Where’s John Lewis When Thousands of Afro-American Families Are Being Targeted and Needlessly Torn Apart By the (Racist) Child Welfare System?
Before I get into the nitty gritty of this piece, I do want to give credit where credit is due. John Lewis, along with countless — and often nameless — other civil rights warriors, showed immense courage and fortitude fighting for equality in the turbulent 1960’s (although I believe that John Lewis’s part in the struggle has been extremely overblown over the years and that’s for a reason that I will write about one day). Having said that, the objective of this article is not so much to denigrate Mr. Lewis than to demonstrate his complete lack of concern for the people he once risked life and limb for. I have not known Mr. Lewis to pay any attention to the child welfare system either way which in of itself is a troubling aspect for me. However, Mr. Lewis has been in the headlines over the past week for doing just that.
“Too many children dream of a stable, loving family,” — Rep. John Lewis
Apparently, Mr. Lewis is very concerned, not for the cultural-genocide that is being perpetrated against Afro-American children and families by our current child welfare system, for LGBTQ foster parents, adoptive parents, and children already in state care. It is this alarming and nagging concern that has compelled Mr. Lewis to push for his Every Child Deserves Family Act which would ban discrimination against LGBTQ people who want to adopt or foster a child by agencies that receive federal money. The bill would also ban conversion therapy for minors in the child welfare system which I am all for I might add. According to Mr. Lewis, the bill “puts the happiness and well-being of our children front and center,” ensuring that more people can provide “a loving, stable family” for children.
And while I am sympathetic to all injustice, the issue as to whether or not LGBTQ couples (mostly white) can adopt or foster children (mostly Afro-American) in state care is quite miniscule when compared to the government sanctioned and unconstitutional destruction of the Black family that has been occurring, in varying degrees, for at least four decades in Georgia, his home state, and throughout the rest of the country. So, I have to know one thing. Where the hell has John Lewis been when the many child welfare reform advocates, concerned legal and child welfare professionals, and at-risk (Afro-American) parents — many of whom have wrongly lost their children based on racist and discriminatory child welfare laws and policies — have been calling for and demanding new child welfare legislation and polices? The answer is simple. He’s been nowhere.
Suddenly, and completely out of nowhere, Mr. Lewis is concerned about children in state care wanting and needing loving homes. But what makes Mr. Lewis’s statements and recent apparent concern for children needling loving families laughable — and dare I say, flat out offensive to birth (true) parents/families, child welfare reform advocates, and children already in state care — is that a large parentage of children who have already been removed by child welfare officials, again most of which are Afro-American, could’ve safely remained in their homes or at least with their own families had tangible and useful services such as housing and employment assistance been offered — and had the Juvenile court judges and magistrates stop rubberstamping CPS recommendations and actually done their jobs by enforcing the reasonable efforts laws and burden of proof.
Obviously, this very important reality of the American child welfare system has gone unnoticed, or worse deliberately ignored, by John Lewis who has been MIA since forever on this issue. When I researched Mr. Lewis’s voting record in regards to arguably the most significant piece of child welfare legislation of the last quarter century, the dreaded 1997’s Adoption and Safe Families Act — the bill that has literally and almost single handedly destroyed countless families and one for which I have been advocating for it’s repeal for years — I discovered that he conveniently did not vote on the bill. And I am going to say right now that this is not a comfort to me as it shows his complete lack of conviction on child welfare issues. What makes matters worse is that Mr. Lewis, and Congress in general, has done nothing to correct the nightmare that has been ASFA.
And then there’s the elephant in the room, one which I am convinced that Mr. Lewis is completely oblivious to. What if potential LGBTQ foster and adoptive parents are no better parents than anyone else at raising children, especially Afro-American children, who have been subjected to the child welfare system? Remember the recent Hart case? A case wherein a white LGBTQ couple willfully abused and neglected their adoptive children, all of whom were Afro-American, and then murdered them when they themselves committed suicide. I want to point out that CPS did nothing to prevent the deaths of those innocent children although they clearly could’ve since the maltreatment was well known and documented. Another deadly example of white privilege/supremacy within the child welfare system. So, where was John Lewis’ condemnation of what so clearly was both racism and willful incompetence in regards to our child welfare system — all of which were ultimately the cause of the deaths of those precious children? Again, the answer is simple. He was nowhere.
Indeed, it is the failure of John Lewis, and the rest of the Correctional Black Caucus for that matter, that has caused and further contributed to the present state of Black America. A America in which we, Afro-Americans, have no say, control, constitutional or civil right to raise our own children without government oversight and oppressive social controls. A America in which we, Afro-Americans, have the state outright refuse to observe and respect the sacred bonds between parent and child and between child and family. Bonds that are so frenqently observed in regards to all other groups. And finally, an America in which we, Afro-Americans, have been reduced back to slavery status. And I want to know where are you John Lewis? He is nowhere. In addition to LGBTQ child welfare rights, John Lewis, and the Democrats as a whole, have taken every possible opportunity available to him to speak out in support of, and to quickly help pass protective legislation, the illegal immigrants and their children who have been separated at the boarder. It is these decisive actions that has led me to believe that Mr. Lewis is not totally and entirely ignorant of the built-in structural and institutional inequalities within our current child welfare system and how that inequality negatively impacts families and children, especially Afro-American families and children.
Yet and still, Mr. Lewis has been, and continues to be, completely silent on the plight of countless low-income Afro-American parents and children who have been needlessly and cruelly separated by a racist child welfare system. A system that continues to target and destroy Black families at record numbers across this country with impunity. Indeed, Mr. Lewis has done nothing to raise awareness or combat the destruction if the Black American family due to a punitive and racist child welfare system that would sooner remove children and terminate the parental rights of the parents (so that those children can be adopted out to white families) than to provide supportive and in-home services. Clearly, Mr. Lewis’ priorities are way off to put it mildly. After considering all of Mr. Lewis’ actions, or lack thereof in this case, regarding this issue I can only come to one conclusion, Afro-American families, and keeping those families together, simply doesn’t matter to Mr. Lewis.
Having said that, I have one thing to say to Mr. Lewis, when you are REALLY ready to do what’s right for children in state care — which is to provide in-home services so that they can remain in their homes, or with their biological families if they must be removed — you can call me or any one of the many other tireless child welfare reform advocates out there on the front lines actually trying to make a difference for these children.
#NAFPAorg #BlackMothersForChildWelfareRefrom #WhitePrivilege #ChildWelfare #SocialJustice #AfricanAmericanChildWelfareAct #CasaSoWhite #CPS #FosterCare #ChildAbuse #FosterHBO #FosterDoc #BlackFamiliesBelongTogether #FamiliesBelongTogether #RepealASFANow #EndASFA
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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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