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Analysis Of Torn Apart: The Marginalization Of The Child Welfare System

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The Marginalization of The Child Welfare System
Many people are familiar with the struggles of black Americans and the marginalization they continually suffer through. The events of slavery and Jim Crow had clear implications on the community's opportunities and socio-economic conditions. Nevertheless, what many people don’t know is that the welfare system has a hand in propagating the disparities between this community and the broader society. The detrimental effects of the Child Welfare System are counterintuitive. After all, how could a system designed for ensuring the welfare of children possibly be detrimental?
In the book, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families – And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World the …show more content…

The main role of parents is to socialize and provide for their offspring, and the Child Welfare System can hinder parents from fulfilling these roles. The stigma resulting from being labeled a “child abuser” due to a mistake made in the past can restrict an individual’s earning potential, keeping many black families in the cycle of poverty. This lack of social mobility consequently limits the opportunities afforded to the individual’s offspring. Furthermore, childhood poverty is proven to impact brain development. Moreover, the developmental damage sustained by poverty has been shown to extend well into adulthood (Murphy, 2014). Meaning in many ways, preventing parents from moving past their mistakes is also a condemnation of their …show more content…

This illustrates how so much of the system seems to come down to personal discretion, which is often influenced by bias, based on racial prejudice. This bias can set off a chain of events that can tear a family apart and alter the course of a child’s life forever. Many of the interactions case workers have with the parents of children occur in very tense situations. Tension often arises because parents feel that their rights are being infringed upon. Caseworkers tend to show up to the homes of families uninvited. They are also not required to leave if the parents ask them to. This can understandably be a very frustrating situation, causing contentious interactions between all parties involved. This can lead to authorities having a distorted view of a person’s character, and a tendency to form misconceptions about a child’s living

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