyMatters #BlackLoveMatters #BlackLivesMatter #BlackFamiliesBelongTogether #BlackHistory #BlackMothersForCPSAbolition #BlackMothersForChildWelfareReform #AbolishCPS #AbolishFosterCare #RepealASFANow #EndCPS #KeepBlackFamiliesTogether
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Latagia Copeland-Tyronce, MSW, CADAS, is a longtime parental rights and social justice advocate, child welfare reform activist, writer/blogger, and journalist whose work has been featured in BlackMattersUs and Rise Magazine. She is the founder, president, and executive director of the National African American Families First and Preservation Association (NAFPA) a groundbreaking 501c4 nonprofit origination, the first of its kind, devoted exclusively to the protection and preservation of the African American (Black) Family though policy and legislative advocacy.
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