A Social Phenomena: Black Boys in Foster Care - A Personal Story
“Autoethnography is a qualitative method— it offers nuanced, complex, and specific knowledge about particular lives, experiences, and relationships rather than general information about large groups of people” (Adams et al., 2014, p. 21).Hennepin County foster care and adoption
Last week was quite difficult for our school community. We faced the heart-wrenching situation of a seventh grader being separated from his family and placed in foster care. Despite the challenges he faced, this student demonstrated incredible talent as an artist and a deep passion for science, taking great care of the fish in our three tanks. He has always been a model student at our performing arts and academic school, which serves the Black community. I was informed about the events that happened during our morning cabinet meeting. The leadership team, too, was devastated hearing the news about one of our scholars. A report by Kate Miller, Root cause analysis on foster care re-entry rate for Black children in MN (2023), reports that “Black and Native children are removed from their homes at rates 5 and 16 times higher, respectively, than white children” (Miller, 2023, web). Later that morning, I was contacted by the front desk while my operations director greeted me at the door. They informed me that the grandmother of our seventh grader was in the lobby - requesting to her Grandson him and offer him a comforting hug with the message that everything would be alright. Unfortunately, due to the real-time situation, no family members were allowed to have contact with the child. This news left me feeling overwhelmed with despair, causing me to - for the moment - lose faith in humanity, systems, and my educational philosophy which is all children must be given the tools and experience so they can become social, emotional, and economically sustainable in a society that produces man-made perpetual-poverty machines for those who give up. I went down to the lobby; the Grandmother - a Black grandmother, respectful, reminding me of my Mother, looked at me with tears in her eyes and said compassionately: “I want to see my Grandson.”
As a Black man, looking into the eyes of this Black Grandmother, the matriarch of her kinfolks, my humanness wanted to go get the boy and take him to his Grandmother for the emotional support every team member in the building knew this boy needed. It took everything in me to look this woman in the eyes and say, “I’m sorry, the rules prevent me from giving you access or contact with your Grandson.” The Grandmother shuffled backward towards the chair and flopped down in the chair with a ‘whoosh’ while sobbing loudly. My operations director walked away with tears in her eyes, unable to compose herself, disappearing down the back hallway. The Grandmother stood and reached to me; I helped her stand, and she opened her arms for a hug with a look of mystery and puzzlement about why she was being denied an audience with one in her bloodline.
What insights can be gained regarding the self-identity of Black boys in the Twin Cities, and the cultural norms that allow for such disparities to persist in the inner city? It's important to consider this issue, especially given the significant amount of funding and public relations messaging dedicated to maintaining bike paths and ash trees in Minneapolis and St. Paul. How can we ensure that our efforts are equally focused on addressing the social and systemic issues affecting our communities? Most reports reviewed sometimes write off the social phenomenon drivers of Black and Native American boys being put into the foster care system at a higher rate than boys in the dominant culture as White supremacy and racism. I would argue that it is not this simple, and if it were, why haven’t we, as a community of forward thinkers, shut it off? Before she left, in the rain, the Grandmother told me that she understood me having my hands tied, and a knee on my neck - and the rules are not fair. She apologized for her daughter's loss of the boy and said she would do everything to get him back home.
There’s not a leadership program at any University that teaches how to deal with deferred humanness.
Graphic (2024). Hennepin county foster care and adoption. Hennepin County.
https://www.hennepin.us/residents/human-services/foster-care-adoption
https://www.aliainnovations.org/news-and-insights/root-cause-analysis-on-foster-care-re-entry-rate-for-black-children-in-mn
Comments
Post a Comment