Cycle of Oppression

Running Head: CYCLE OF OPPRESSION 1

Cycle of Oppression:

Human Rights Violations of African American Foster Children

IME 620: Human Rights Pedagogy and Praxis

Henriette Potts

University of San Francisco

CYCLE OF OPPRESSION 2

Cycle of Oppression:

Human Rights Violations of African American Foster Children

In high school, I had several close African American friends

that grew up in the child welfare system. Their stories were all

very similar, their parents had been arrested for drug use, and

then they were passed on to relatives, and ultimately ended up in

foster care. One friend, Richard, had heartbreaking stories of

foster parents that had treated him like a servant and others

where he was lucky if he was fed. At the age of nine, he ran away

from one foster home and spent several months sleeping in

people’s garages until he was reported and placed back into

foster care. When I met this young man at the age of fifteen, he

had finally been placed with a loving foster family and was

starting to improve in school.

Unfortunately, finding a home at fifteen also meant that

most of Richard’s life had been filled with trauma, illegal

activity, and homelessness. While he felt his foster family was

the family he had been looking for in so many ways, he felt

somewhat out of place being the “black” kid in a predominantly

“white” household. Richard also struggled with his past. He still


carried with him the fear that his current foster situation was

too good to be true and that one-day he would come home and be

told it was time to leave. As a result of his tumultuous past,

Richard had difficulty building trust with his foster family,

teachers, even his close friends were always kept at arm’s

length; mostly out of fear that they would betray him like so

many others in his past had.

Richard was fortunate to have many people in his life that

kept showing up and helped him start the process of trusting

again and helped him excel in school and learn important life

skills. With the help of a supportive community, and his own hard

work, Richard did successfully graduate from high school and

unlike most foster children; he was not kicked out of his foster

parents’ home upon graduation. It is because of their love and

support that he was able to change his life trajectory and not

end up in prison. To this day, he credits this fact to them.

It is because of my friendship with Richard and other African

American foster children that I became passionate about changing

how African American foster children’s human rights and

children’s rights are violated. Being a woman of color and having


seen firsthand how these human rights violations affect our

community, I feel that is my duty to bring attention to the

obstacles African American foster children face. Through this

research I aim to show the correlation between subpar treatment

of foster children, who are predominantly people of color, in the

context of racial disparities. Specifically, this research will

illustrate the child welfare system and the direct connection to

the criminal justice system. The goal of this research is to shed

light on the human rights violations of the criminal justice

system, which incarcerates African Americans at disproportionate

rates, resulting in parentless children whose human rights and

children’s rights are violated.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR] outlines

the human rights all people are entitled to from birth.

Unfortunately, the reason this document exists is because human

rights are often violated around the world. Many people believe

that human rights violations do not occur in the United States;

however, the sad reality is that they do. African American foster

children are among the many people that continue to have their

UDHR articles violated. In order to understand how their human


rights are breached, we must first examine why “27% of foster

children are African American,” although they only represent

about 13% of the total U.S. child population (Children’s Rights,

2013, Foster Care). In order to fully understand the present

statistics we must examine why the parents of these children are

absent in their lives. To understand what is happening, we must

examine the history of African American oppression and the

racially fueled War on Drugs.

To recognize the current oppression of the African American

community as a whole, it is necessary to address the lasting

effects of slavery. While many continue to deny the impact that

slavery has had on the ancestors of slaves, it is clear that

White privilege continues to benefit the ancestors of slave

owners in our society. African Americans were denied their own

humanity by being seen as less than human and identified as the

property of another man. They were denied their human rights to

freedom, education, jobs, political power, and financial

independence.

In Wacquant’s words: ‘Racial division was aconsequence, not a precondition of slavery, but once itwas instituted it became detached from its initial


function and acquired a social potency all its own’After the death of slavery, the idea of race lived on.(Alexander, 2012, p. 26)

Racism did not simply stop with the abolition of slavery; in fact

it simply found other ways of oppressing African Americans.

Racism continued on in various forms, from the overt Jim Crow

laws that enforced racial segregation, to the more hidden biases

of denying African Americans loans for homes and other

opportunities of financial independence. The Civil Rights

Movement followed, bringing victories like the desegregation of

schools. Unfortunately, the Civil Rights Movement still did not

“eliminate the vestiges of Jim Crow segregation, including our

still separate and unequal system of education” (Alexander, 2012,

p. 3). Instead, the racially fueled oppressive remnants of

slavery and the Jim Crow laws, gave way to yet another way to

violate the human rights of African Americans, mass

incarceration.

