“Institutional Racism”
Earlier today I indicated (here) some skepticism about underground, hidden, subtle “institutional and structural” racism. Whether because of luck or co-incidence or simply a terribly confused contact list, I just received an email notice from an assistant editor at Ms. Magazine informing me of an article in the new issue, “‘Too Poor to Parent?,’ on institutional racism in the U.S. foster care system.”
Curious to learn more about “institutional racism,” and hoping to find a good example of this undercover, subtle, hard to pin down but nevertheless pervasive evil, I went to the above link, which provides only an excerpt from the article, not the whole thing. Still, it was revealing (or not, if you’re a skeptic ... or an overt or covert racist).
It begins quite dramatically:
When a recurrent plumbing problem in an upstairs unit caused raw sewage to seep into her New York City apartment, 22-year-old Lisa called social services for help. She had repeatedly asked her landlord to fix the problem, but he had been unresponsive. Now the smell was unbearable, and Lisa feared for the health and safety of her two young children.A sad story, to be sure, but at this point some of you may be wondering the same thing I was: where, or what, is the “institutional racism”?When the caseworker arrived, she observed that the apartment had no lights and that food was spoiling in the refrigerator. Lisa explained that she did not have the money to pay her electric bill that month, but would have the money in a few weeks. She asked whether the caseworker could help get them into a family shelter. The caseworker promised she would help—but left Lisa in the apartment and took the children, who were then placed in foster care.
Months later, the apartment is cleaned up. Lisa still does not have her children....
What I think is the attempt at answering this question quickly follows:
Black children are the most overrepresented demographic in foster care nationwide. According to the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO), blacks make up 34 percent of the foster-care population, but only 15 percent of the general child population. In 2004, black children were twice as likely to enter foster care as white children. Even among other minority groups, black mothers are more likely to lose their children to the state than Hispanics or Asians—groups that are slightly underrepresented in foster care.Color me dense, but I still don’t get it. The fact that poor people are “22 times more likely to be involved in the child-welfare system” (why only 22?) than wealthier families is evidence of “institutional racism”?The reason for this disparity? Study after study reviewed by Stanford University law professor Dorothy Roberts in her book Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (Basic Books/Perseus, 2002) concludes that poverty is the leading cause of children landing in foster care. One study, for example, showed that poor families are up to 22 times more likely to be involved in the child-welfare system than wealthier families. And nationwide, blacks are four times more likely than other groups to live in poverty.
Similarly, if “poverty is the leading cause of children landing in foster care” and blacks are “four times more likely than other groups to live in poverty,” why is the fact that blacks are “twice as likely to enter foster care as white children” regarded as evidence of “institutional racism”? Why, that is, are blacks the “most overrepresented demographic” if poverty is the cause of “representation” in foster care, blacks are four times more likely to live in poverty, but only twice as likely to be in foster care?
Alas, I’m afraid “institutional racism” remains too subtle for me to grasp.
Say What?
It's institutional racism because "positive" rights have been violated, along lines that correlate somewhat to race, and the institutions of the US have failed to remedy the situation. Social justice demands that excess wealth, which lies disproportionately in the hands of white citizens, be willfully or forcibly translocated to the hands of those with a deficiency of wealth. A group in which black citizens are over-represented. Reasons for the disparity are irrelevant, but its existence is "institutionalized" (hidden yet obvious) and it has led to the situation described in the article. Numerous legal scholars have proposed that violations of positive rights become actionable, whether by legislative action or judicial fiat. I am sure that you would agree that the impact on collective fairness and social harmony would be of great benefit to society, and I’m equally sure that we would agree that there are no obvious negatives to such a social/economic/legal system. And history has shown that such systems work quite well in practice.
In fact, we may not have to wait much longer for this dramatic step towards the end of history: Obama has stated that a prime factor in SCOTUS selections will be “empathy;” and one of his spokespersons has indicated that he believes that “social and economic justice” should be major considerations in jurisprudence.
Posted by: Brad | May 11, 2008 2:04 PM
It sounds like this young mother was treated disgracefully. I can quite easily believe the social worker was racist -- y'know, being 'New York'.
I get your point though, it doesn't prove a pattern of racism with official approval.
But we could quibble over semantics, or we could imply that the poor deserve their suffering for their stupid mistake of not being born rich and it would be better to just leave it to Darwin to finish them off...
...or we say that as conservatives our problem is with the bureaucracies that take the funds intended to help the poor and waste them or worse, of which this seems like a disgraceful example, with the criminals, and with those who undermine the social fabric for fun and profit...
...and that it's a disgrace and an affront to Christian morality, traditional rights and natural justice that a young mother should be in this position in the first place, not to mention her having to endure high-handed treatment from some neo-feudal 'New York' bureaucrat, and furthermore assert taht, although they aren't easy, there are solutions to severe social problems that accord with Christian morals and real conservative principles...
