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But that’s not all. In her comments to the Globe, Rodriguez said bluntly: “A Hispanic family cannot get away with what a white family can get away with, period.”
As the Globe reports, “Latino children are slightly more likely than Black children, and more than twice as likely as white children, to have an open case with DCF.”
DCF officials told the newspaper that its employees aren’t biased and that Latino families aren’t more likely to be accused of abuse.
Across the country, the bigger issue in the foster care system is the overrepresentation of Black children, who are 22% of the U.S. foster child population, despite representing only 14% of the total child population. The Children’s Defense Fund notes that American Indian/Alaska Native children are also “dramatically overrepresented,” and even though they represent just 1% of the overall child population, they represent 2% of the foster care population.
Across the country, the bigger issue in the foster care system is the overrepresentation of Black children.
Census numbers project that in the U.S. in 2050, 39% of children will be white and non-Hispanic. As for the other 61%, the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics’ website notes, “31% will be Hispanic; 14% will be Black, non-Hispanic; 7% will be Asian, non-Hispanic; and 9% will be non-Hispanic ‘All other races.’”
Now is the time to dismantle the racial, linguistic and cultural barriers that have long set back countless children from becoming contributing members of this country. DEI needs to be part of everything we do, especially when it comes to the care of children.
As the Children’s Defense Fund notes: “Many agencies are beginning to adopt antiracist approaches to care. To combat systemic bias and guarantee that all children receive equitable care and protection, we must begin to see system-wide reforms driven by antiracist frameworks.” That sentiment is echoed by the Children’s Bureau, which says, “Black, Brown, and Native children cannot be supported without simultaneously strengthening and caring for Black, Brown, and Native families. This includes systems investing in prevention services and wraparound services for struggling parents as well as antiracism training for child welfare professionals.”
That’s the kind of training that prompted a coordinated backlash from conservatives decrying what they brand as “wokeness.” But consider the Latina mentioned in the Globe story who was repeatedly described as “angry” by a white social worker assigned the case temporarily but who had never been described that way by the Latina who’d been working with her. It might sound like a small example, but when you are a mother and faced with the prospect of losing your child, it shouldn’t feel like a criminal investigation.
In the discussions about DEI initiatives and affirmative action, too much attention has been focused on those who fear losing power and prestige in a more diverse and equal society and not enough on those who suffer from government policies that aren’t equitable and are so often carried out by bureaucracies that aren’t diverse.
People pushing for DEI aren’t doing so just to be cool. They’re doing it because the old way of doing things is so often tragic. As another former foster child and nonprofit leader told the Globe, “Once the system gets a hold of us, it never lets go.”
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