Mass incarceration is the systematic growth of the prison

population in the U.S.; resulting in a 700% increase in prison

populations between 1970 and 2005 (ACLU, 2011, Combating Mass

Incarceration). “Mass incarceration operates as a tightly


networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions

that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a

group defined largely by race” (Alexander, 2012, p. 13). An

unprecedented number of African Americans were arrested during

this mass incarceration, which is why the term is often used to

refer specifically to the disproportionate number of African

Americans affected. According to the 2013 Federal Bureau of

Prisons (BOP QuickFacts), African Americans now represent 37% of

the prison population, while representing 13% of the total

population in the United States, as reported in the 2012 Census

(as cited in US Census Bureau, 2013). Scholars and historians,

such as Michelle Alexander, have shown how mass incarceration is

fueled by a racist political agenda under the guise of the War on

Drugs. As Alexander points out, this mass incarceration, or New

Jim Crow, has created a caste of second class citizens with

limited rights much akin to how the Jim Crow infringed upon the

rights of African Americans before the Civil Rights Movement. The

documentary, The House I Live In, expands on Alexander’s theory of the

New Jim Crow by showing how the War on Drugs has not only been

fueled by racism, but also by classism. The intersectionality of


both race and class is important to recognize because African

Americans have historically had the highest rates of poverty in

the U.S. In fact, “Black Americans are nearly three times as

likely as white Americans to live in poverty, according to the

2012 March Current Population Survey” (as cited in Pew Research

Center, 2013, Poverty, para 1). This fact is a key component of

the human rights violations that African Americans face. The

combination of racial and classist discrimination has caused

African Americans to be quite literally oppressed on every front.

The impact of this mass incarceration can be seen throughout

the African American community, but is especially evident in the

destruction of families and its impact on children. “In 2007

there were 1.7 million children in America with a parent in

prison, more than 70% of whom were children of color” (Schirmer,

Nellis & Mauer, 2009, p. 2). These facts make it clear that mass

incarceration was a large contributor to the fact”that a black

child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than

a black child born during slavery” (Alexander, 2010, p. 180).

While mass incarceration was initially focused on African

American males, “the [total] number of incarcerated mothers has


more than doubled (122%) from 29,500 in 1991 to 65,600 in 2007”

(Schirmer, Nellis & Mauer, 2009, p. 2). This rise of the

incarceration of mothers has unarguably had a greater impact on

African American children, many of whom already have an

incarcerated father, leaving large numbers of children with both

parents in the penal system. This impact is illustrated

profoundly by the facts, currently one in 15 African American

children have a parent in prison, compared to one in 111 white

children (Schirmer, Nellis & Mauer, 2009, p. 2). This has also

contributed to African American children comprising 27% of all

foster children, while representing 13% of all children in the

U.S. population (Children’s Rights, 2013, Foster Care). This

contextualization is necessary in order to more accurately

examine the human rights violations that African American foster

children face.

Human Rights

While the focus of this paper are the human rights

violations of African American foster children, the human rights

violations all African Americans face as a result of the War on

Drugs cannot go unmentioned. That being said, the UDHR articles


that are directly infringed upon by the War on Drugs are: freedom

from discrimination (Article 2), the right to equality before the

law (Article 7), freedom from torture and degrading treatment

(Article 5), right to freedom of movement (Article 13), right to

participate in government and in free elections (Article 21),

right to social security (Article 22), and the right to adequate

living standard (Article 25) (United Nations, 1948). The War on

Drugs also violates the International Covenant on Civil and

Political Rights, especially Articles 9 - 17; the International

Covenant on Economic, Social, Cultural Rights, especially

articles 6-7, 11, and 13; and the International Convention on the

Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, in its

entirety.

The first UDHR article that is not honored specifically for

African American foster children is Article 2, freedom from

discrimination. “As a percentage, there are more children of

color in the foster care system than in the general U.S.

population. However, child abuse and neglect occur at about the

same rate in all racial/ethnic groups” (Foster Kids Alumni, n.d.,

Race and Ethnicity). African American foster children are


discriminated against within the child welfare system, while

often having been placed there because of the discrimination

their parents faced. While data is limited on the impact that

socio-economic status has on children’s placement in the child

welfare system, it has been speculated that African American’s

higher rates of poverty have been a factor in the high numbers of

African American children entering into the system. Many believe

that social workers are more likely to deem families of low

socioeconomic status as unfit parents, and some studies have

shown that there are higher rates of child abuse in low

socioeconomic families.

