L.J. Writes

During this post I was also thinking about the Hart case, where two white moms adopted and kept six Black children despite multiple allegations of beating and starving them, and killed them all in an apparent murder-suicide last year. Three of the children had an aunt who wanted them badly but had her rights terminated for letting their mom (who was ordered to have no contact with the children due to drug problems) babysit them due to having to work an extra shift on short notice. I can't wrap my mind around it--to take children from a loving relative who made an ill-considered choice in a tight spot, rush their adoption to white parents, then to ignore multiple allegations of abuse while these children were being systematically terrorized and starved... it just doesn't bear thinking about. Devonte, Jeremiah, and Ciera would be alive and happy today if the Texas officials hadn't dealt so unreasonably and so abruptly with their aunt. Their family had the children stolen from them by a racist child welfare system, and these children had their well-being and their very lives stolen by a system that constantly believed their white abusers over them. None of this was done out of scientific ignorance of the psychological effects on children. It is systematic and deliberate cruelty, and it's marginalized families and their children who pay the price.