Unveiling Forgotten Shadows: The Disturbing Truth Behind America’s Orphan Crisis in Kristen Martin’s Latest Exposé
No one is affected more by this flawed approach than Black and Native American families. And Martin calls out this racism and classism that has defined our country’s attitude to caring for dependent children for centuries. Black children today are overrepresented in foster care, with 10% of Black children going through the foster care system when only 6% of all American children will ever experience it. And while only 12% of American children will ever be the subject of a child maltreatment investigation, one in five Black children will. One need look no further than the Civilization Fund Act which Congress passed in 1819 to fund boarding schools which removed Native children from their families and tribes to “civilize” them or the Indian Adoption Project of 1958 which forcibly placed Native children in white adoptive and foster homes, to understand the disproportionality of treatment of America’s dependent children.
