"Until this country comes to terms with its culpability in allowing widespread poverty to exist, [View All]

... poor black mothers will continue to lose their children to the state. And we will continue to label these women "bad mothers" to assuage our own guilt." - Gaylynn Burroughs



Too Poor to Parent?
By Gaylynn Burroughs, Ms. Magazine. Posted May 23, 2008.


When a recurrent plumbing problem in an upstairs unit caused raw sewage to seep into her New York City apartment, 22-year-old Lisa called social services for help. She had repeatedly asked her landlord to fix the problem, but he had been unresponsive. Now the smell was unbearable, and Lisa feared for the health and safety of her two young children.

When the caseworker arrived, she observed that the apartment had no lights and that food was spoiling in the refrigerator. Lisa explained that she did not have the money to pay her electric bill that month, but would have the money in a few weeks. She asked whether the caseworker could help get them into a family shelter. The caseworker promised she would help -- but left Lisa in the apartment and took the children, who were then placed in foster care.

Months later, the apartment is cleaned up. Lisa still does not have her children.

~ snip ~

But when state child-welfare workers come to remove children from black mothers' homes, they rarely cite poverty as the factor putting a child at risk. Instead, these mothers are told that they neglected their children by failing to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, education or medical care. The failure is always personal, and these mothers and children are almost always made to suffer individually for the consequences of one of the United States' most pressing social problems.

The legal system often provides no haven for these parents. Based on even the flimsiest allegations, they are essentially presumed guilty and pressured to participate in various cookie-cutter services that often do not directly address the concerns that brought them to court. For example, after her children went into foster care, Lisa was asked to attend parenting classes, undergo a mental health evaluation, seek therapy and submit to random drug testing before her children could be returned. But child-welfare authorities did not assist her in repairing her home or finding a new apartment, nor have they gone after her landlord for allowing deplorable conditions.

Race and poverty should not be a barrier to raising one's children. But in order to prevent the entry of poor children into the foster care system, state and federal government must confront poverty-related issues. Until this country comes to terms with its culpability in allowing widespread poverty to exist, poor black mothers will continue to lose their children to the state. And we will continue to label these women "bad mothers" to assuage our own guilt.


(Gaylynn Burroughs is a staff attorney at the Bronx Defenders in New York City. She works in the family defense practice, where she represents parents accused of child neglect.)

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/85281/


"Until this country comes to terms with its culpability in allowing widespread poverty to exist, poor black mothers will continue to lose their children to the state."


And people will continue to be hungry.

And people will continue to be homeless.

And people will continue to go without medical care.

AND PEOPLE WILL CONTINUE TO DIE ON THE STREETS OF AMERICA.

"And we will continue to label these women "bad mothers" ", we will continue to label homeless people as drug addicts, drunks, mentally ill, or just too damn lazy to pull themselves up by their (NONEXISTENT) bootstraps... all these labels "to assuage our own guilt."


I think it's time for this country to come to terms with its culpability in allowing widespread poverty to exist; don't you?


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