How Foster Care Has Stripped Native American Children of Their Own Cultures
I have always been amused by the stereotypes we place on children and teenagers. Having taught secondary school for a decade in my previous teaching career, I am well aware that we, as a society, do not give them the credit they deserve. Rather, magazines like Teen Vogue are mocked and ridiculed for presenting really issue-oriented journalism and op-eds. We continue to underestimate our youth (see the attacks on the school mass shooting victims) and that is to our detriment.
Anyway, Teen Vogue has called upon Ruth Hopkins, a Native American activist, to present the history and drop some knowledge about how foster care has been used, and continues to be used, as an instrument of the state to assimilate, control and, ultimately, decimate the Indigenous populations of the United States.
She makes the point, using the Dakotas as her example, of how 25-35% of Native children are apprehended with 85% of that being placed away from their communities and families.
The ultimate endgame for this, of course, is the “kill the Indian to save the man” policy that the state has pursued since the colonizer arrived.
The article, linked below, is well worth the read.
How Foster Care Has Stripped Native American Children of Their Own Cultures https://www.teenvogue.com/story/foster-care-has-failed-native-american-youth
-photo via article.
hi i am learning again and want to be part into #familyprotection. I really hope to respond to my reply this comment. oh yes, I have also made a family problem posting in my area, please see you may not comply with #familyprotection, and give me suggestions! Thanks
I am curious. I am going to post my observation, and then have a question or two.
First, I do not think you understand what @familyprotection is about. While your post could certainly be looked at as one caring for children, it does not reflect the mission of what is being done here.
Second, I would suggest (as you ask for) you would not post in others posts looking for ways to be involved in something you have not bothered to research beforehand. All one needs do is look through their previous posts to understand what this is about, so posting off topic on others posts is unnecessary.
My main question is why you are so eager to be a part of this? Could it have anything to do with the large upvotes being administered? For some reason, forgive me if I am wrong, I get the feeling it is. If that is the case, I ask with kindness that you look for other areas to extract from as this is a serious issue.
My second question I have for you is in your post that is not tied to this mission, you state that half of the SBD earned will go to this cause. Will you be honoring that even if it remains a post that is mostly invisible?
I notice that in your quest to help the cause, the only upvote from your account went to yourself. Perhaps if you were to look into giving to the community by upvoting the actual post instead of yourself it would be a testament as well that you are not simply looking to profit from this worthy cause.
I have been as kind here as I can, and hope you take my response to heart. Because if I see your misunderstanding continuing in the way it has so far, I will conclude you are simply selfish and spamming on purpose.
Thank you for your attention.
I do not know that the topic in my post is not from this section. But thanks for those of you who have been willing to explain to me. And little makes me understand about this.
With regard to your first question, in my neighborhood (my State of the Region) I see many serious issues to be raised, such as violence against children, domestic violence, and drug abuse, the cause of divorce on children's growing, and there are still many other very serious family issues, but all are closed.
Related to the allegations I expect the upvote you say, I do not want what you say above. If indeed my article deserves to get it, then I will accept it. Upvote problem, if our article is decent and good, then everyone also wants it, maybe even you. Not possible after the upvote, then we ask them to donvote! That's a mistake I think sir!
Your question about half SBD, I will send back to #familyprotection, in my opinion, it is reasonable for a contribution to the community. I say that, because I have seen some comments from #familyprotection:
Well I think it is very appropriate, if I get an award then I will return half to the community. And I'm sorry, I did not spam intentionally.
Thanks again for the attention, and I apologize for any mistakes. Hopefully my post forward is in line with the problem here.
Thank you for writing this post. I was unaware the government was still pushing the tribes around so much, let alone kidnapping their children.
Native Americans in South Dakota are eleven times more likely to have children in foster care the article stated. Here's some things the article left out:
12 percent of Native Americans are heavy drinkers, a whopping 29 percent are binge drinkers.
Native American newborns born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is seven times higher on a national average, some tribes the number is lower and other tribes the number is significantly higher than even that.
