The Black Informant

Daddy government cannot deliver for Black children

State closes “flawed” office to help black children in welfare system
By Maureen O’Hagan

Seattle Times staff reporter

The Office of African-American Children’s Services — once considered a national model in the way it tried to address the high number of black kids in the child-welfare system — has officially closed.

The state office, touted as a promising new concept when it opened in 2003, shut down in March, after a federal civil-rights investigation deemed it “deeply flawed.”

The very thing that set it in motion — the apparent differential treatment of kids based on race — also led to its downfall. The federal government said Washington can’t transfer children into programs simply because they’re black.

The closure was lauded in some circles, where OAACS was seen as discriminatory or ineffective. But its demise also has deeply disappointed supporters, who saw it as their best hope for addressing troubling patterns.

“I think they had a very strong practice model, and I think they had strong support from the community,” said Nancy Roberts-Brown, who works with the King County Coalition on Racial Disproportionality. “They did not have … strong management and administration that was able to benefit from a really good idea.”

Welfare concerns

The idea behind OAACS (pronounced “oasis”) came from decades of concern about African-American kids in the child-welfare system, according to Germaine Covington of the Black Child Development Institute’s Seattle office.

Nationally, black kids wind up in foster care at a higher rate than white kids and tend to languish there longer. According to a 2004 study, African-American kids make up 30 percent of kids in long-term foster care but only 7 percent of King County’s population.

In 1999, the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) opened a pilot project that would handle cases involving African-American kids in King County. With such intense focus, the thinking was, families could get the services they needed and their kids wouldn’t get lost in the system.

Four years later, OAACS opened as a full-blown office. Workers were to receive training in “cultural competency” — the social-work equivalent of diversity training — to deal more effectively with African-American families.

And most cases involving African-American kids were transferred to that office, no matter where in the county they originated. At one point, the office juggled 800 cases.

From the beginning, however, there were problems. Caseloads were high. Turnover was unstoppable. New managers came and went. (more…)

Sorry, But This Requires More Than A Time Out

Tear that butt up!

Just Tear it up!

There are a lot of bruthas that can identify with this

Good fathers ‘powerless against vengeful mothers’
By Tom Peterkin

Decent fathers are left powerless to see their estranged children if vengeful mothers are determined to prevent access, a senior judge has admitted.

Lord Justice Ward attacked child access law after presiding over a case that saw a “vicious” mother falsely accuse her ex-husband of sexually abusing their child.

He spoke out after telling the father that there was nothing he could do to help him re-establish contact with his daughter after his ex-wife turned her against him.

The man’s 14-year-old daughter, who cannot been identified, had been influenced by a “drip, drip, drip of venom” from his ex-wife, who wanted to deny him his paternal rights.

[…]

In London’s Civil Appeal Court, Lord Justice Ward said: “The father complains bitterly, passionately, and with every justification, that the law is sterile, impotent and utterly useless.

”But the question is ‘what can this court do?’ The answer is nothing.”

The parents were briefly married in the 1990s and their daughter was a baby when they parted.

Lord Justice Ward said it was “impossible” that the girl could remember being abused and it was obvious it was something she had been told and believed.

In 1997 a judge ruled that allegations of sexual abuse were “wholly unfounded”. (more…)

Linking School Suspensions to …Poverty?

At least that is what Des Moines school board member Jonathan Narcisse believes as reported in the following article.

Hoover seen reflecting state in black student suspensions
By RACHAEL STERN • CO-EDITOR, HOOVER CHALLENGER

Statistics from the Iowa Department of Education released earlier this year told a story familiar to elected officials who are black: The Des Moines school district, like the state collectively, has a disproportionately high number of black student suspensions.

Hoover High School Principal Doug Wheeler wasn’t surprised by the reports, and said that the same trend is present at Hoover, one of five Des Moines high schools.

“I’m sure that our percentage of suspensions here is probably predominantly African-American. The one thing that needs to be considered is that one-fourth of our school is African-American,” Wheeler said. “That being said, I’m sure there’s still a disproportionate number of African-American suspensions.”

Des Moines school board member Jonathan Narcisse was among those immediately concerned by the outcome of the studies. Narcisse, who is black, said that high levels of poverty in Des Moines could be one of the causes of the high suspension number for black students, and said in an interview that 80 percent to 90 percent of students in the district live in poverty.

“The economic and social conditions facing African-Americans in Iowa are brutal and coming out of that brutality is a presence, a behavior, an interaction, an engagement in our schools that often leads to suspensions and expulsions,” Narcisse said, “particularly as it relates to the lack of safety and security many African-American children feel as they experience acts of bullying, acts of intimidation, acts of inter-community violence.”

Now check this out.

Narcisse gave a conflicting opinion of his views on poverty causing problems within the district in a Feb. 28 e-mail, in which he stated: “Poverty is not the reason we are failing so miserably as a district.”

In an interview, Narcisse said that he didn’t believe low income played a part in suspensions.

“If we’re saying that poor kids are more violent or disruptive, I don’t think you can draw that,” he said.