Once they have entered the child welfare system, these

children continue to face discrimination not only within the

system, but they are also discriminated against in school.

African American foster children face an increased susceptibility

to entering the School-to-Prison-Pipeline, “a disturbing national

trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and

into the juvenile and criminal justice systems” (ACLU, 2011,

Combating Mass Incarceration). Much like the national penal

system, the School-to-Prison-Pipeline also unfairly targets


people of color, children with learning disabilities, and

children from low socio-economic backgrounds; all categories

African American foster children often fall into. The reality is

that the School-to-Prison-Pipeline is often the vehicle which

completes the cycle of oppression that started with the

incarceration of the parents of African American foster children.

Schools should be places of education and empowerment, not places

that further aid the oppressive systems of our society.

Another UDHR article that is not upheld for African American

foster children is Article 25, “everyone has the right to a

standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of

himself...including food, clothing, housing and medical care and

necessary social services” (UDHR, 1948). While data on food and

clothing are limited, the national advocacy group Children’s

Rights has reported that African American foster children “are

more likely to have longer placements in out-of-home care, are

less likely to receive comprehensive services, and are less

likely to reunify with their families than white children” (2013,

Foster Care). This human rights breach contributes to the chances

that these children have to attain an adequate standard of living


later in life; in essence they are being setup for failure.

Research also shows that children in foster care often suffer

from inadequate health care, the length of time they are in the

system without being placed in a permanent home, and the lack of

support and care for emotional trauma (Marrow, 2013, p. 1). These

all have detrimental impacts on the emotional and educational

development of children. When the additional burden of often

being emancipated without the life skills to survive are factored

in, it becomes clear why African American foster children are

extremely susceptible to drug use, homelessness, dropping out of

high school, and entering the criminal justice system—often

through the School-to-Prison-Pipeline. Many of these paths lead

African American youth to the same prisons that incarcerated

their parents, creating a cycle of oppression.

African American foster children’s right to UDHR Article 26,

“the right to education,” is also not upheld and will be the main

focus of this paper. This human right is directly related to

Article 25, because if children do not have their right to

medical care, food, and clothing honored; it becomes even more

difficult for them to obtain an education. Foster children often


face additional obstacles to education due in part to their

increased school mobility, often changing foster homes and

schools abruptly; an increased likelihood of having “specialized

education needs that go unrecognized and unmet;” and decreased

access to necessary school supplies that contribute to academic

success (Alliance for Children’s Rights, 2013b, para 1). As

outlined by the Alliance for Children’s Rights,

Children in foster care consistently experience some ofthe lowest educational outcomes of all youth. This isevident in the fact that less than 50 percent of fosterchildren graduate from high school and a mere 4 percentgraduate from college. The reasons for this are clear:research demonstrates that every time a child changesschools, they lose up to 6 months of their educationand many foster children may change schools 10-15 timesthroughout their education. ( 2013a, para 1)

African American foster children’s right to education is also

affected by their exclusion from curriculum. As Baumgartner and

Johnson-Bailey discuss, “emotion-related injury can occur to

those outside Lorde’s (1995) mythical norm of White, male,

heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure” (2008, pp. 46-

47). These children largely come from emotionally traumatic

situations in which they often already feel out of place and


separated from their “community.” Then African American foster

children go to school, only to face further exclusion in the

curriculum itself feeling further disconnected from their

community.

In addition to the UDHR violations, African American foster

children also face breaches of their children’s rights, as

outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the

Child (UNCRC). The UNCRC is a human rights treaty, which

specifically outlines the rights of a child, “every human being

below the age of eighteen years” (United Nations General

Assembly, 1989). The UNCRC civil, political, economic, social,

health and cultural rights the key violations of African American

foster children’s rights pertain to those already outlined above

in the UDHR; with the key rights that are not honored being

educational, health, and culturally related.