When the father of my two son's, who is half Native American went into a rehab program there was some alarming statistics that I learned, eighty percent of all Native Americans are alcoholics, that's a staggering amount. Through out his life he didn't even make it into the ten percent who struggle off and on with alcoholism. His addiction rendered him useless as a father to his two sons and the two daughters he had by another woman. Who knows what may have happened if both of us females had been Native Americans what would have happened with out kids if eighty percent of Native Americans struggle with alcoholism. I have one son who struggles with the issue of alcohol consumption, if it wasn't for me I think he would have been truly worse. He has three children by a girl who is half Native American, she to struggles with alcohol issues...and it was a lot worse before I came into the picture because her father who is full blooded Native American was not only a alcoholic, he was also into drugs, so much so that know his kidneys and liver are failing and he's younger than I. Believe me it was NOT easy influencing her chain of behavior given what a loss she had for a father who also kept them from their mother because each child was worth money from the tribe. She barely knew her mother, whom she also had alcohol problems that attributed to her early death a few years ago. He'd run around and hide the kids from city to city, even hid with them on the Indian Reservation until they themselves became concerned over the childrens care. Love is a hard battle to win sometimes and I am telling you if the trials and tribulations I've been through in my life weren't a lot worse then dealing with her slamming the door in my face I'd never won that battle and goodness knows what would have happened to my grand children. Love wins as they say, my sons and I were a tight knit threesome when they were growing up, I knew the draw of that love was to strong to let alcohol win out and it didn't. They may drink a bit to much for my liking they still take good care of the grand children. My hope is every generation gets stronger against this evil plague Native Americans have, they are the only group where alcoholism is actually classified as a disease, they have a specific gene that turns that ugly spigot on inside of them. Until science may one day come up with a answer, and I hate to say it because Native American people, at least the one's I've been around, are really fun loving docile people, and absence enough sober Native American homes to take care of children, most those children are in a much better place when in foster care.
I appreciate your input here, but I question why foster care is the answer in your eyes. In your own sharing, you reveal that with your love and patience that your sons were able to manage their way through what you describe as an epidemic. I would question if perhaps the energy and resources spent kidnapping children and placing them more often than not in uncaring dangerous environments would not be better spent on trying to find ways to strengthen the homes themselves, as is proven by your testament to be strong enough to conquer tough issues.
Not sure how much of the article you read, but one thing that stuck out to me greatly was often these children are being placed with strangers outside the reservation instead of with competent family members.
I am hopeful that at some point if enough noise is made we can change the dynamics taking place here enough that there is no profit being made by ripping families apart, with more focus being placed on how to strengthen them. While I disagree with some of the points you have made, I appreciate your posting them here so we can have a discussion on how to move forward.
The reasoning would be that if I were to have been a alcoholic myself those changes would not have transpired. My sister and I are the only two out of our family history who didn't developed alcoholism, that may or may not be attributed to our stint in foster care but there was no other positive role models in our lives outside of them. No it wasn't perfect being in foster care especially for my younger sister, she hated it for the fact they made her clean all the time, which she later went on to make a living out of. That in itself is a long story, I have several, but it isn't worth sharing them here because all the premise is to hate CPS, if you don't follow into that hate mongering they won't support your efforts. My brothers on the other hand had different experiences in foster care and quite often got moved from one to the other. They never really stayed anywhere long enough to get a positive role model. They all ended up in prison doing long prison sentences including life. There were six of us, we had one of the biggest case loads our county had seen back then. Even when my mom wasn't well enough and kept sliding back into a drunken stupor they just kept piling the kids back home on her. She wasn't capable of raising kids. She herself had a long family history of alcoholics, it's a hard cycle to break. With upwards of eighty percent of Native Americans being alcoholics that only leaves twenty percent sober enough to take in the other eighty percent of families kids because chances are that in that eighty percent there's a family history of alcoholism. I can't speak for my sister, brothers but I know that my chances for a better life would have been greatly improved if they had left me in foster care. There were times I didn't like it there, the rules were a lot tougher, they didn't open the door and tell you to go play just to get out of their hair while they were partying, it truly amazes me when I think about what I was allowed to do and how far away from home I could wonder when I was six, seven years old, nobody ever came looking for you either if you were gone for hours on end. We knew we'd