racism

The American Bar Association has called on legal professionals to come to terms with how the child welfare system’s racist roots continues to harm Black families.

One of the nation’s leading legal advocacy groups for children recently embraced a new agenda, pledging to disrupt “institutional racism and its effects on the child welfare system.”

Several organizations representing executives in California who run county-level health and human services agencies have joined the growing list of public entities declaring racism a public health emergency. Issuing a statement on Wednesday that they recognize “the historic and ongoing harms of systemic racism” and pledging to address the problem were: the County Behavioral Health Directors Association of California, the County Welfare Directors Association of California, the County Health Executives Association of California and the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems. 

President Biden’s American Rescue Plan expands the Child Tax Credit to as much as $3,600 per child for 2021. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) offered an alternative that went further, proposing a permanent monthly cash allowance — rather than a tax credit — of up to $350 for each child. 

“I can’t breathe.” These words are now painfully familiar. They were the last words of George Floyd who died on May 25, when a police officer pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as well as Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who was killed in 2014 after being put in a chokehold by New York City police.

The current Black Lives Matter uprisings have the nation activated. Many white people are now realizing police brutality and how it disproportionately impacts Black people. As of June 10, five of the 10 books on the New York Times nonfiction best-selling list were books on racial and social justice, signaling that people are beginning to engage with what Black people have been trying to survive since forever — racism.

When a young pregnant mom informed her prenatal care providers that she had smoked marijuana to relieve stress, nausea and poor appetite, they didn’t seem concerned. But after the birth of her son a few years ago in a Bronx hospital, a test of the baby’s urine came back positive for cannabis, and the hospital quickly called child welfare authorities.

The plight of Black children in the child welfare system is one plagued with failure after failure from those who have been put in place to protect them. As activist, sociologist and historian, W.E.B.