Child welfare systems have long harmed Black children like Ma’Khia Bryant

The Washington Post ^ | April 30, 2021 | Crystal Webster

[CheshireTheCat]

Last week, a police officer fatally shot a Black child. Sixteen-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was shot outside her foster home while she was engaged in a fight and holding a knife. The officer who shot her did not attempt to de-escalate the conflict, but instead fatally fired upon arrival. The event has stirred debates about her behavior, with some justifying her death. But these debates miss a key perspective: Ma’Khia was a child who deserved protection. Rather than scrutinizing her behavior, we need to understand the systems that failed her and factored strongly in her death.

And it isn’t just about policing, and the disproportionate violence targeting Black and Latino children by law enforcement officers, as was the case in the recent killings of Adam Toledo, 13, and Anthony J. Thompson Jr., 17. Bryant’s situation was also greatly shaped by her experience in foster care. In the United States, systems of care and protection of children have been racialized at their inception, something that has only intensified between the 20th century and today.

The first orphanages in the United States were established in the antebellum North in cities with growing free Black populations. Yet, these institutions refused to admit Black children. The New York Orphan Asylum, founded in 1809, did not have any Black children and in Philadelphia, the Orphan Society explicitly identified Whiteness as a requirement for admission. In both cities, White Quaker women established private, segregated orphanages for Black children — the Philadelphia Shelter for Coloured Orphans (1822) and the New York Colored Orphan Asylum (1836). And yet these Black orphanages were fundamentally different: Rather than caring for Black children, they sent them out to complete indenture contracts at age 8....

[libertylover]

[black children] experience higher instances of abuse and violence in foster homes, and their parents lose their rights over their children in more cases than Whites.

Tell me again, how is this whitey's fault?

[lepton]

Rather than scrutinizing her behavior, we need to understand the systems that failed her and factored strongly in her death.

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‘Rather than’? Both, yes, but not ‘instead’.

[FreedomPoster]

Lying by omission, it’s what our media does. Along with lying by commission, and probably several other ways.

[lepton]

Where’s the damn parents...Foster parents can be money grubbing leaches.

---

Mother, Father, Aunt, were all around and local.

None of them were considered suitable or acceptable guardians.

[lepton]

She was seconds away from stabbing someone

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Seconds? Less than a second.

[kaehurowing]

Why no reference to her boyfriend in the video who can be seen beating the crap out of another person?

[kaehurowing]

I see we’re supposed to feel guilty for something that happened in 1822.

[lepton]

I’m genuinely surprised that we haven’t seen more calls from misfits on the left to eliminate police video cameras. These leftists originally demanded them because they expected them to lead to a flood of police misconduct charges and a treasure-trove of financial settlements, but they invariably just end up casting certain racial/ethnic demographic groups in embarrassing light. This here was a perfect case in point.

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There was one city that passed a ‘police camera’ mandate, but it was incremental. Two of the things that were noticed was that the complaints against police declined by roughly 90%, and that there was still a supply of specifically black politicians acting outrageously and wrongfully accusing the police of misconduct.

[hanamizu]

“Sixteen-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was shot outside her foster home while she was engaged in a fight and holding a knife.”

---

Notice that the WP writer has Ma’Khia merely ‘holding’ a knife as opposed to trying to plunge into Pink Girl’s neck.

[Bluebeard16]

I want to stop reading when they capitalize the letter B. It’s just more PC BS and it must be a liberal writing the piece so why should I bother to read what they think?

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

“ Last week, a police officer fatally shot a Black child. Sixteen-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was shot outside her foster home while she was engaged in a fight and holding a knife.”

The fat POS was trying to kill someone.

[xrmusn]

I want to stop reading when they capitalize the letter B. It’s just more PC BS and it must be a liberal writing the piece so why should I bother to read what they think?
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

I understand your position but I do capitalize Black and or White since by saying Black we are not ‘forced’ to say African American and in a sense it is not much different than when we refer to someone who is Irish or Italian or German etc etc etc.

Just my thought...

[bdfromlv]

i was in a laundromat doing my biweekly loads and overheard 2 late 30’s blackmen discussing ex's and kids when one of the fathers said he sent his 2 kids to Texas for the summer to stay with mom, the other guy said aren't you worried and he said no, I got them insured.

[blueplum]

because de-escallation means waiting for the knife to penetrate the chest of a victim and then saying, “can we talk?”

[BiteYourSelf]

She wasn’t just holding the knife,she was attempting to use it.🙄

[BiteYourSelf]

She has probably had at least one abortion.

[BiteYourSelf]

😏

[MarvinStinson]

Last week, a police officer fatally shot a Black child. Sixteen-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was shot outside her foster home while she was engaged in a fight and holding a knife. The officer who shot her did not attempt to de-escalate the conflict, but instead fatally fired upon arrival.

HOW MANY LIES in three sentences?

[MarvinStinson]

Crystal Webster, PhD, Historian, Scholar,

[sauropod]

Hey Crystal, you moron. That dear darling child was in the act of stabbing another child!

You moron.