Excerpt from article by David Love.
Black children are placed in foster care and separated from their parents far more often than white children, reflecting a racial disparity in the system that some Black parents are attempting to remedy. A civil rights case recently filed in Minnesota by a Black father who alleges the state kidnapped his children and placed them in foster care shines a light on the scope of what has emerged as a national problem.
Dwight Mitchell, a Black father and a businessman who is a management consultant for multinational corporations, is the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis in late April. The founder of Stop CPSF From Legally Kidnapping Children, Mitchell resides in Piscataway, New Jersey, but he and his children had been living in Minnesota with his family for the purpose of his work. In the complaint, filed against Dakota County, Minnesota, and the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Mitchell says his children were taken to the police station without his consent in 2014 and ultimately two of the three removed from the home after he had spanked his then-10-year-old son as discipline for misbehavior. The children’s babysitter had called child welfare authorities on Mitchell, the lawsuit alleges. The plaintiff was separated from one of his children for five months and the other for 22 months before he was reunited with them. During that time, Mitchell says, he was not allowed to visit his children.
“For 22 months I was allowed no phone calls, no visits, no letters, absolutely nothing for 22 months. It was 22 months of lost smiles, lost hugs and lost time spent together as a family. Almost two years of not seeing or hearing from my middle son. I was not even being told where he was, so every night I went to sleep not knowing where he was,” Mitchell said recently at a press conference at the Minnesota Capitol with lawyers, parents and State Sen. Andrew Matthews (R), referring to the abduction of his children by CPS as “the most traumatic experience” of his life. “Initially I went through a range of emotions: shock, disbelief, finally overwhelming frustration and despair over something as simple as ordinary parental discipline. I still find it hard to believe that something like this happened to me. … I am well-educated, Christian, homeowner, well-traveled, clean-cut, I have my own business and have been an upstanding member of society for 53 years prior to this incident,” he added. During the time of the separation, Mitchell’s once outgoing and confident son had become withdrawn.
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