Education and Action

In order to stop the human rights violations against African

American foster children, reform must happen at the micro, mezzo,

and macro level. For the sake of this discussion, we’ll speak to


the micro level as pertaining to the individual, the mezzo level

referring to the community and/or state, and the macro level

describing the nation. I will discuss some of the issues specific

to each level and what is being done to address them. The human

rights violations that African American foster children are

subjected to are deeply connected to the macro or national

history of the racial oppression of African Americans. To start

at the macro level, racial discrimination is still present in our

country and demands reform. The question is how?

Work around ending racial oppression has not ceased since

the time of slavery, making it clear there is still much work to

do. For brevity, I will not go into a detailed history of the

many great Civil Rights leaders that fought tirelessly for racial

equality, but instead I will touch on a few national

organizations working to end racism at the macro level. In 1909,

the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

[NAACP] commenced, “what has become its legacy of fighting legal

battles to win social justice for African-Americans and indeed,

for all Americans” (NAACP, 2013, History, para 1). Other

organizations like the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA)


have also started movements like Stand Against Racism to raise

awareness and ultimately eliminate racism. There are many other

organizations that are contributing to the education and

elimination of racial discrimination at a national level;

however, as Michelle Alexander points out, “There is a

fundamental disconnect today between the world of civil rights

advocacy and the reality facing those trapped in the new racial

undercaste” (2012, p. 247). To that point, I reiterate that we

cannot address some of the problems and expect to solve all of

them. It is important to acknowledge that there are many

organizations that are working towards racial equality, but it is

also time that we stop compartmentalizing problems that are

clearly interconnected. We cannot speak to how far African

Americans have come, when “the child poverty rate is actually

higher today than it was in 1968 [and] Unemployment rates in

black communities rival those in Third World countries”

(Alexander, 2012, p. 246). While racism is a clear contributor to

the human rights infringements of African American foster

children, I believe that we cannot advocate for racial equality


without addressing its impact on all citizens and in all areas of

our society.

Another key contributor to the human rights violations of

African American foster children is the War on Drugs and mass

incarceration; both of which are also macro level issues that

require macro level action. A key organization involved in racial

justice advocacy is the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),

“working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend

and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the

Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in

this country” (ACLU, 2013). ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, “aims

to preserve and extend constitutionally guaranteed rights to

people who have historically been denied their rights on the

basis of race” (2013, Racial Justice). They are actively working

to challenge the School-to-Prison Pipeline and the policies that

contribute to the unjust criminalization of youth. However, it is

important to note that in order to truly stop the mass

incarceration of African Americans, and in turn the

disproportionate number of African American foster children, “we

must face the realities of the new caste system and embrace those


who are most oppressed by it if we hope to end the new Jim Crow”

(Alexander, 2012, p. 229).

Many organizations like Children’s Rights and Children’s

Alliance have been and continue to do the necessary work of

advocating for legislation and policy reform centered on the

mezzo-level of the human and children’s rights of foster

children. Grassroots organizations around the country are also

working specifically to address the disproportionate

representation of children of color in the foster care system.

All of the organizations fighting for social justice on behalf of

African American foster children are doing noble work, and they

are making progress on the issues within the mezzo-level of the

foster children system. Many states have created documents

outlining the rights of foster children and have started taking

steps to uphold them. While most states and organizations still

do not take full advantage of the international human rights

documents in existence, there is hope that the states are in fact

recognizing that the human and children’s rights of foster

children are being violated and require further protection.


On the mezzo level, schools and their administrators have a

deep impact on how African American foster children are treated

and have direct influence on their educational success. That

being said, there are several ways that schools can create spaces

that do not further discriminate against this already oppressed

group. The reality of the foster care system is that foster

children experience an atypical amount of moves,

Only about 2/3 of students in foster care attended thesame school for the entire school year, compared to 90%of the general student population. In addition to this,about 10% of youth in foster care attended 3 or moreschools during the school year, a level of schoolmobility experienced by only about 1% of the statewidestudent population. (Alliance for Children’s Rights,2013)

Currently many school districts do not give partial credit for

mid-term moves, which means that students are not only subject

to, “to los[ing] about six months of learning with each school

transfer,” but also lose any credit they may have earned. This

system directly breaches African American foster children’s human

right against discrimination and their right to education. In

addition, students are often victim to falling even more behind

because many school districts require forms before they will


enroll students, which can take days and sometimes weeks. Foster

children should not be further penalized for situations that are

out of their control.

