Multiethnic Interracial Smith College

There is no way that the proportions of Black and Native American children in foster care would ever happen to white children[…] if child welfare systems removed 1 in 10 white children from their families as they have in many Black and Native American communities, the systems would be shut down.

Dorothy Roberts, author of Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare

Black children constitute only 17 percent of the youth population in the U.S, yet make up 42 percent of all children in foster care nationwide. [pdf source download]

There are also more Native American & First Nations children being removed from families of origin today than there were at the HEIGHT of the ‘residential schools’ system.

(via brandx)

also, children of color receive objectively worse care in the system. Less likely to be returned home, higher number of average placements, because of rural vs. urban divide in CPS black and latin@ children in a foster placement may see a social worker as little as once a year, and parents frequently have parental rights terminated whilst trying to get their shit together simply because the social worker is too busy to see them and there is a limitation on how long a child can be placed outside of parental care without being put on an adoption track. 

(via iknowithurtstoburn)

Reblogging because there’s an otherwise okay post making the rounds right now claiming Black children make up only 29% of US foster kids. That’s bullshit derived from the same source that propagates lethal “Reactive Attachment Disorder” ableism that tortures thousands of adoptees/foster kids and frequently ends in murder (Cassandra Killpack being just ONE of the fellow victims I could bring myself to post about).

Idgaf when people don’t get stats right, but if you’re gonna sound off on this epidemic of systemic removal of children of color, AT LEAST do the minimal two-click research that ensures you don’t elevate a source that advocates nothing less than ritualized child abuse. I dare you all to take just a cursory look into what happens at ATTACH and Evergreen Center…

(via brandx)

(Source: , via brandx)

Enter India; the land of the friendly brown people, exotic enough to be sensual, and yet dirty and smelly enough to be real; two essential ingredients in discovery destinations of the wealthy, white seeker. In the world of cheaply bought jet-travel, no other country has been able to harness through clever marketing and strategic imaging; the market made available by the Western search for fulfillment. Be it the old people in the movie Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, or the wry truth speaking slum observing author Katherine Boo of “Beyond Beautiful Forevers”; India has cornered the market on providing rare, jewel like insights into self and spirit to a class of curious Westerners rapt by its complexity and uncertainty. It’s a perfectly brewed cup for those planning a search for the unique and un-replicable, for near every slum is a luxury hotel with the comforts of home, and inside the most rural of villages a helpful man who speaks English. The results are tremendous; India today is a clearly marked stop on the Westerner’s road to authenticity; yoga is the new religion in Brooklyn and chai the favorite drink at any Starbucks.

If India is the land of the friendly brown people, where the battling of filth, heat and mosquitos and such authentically sub-continental discomforts provides the visiting Westerner with a sense of challenges overcome and comforts confiscated; Pakistan predictably is its opposite. If Indians have managed to forge a reputation on welcoming whites seeking their wisdom, stoically swallowing their self-righteous judgments on their society, Pakistan has cornered the market on the sinister, the sly and the un-quantifiably dangerous. The Westerners that do waft into Islamabad (no one even bothers with Karachi or Quetta or Peshawar) are a straggly bunch, aid workers or journalists small in number and scared in nature. They stay in their hotels and count the uncertain seconds to their departures, warily eying everyone they encounter for the suspicious slump of a suicide jacket, or the bumping bulge of a bomb. Scenes from Zero Dark Thirty dominate and stories from Seal Team Six loop in an eternal circle.

Tourism, Terrorism and Empire.

In both cases of stereotyping the two countries, Western imperialism renders people on both sides of the border as voiceless objects, not humans with complex narratives and histories.

(via mehreenkasana)

(via stopwhitewashing)

Perhaps it doesn’t seem like the biggest of deals, but our willingness to accept the casting of anyone with a tan as a
generic ethnic/exotic look is what got us Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl (A Mighty Heart), Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin (Iron Man 3), and Janina Gavankar as Luna Garza (True Blood). People of color aren’t as interchangeable as Hollywood would like us to believe, but Infinitely Polar Bear‘s casting calls prove that that belief has yet to successfully challenged.

Beck reminds us that this systematic problem in casting doesn’t boil down to the idea that all directors, producers, and casting directors are evil racists that need to be stopped. Yeah, something needs to be stopped, but it goes beyond shaking up the people making decisions. We need to shake up our school of thought. We need to stop finding excuses and loopholes for monochromatic casting, even if that means that I crawl through breakdowns every day with the sole purpose of publicly shaming those who deserve it. We need to stop defaulting to white.

Well, if you ever wondered about the mechanics of casting—and how Hollywood casting directors, producers, and directors miss the boat on casting people of color—Racialicious staffer Kendra James demystifies the process in a new column called “The Racialicious Casting Couch.”  (via racialicious)