But if we did that, we might find ourselves a host of powerful and dangerous enemies -- on Left and Right -- so let's take the easy way and just blame the bitch...
Posted by: Kip Watson | May 12, 2008 12:32 AM
Kip, I would rip my tongue out before I would call Lisa a bitch, as you have done, or suggest that she deserves to suffer. As a conservative, I resent the hell out of your suggestion that that is my thought process.
My daughter just turned 21. There is no way on God's green earth that at 22, or 25, or 30, she would find herself with two children, no man, no job, and no family to help her. I didn't have the raising of Lisa. I doubt seriously that her mother would have appreciated me trying to tell her how to raise a prudent and self-sufficient daughter.
I can care, care, CARE until the cows come home, and I do care about all the Lisas out there; but unlike you, I don't think caring is going to fix the problem. You say: "...that it's a disgrace and an affront to Christian morality, traditional rights and natural justice that a young mother should be in this position in the first place,..." Well, it's an affront to Christian morality that she apparently has had children out of wedlock, you are right about that, and that's contributed mightily to her problem. Traditional rights? Natural justice? You're using code-words I am not familiar with. I see I will have to learn a whole new jargon to keep up.
Posted by: Laura(southernxyl) | May 12, 2008 8:38 PM
Wow. What a beautiful collage of leftist misconceptions.
1. No, povertiy is NOT the primary reason for foster care decisions - neither for blacks or whites or in general.
The statewide statistics vary a bit, but nationwide the top three are always:
- parental alcohol abuse
- parental drug abuse
- violent abuse of child
The reason most closely related to poverty would be "inadequate housing". Although generally messy and unhygenic conditions are the primary group herin, poverty could be counted as a partial cause of this. It ranges at about position seven, along with sexual abuse of child and similar.
The claim, that povety is the major cause is simply false. Although there is a clear correlation showing that poor people generally drink more than wealthy people, poor people generally take more drugs and poor people are more abusive and violent than wealthy people - that still does not define a causality.
2. If black children are taken into care at twice the rate of white children, then this is NOT a disadvantage for them, because after all: foster care is the evacuation of the children out of unworthy family lives. As much as the parents may suffer - it is for the benifit of the children.
The example in the article also shows another interesting aspect: only the perspective of the poor mother is featured. The opinions and perspectives of the children (who had been evacuated from the life with rotten food, no lights, stench of sewer at home and absent and completely overchallenged parents) is never mentioned.
If black children are evacuated out of such situations at a higher rate than white children, then that is definately not a disatvantage and no reason to complain.
3. There is hoever one aspect of the foster care system where black children are actually disadvantaged because of their race. For some reason racial segregation has prevailed here and black children in foster care can only be adopted by black families and white children only by white families. Since the regualtions concerning the adoption of foster children are still racist and segregationist, black children stay in foster care longer than white children because there are more white people willing to adopt children and there are more black children up for adoption, white children have a better chance to get out of foster homes than black children. For some strange reason though, none of the black interest groups ever adress this problem.
- Andrew
Posted by: andrew | May 13, 2008 4:17 AM
Institutional Racism (IR)is definitely at work in the foster case system and social services. The issues are wider than poverty, ill fated living conditions, lack of education and resources overall. There was an assumption that Lisa was not married and had her children out of wedlock as well. That is a negative assumption when she could have just fallen on hard times. PERIOD. The part of her situation that I find peculiar is that she was penalized for reaching out to get help. Getting help is a strength as it relates to the dominant group. When you get help and you belong to the group that is on the outside, you are viewed as weak and worthless. As a nation, we spend less on our kids in school, less on social programs to help develop our citizens, but we spend millions on war, corporate welfare (airlines bail outs, 700 billion dollar loans to banks, we bail out mortgage companies, AIG, farming subsidies, etc), but we make a big deal out of pennies as it relates to programs that help the less fortunate. My point is that Lisa was in a bad situation and she reached out for help. In my opinion, services should have been given to help, she was clearly overwhelmed. However, her family unit was taken apart. When she got her life together, he kids were still not placed back into her care. How do you think Black children feel in a system of people who are culturally biased and insensitive. Kids belong with their parents, unless they are unfit. Falling on hard economic times does not make one unfit. It is a situation that could cripple anyone emotionally and is quite painful to endure. Many Americans of all hughes found themselves in similar situations when U.S. car makers started sending Detroit jobs off shore. People were without work living in desolate conditions. My point here is that it is IR because when she got her life in order, it would have been int he best interest of that entire family to have it reunified, but it was not because the system profits off of those kids.
Posted by: norris cooper | October 9, 2008 3:25 PM