get in trouble if we didn't wonder back before dark but that was about it. Those kids deserve the right to have a better life, to break the chain, the cycle of alcohol abuse but more then often what happens is they get thrown back at their parents who will forever blame CPS when their kid don't grow up right instead of look at themselves in the mirror. I watched a video of a Canadian Indian activist, very professional lady, had a great job, education, she was taken as a child by CPS and placed with white foster parents. She became a activist when she got older because she felt it was wrong that they did not teach her her Native heritage....so she gets rules and laws changed that will now deny children the same opportunity that she had to develop into a well educated middle class citizen with a good job. So let's say that those rules were in place for her as a child. That her foster parents had to take her and expose her to the environment they took her out of. What do you think the chances are given that teens have a natural rebelliousness about themselves that she wouldn't have been influenced enough to start running away back into that culture of alcohol or drugs? When she grew up not only did she learn about her culture but she learned it from a avenue of respect, she went back minus all the traits of alcoholism and learned from the view sober enough to show her what the true traditions of the culture were not the drunken stupor side. There's a big difference. When I went into foster care in the fifth grade I couldn't even read and most my teeth were decayed. In that one year period I learned to read and they fixed my teeth. I grew a great appreciation for books and was a honor roll student by seventh grade. If I had been left where I was, taken out of what had become a house of prostitution there's no doubt in my mind I would have become a rotted out toothed prostitute on some street corner more than likely in a drug and drunken stupor at that. Not every foster experience is a bad experience, I had a niece who went up for adoption to her foster parents, when she looks back at what happened to her sisters she says I dodged a bullet. She leads a very successful life in Florida and is engaged to a airline pilot. Not every CPS story is a horror story and I know not every one is a great experience but there's no sense in spending hours writing about a dozen stories of different experiences if no one will acknowledge that some experiences will be good.
I have never felt the purpose of these posts was to insinuate all CPS workers, or foster parents are evil beings seeking to destroy families. The purpose from my view is to point out that for those in this system that wish to do so can do so with impunity and there is little recourse any parent can take to stop them (unless they are wealthy). There would even appear to be pressure to make sure children are taken away to keep the budget growing.
I understand you are grateful for your experience in that system, but far to many are not. In fact, statistics show children are in much more danger once in foster care than those who are not. The sense in writing this is to empower families who are being steamrolled and change a system that allows this to happen. Many children being ripped from their homes are not coming from ones as you describe yours was when you were taken. They should not be treated as such. Do you really think parents armed with knowledge of the process is a bad thing, despite your foster friendly views?
I do not believe statistics show that children are in much more danger in foster homes than the ones who are not. I believe that even though my sister was a foster parent to two boys and a girl who came from a home where they where being sexually abused. Once the parents rights were terminated my sister and her husband adopted the kids. The girl hated my sisters guts. (there's more to that, more than likely justifiable, I think my sister did to those kids what her foster parents did to her, she was very strict and made them clean all the time, but like I said it doesn't pay to share these stories on here, though I am sure they'd up vote the hell out of this one if I wrote it) When she was fourteen my mom started noticing how she had become sexually seductive acting towards my sisters husband and my mom said he didn't seem to be discouraging it. I think my sister was in denial of it but one day she finally got up the courage to say she was leaving the house for awhile then sneaked back home quietly and found her husband having sex with her. Her whole life crumbled right before her eyes. Needless to say he went to prison for seven years over it. The girl ended up going to a foster home, the boys ended up staying with my sister and her two girls by her husband. Though my sister was a slave driver in my opinion the boys still ended up graduating high school while there sister ended up being a drop out who ended up getting pregnant. That is one example out of about a dozen examples of different foster homes that I personally have knowledge of that abuse happened. One versus twelve. I do not firmly believe that that statistic is reversed.
As far as keeping the budget growing you need to update your research as the opioid crisis has stripped every available resource from the health and human services budgets. They are so overwhelmed by kids right now there is no need to kidnapped them, they couldn't afford them if they wanted to.
As far as this site not being bias I made a whole three cents (thank you very much) and you made ninety. Case closed.
This post was upvoted and resteemed by @thethreehugs. Thank you for your support of @familyprotection.
some time ago I found a post that in a locality of canada, they took the indigenous children to the city to omit their customs, effectively removing them from their parents
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