By Brianna M. Harvey and Kenyon Lee Whitman, The Chronicle of Social Change, July 8, 2020
The current Black Lives Matter uprisings have the nation activated. Many white people are now realizing police brutality and how it disproportionately impacts Black people. As of June 10, five of the 10 books on the New York Times nonfiction best-selling list were books on racial and social justice, signaling that people are beginning to engage with what Black people have been trying to survive since forever — racism.
When Black people are killed by police, people march and protest, and typically the national narrative is a call for more police trainings on racial bias and de-escalation. What is unique about this moment is that folks are actually discussing more drastic action, including police abolition. Let’s keep in mind that police and prison abolition is nothing new, scholars such as Angela Davis have been writing about this for years. As more individuals begin to engage in the project of prison abolition we must also seek to dismantle other forms of state sanctioned violence against families.
Similar to policing and prisons, Black families have also been disproportionately impacted by the child welfare system for decades. Black children are overrepresented in every aspect of child welfare. Black children are more likely to be removed from their home after a child abuse referral is received, they are less likely to be reunified with their birth family after removal from the home, and they are most likely to have longer stays in foster care in comparison to children of other races.
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