Race

Inequities have shaped our country since its founding. Centuries of discrimination have inflicted deep wounds, with disparate rates of COVID-19 infection and brutal policing being current symptoms of that troubled history.

As protests against police violence against Black people played out this summer in Portland, some current and former foster youth in Oregon – disproportionately people of color – were thinking of how they might rid the foster care system of systemic racial bias.

Every last Sunday of the month, around 30 people gather in Minnesota’s Twin Cities to partake in the Black Civic Network’s community dinners. Over a shared meal, the network leads discussions about policies and issues that impact Black families in the state, like elections, reparations and child protection services. 

“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.

Tehra Coles, Zainab Akbar, Emma Ketteringham, Lauren Shapiro

As thousands of Black people and their allies are protesting the systemic racism and police brutality that have been part of the fabric of this society for centuries, some white Americans appear ready to discuss the damage that oppression has done to Black and brown people.

In the nearly two months since the police killing of George Floyd launched a global protest movement against systemic racism, the American child welfare system has experienced its own reckoning.

In June, parents marched through Manhattan, waving signs charging child welfare authorities with “stealing Black babies.”

Rogers Campbell. My grandfather’s name still haunts the people who loved him the most. Killed in 1987. Hog tied. Placed in a choke hold. Died. Then the system denied excessive force.

The Imprint has recently published dozens of articles exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on foster youth, and how they perceive and participate in this country’s current reckoning with systemic and institutional racism.