Another way that we can help honor the human rights of

African American foster children is by making our schools trauma-

sensitive. “Jane Stevens, a health and science journalist who

edits [the website] ACES Too High,” explains that the key to

creating trauma-sensitive schools is that, “‘educators understand

that the behavior of children who act out is not willful or

defiant, but is in fact a normal response to toxic stress. And

the way to help children is to create an environment in which

they feel safe and can build resilience’” (Bornstein, 2013, para

2). The goal of trauma-sensitive schools is to separate the

behavior and the student by recognizing that “punish[ing]

children for misbehavior that they often do not know how to

control” should not be the standard practice (Bornstein, para 2).

This approach means, “helping teachers move away from reflexive

discipline and toward responses that help kids learn how to calm

themselves” (Bornstein, para 8). Creating trauma-sensitive

schools can help all children; especially African American foster


children thrive in school rather than to be further discriminated

against for “acting out” because of their traumatic experiences.

This shift to help students learn to cope with their emotions

will also contribute to less African American foster youth

entering the School-to-Prison-Pipeline by unjustly being placed

into the school discipline system. Ultimately, ensuring “schools

and other social services are sensitized in these ways is not

just about assisting those children who have endured extreme

stress. It’s not just about helping them get through school,

either. It’s about taking care of everyone” (Bornstein, para 21).

On the micro level, teachers and community leaders can

incorporate implicit tools that help empower African American

foster children and contribute to their human right to education.

First teachers must address what stereotypes or biases they have

about African American foster children and educate themselves

about the facts. If teachers cannot recognize their own

assumptions and stereotypes, they may in fact be contributing to

the oppression these youth face. As a teacher it is critical to

take responsibility for any misconceptions you have about African

American foster children and educate yourself. “Antiracist


educators understand racism as learned behavior and, as such, it

can be unlearned" (Ladson-Billings, in Darder, et al., 2009, p.

466). By “unlearning racist behavior” teachers can work to

dismantle these messages in their classroom and inspire self-

reflection and change within their students as well. "Effective

teaching of African American students almost always involves some

recognition and attention to the ways that race and racism

construct and constrict peoples' lives" (Ladson-Billings, in

Darder, et al., p. 461). Once teachers have educated themselves

on African American foster children and the impact racism has had

on their life, it will be easier to build an understanding around

how racism has affected their lives and recognize its impact on

their educational and emotional status.

Additional work that teachers can do to help African

American foster children access their human right of education,

is to recognize that these children may need additional help and

more specialized assignments, as they have likely changed schools

frequently making it challenging to stay on course. Most

importantly, find out if the student has an Individual Education

Plan (IEP) and/or talk to the student and find out what their


educational needs are. African American foster children need

resources, and may not have people in their lives advocating for

them. If teachers want to contribute to their success it is key

that they encourage their students to take advantage of

additional resources like tutoring and other after-school

activities that will these children succeed.

African American foster children also face the obstacle of

curriculum exclusion, as White privilege continues to dominate in

classrooms, excluding people of color (Baumgartner and Johnson-

Bailey, 2008, p. 46). In addition to the racial exclusion,

foster children also face cultural exclusion due to their

atypical family situation. Teachers can work to minimize these

curriculum exclusions by including books in their classrooms that

depict diverse foster families and other “non-traditional” family

structures. In addition to foster focused books, offering books

that depict interracial families can also help African American

foster children feel less out of place in their mostly White

foster families. Teachers can also be sensitive about assignments

that may exclude foster children, i.e. making a family tree or

writing about a family member. Teachers can offer alternative


assignments or change their curriculum to be inclusive of

children from “non-traditional” families. Additionally, teachers

can be observant in how foster children refer to their family; do

they call their parents “my mom and dad” or do they make the

distinction “foster parents;” mirror the language they use or use

general language as much as possible. On par with this, in this

age of technology it is easy to assume that children have access

to technology; however, many do not. Rather than potentially

ostracizing any students by asking them to raise their hands, do

an anonymous handwritten survey to see how many students in your

classroom have access to technology and adjust your assignments

accordingly.

The aim of this research is to shed light on this specific

cycle of oppression by providing human rights activists and

educators with a deeper understanding of the disproportionate

number of disadvantages African American foster children face.

The hope of this is research is that the specific focus on this

demographic will help offer insight into the change that can and

needs to happen at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels in order to

stop the human rights infringements of African American foster


children. While this research serves as a starting point, there

is still much work to be done in the area of racial equality for

all. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “Injustice anywhere

is a threat to justice everywhere.”


References:

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