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?Institutional Racism?

Earlier today I indicated (here) some skepticism about underground, hidden, subtle ?institutional and structural? racism. Whether because of luck or co-incidence or simply a terribly confused contact list, I just received an email notice from an assistant editor at Ms. Magazine informing me of an article in the new issue, ??Too Poor to Parent?,? on institutional racism in the U.S. foster care system.?

Curious to learn more about ?institutional racism,? and hoping to find a good example of this undercover, subtle, hard to pin down but nevertheless pervasive evil, I went to the above link, which provides only an excerpt from the article, not the whole thing. Still, it was revealing (or not, if you?re a skeptic ... or an overt or covert racist).

It begins quite dramatically:

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....

A sad story, to be sure, but at this point some of you may be wondering the same thing I was: where, or what, is the ?institutional racism??

What I think is the attempt at answering this question quickly follows:

Black children are the most overrepresented demographic in foster care nationwide. According to the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO), blacks make up 34 percent of the foster-care population, but only 15 percent of the general child population. In 2004, black children were twice as likely to enter foster care as white children. Even among other minority groups, black mothers are more likely to lose their children to the state than Hispanics or Asians?groups that are slightly underrepresented in foster care.

The reason for this disparity? Study after study reviewed by Stanford University law professor Dorothy Roberts in her book Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (Basic Books/Perseus, 2002) concludes that poverty is the leading cause of children landing in foster care. One study, for example, showed that poor families are up to 22 times more likely to be involved in the child-welfare system than wealthier families. And nationwide, blacks are four times more likely than other groups to live in poverty.

Color me dense, but I still don?t get it. The fact that poor people are ?22 times more likely to be involved in the child-welfare system? (why only 22?) than wealthier families is evidence of ?institutional racism??

Similarly, if ?poverty is the leading cause of children landing in foster care? and blacks are ?four times more likely than other groups to live in poverty,? why is the fact that blacks are ?twice as likely to enter foster care as white children? regarded as evidence of ?institutional racism?? Why, that is, are blacks the ?most overrepresented demographic? if poverty is the cause of ?representation? in foster care, blacks are four times more likely to live in poverty, but only twice as likely to be in foster care?

Alas, I?m afraid ?institutional racism? remains too subtle for me to grasp.

Full post as published by Discriminations on May 08, 2008 (boomark / email).