Narcisse also claimed a different statistic for students living in poverty in an article he posted online March 8 at www.accountabledesmoines education.com. It said that 60 percent of Des Moines students live in poverty.

[Link]

The article goes on to quote another school faculty member who not only believes in the poverty-suspension link, but goes on to add that two parents working in Black, low-income homes may not have the time to help their children with schoolwork.

I guess what tires me about that excuse (because that is what it is) is that the same explanation rarely applies to other races. Also, this explanation relies too heavily on the assumption that many of these kids are coming from a TWO-parented home.

Parents who really care about their kids will make the time to help them. That applies to everyone, regardless of economic status. This dumbing-down of poor Black people by linking bad behavior to poverty has got to stop.

Cosby Teams Up With The Judge

Cosby, Tucker join Fulton judge in message to black youths
CHRISTIAN BOONE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

(Image: AJC.com)

When Fulton Superior Court Judge Marvin Arrington got mad, an icon listened.

On Thursday, Bill Cosby headlined a “fireside chat” with Arrington and Atlanta-born comic Chris Tucker at Benjamin E. Mays High School. The packed auditorium held mostly at-risk high school students and their parents — the people Cosby is trying to reach with his message of tough love for the African-American community.

“I’m blunt, and I’m going to stay blunt,” he said, drawing cheers from the crowd. Cosby’s approach has its critics, but he’s unbowed.

Barack Obama says “Yes, we can.” Cosby’s message: “Yes we should.”

“The man from Nigeria comes here, he’s here two months, and what does he do?” he asked. “He goes to community college. He’s learning a second language while he drives the cab. What are our children doing? Practicing a first language that only they can understand.”

Arrington has become a recent convert to Cosby’s unflinching gospel of personal responsibility. The judge’s tipping point came earlier this month after he surveyed yet another round of mostly African-American perpetrators awaiting sentencing.

“I was tired of being sick and tired,” he said.

He responded by asking the white people in attendance to leave so he could speak frankly to the 50 or so young, black defendants. Arrington said he was following his grandmother’s admonition not to air the community’s dirty laundry in front of whites, but apologized soon after for a “bad judgment call.”

He’s since reconsidered, as reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, Arrington said. Cosby was among those cheering.

“This man cleared the courthouse because he was embarrassed,” the television trailblazer said. “The problem we have is apathy.”

He contacted Arrington, telling the judge he wanted to come to Atlanta “to help you in your fight to turn these young people around.” (more…)

Legacy of slavery or just a poor self image?

Recently, I came across the following video (I believe this is the program my wife was telling me about last week–just thinking out loud) that caused me to take some pause. Check it out.

Not too long ago I took my kids (and the neighbor’s kids) to the local toy store. My daughter was the only girl in the group, so I stuck with her as she browsed the “girl section” (as she calls it). For whatever reason, I decided to do an impromptu doll test on her. I took two of the same Barbie dolls (one was White and the other was Black) and sat them on the shelf next to each other. I asked her some of the same questions the brutha on the video asked those children. Each time, without hesitation, my daughter chose the Black doll.

Now I do remember not too long ago talking about on this site how for a short time my daughter used to tell us that she wanted hair like her White classmates. My wife and I (mostly my wife) spent some quality time with her reinforcing the uniqueness of her hair. No we didn’t strap her down to a chair in a dark room while repeatedly showing her the first 15-20 minutes of the movie Coming to America. Instead, my wife would invite her to look through some of her Black hair magazines, Essence and Ebony to show her images of other beautiful Black women and their **cough** weaves **cough** (I mean) hair . Today, she is a very confident girl who loves her hair.

While the portrayal of Blacks in the media is something that should never be taken lightly, as a parent I do not rely on the media to help formulate self esteem for my kids. Getting a Black face in front of Vogue magazine is not nearly important to me as a child that does not have a support system who can help formulate a sense of worth. And Lord knows, we have MANY children who do not have such a support system.

The other day I ran into a gentleman (Black, probably in his mid-50’s or so) who began to tell me and my friend who was with me at the time about how just when he was about to enjoy his golden years with his wife, his son fathers a child that he simply is not in the frame of mind to care for. Long story short, this gentleman had to intervene and get custody of the baby because A. the mother was not caring for the child at all (feeding the child spoiled milk, feces around the apartment, etc.), B. The son did not want to work–leaving the child in a total state of uncertainty. So this gentleman did what any caring parent would probably do in the same situation–he fought to get custody of his grandchild. My heart really went out for this brutha because grandparents are not supposed to be raising kids. As a parent of two young kids myself, I know how much time they can take away from mommy and daddy’s time. Since he lives in my community, I offered to help watch this child from time to time (with my wife of course) so that they can have at least a few hours or so to steal away with each other. While I cannot be a father to this child, I can certainly do something to help this child feel some sense of worth. It may not be much, but it is better than nothing.

The doll test will always be something that will cause our blood to boil. But unless we are willing to hold each other accountable to the plight of these kids and not mainstream media, the issue of poor self image will always haunt our offspring.