By Dr. Sharon McDaniel, The Chronicle of Social Change, June 23, 2020.
From the moment of their conception, every African American person begins a personal timeline of racism, for their mother experiences racism in that moment — our babies understand and feel in the womb. Our babies also die in the womb. U.S. Newsreported that babies born to Black women are more than three times as likely as babies born to White women to die of preterm birth-related issues.
For Black and Brown people, racism is a daily experience; it is not episodic. There is no beginning or ending. There is only intensity. There are times when it is a more subtle microaggression, such as the glance a Black person receives when walking into a store. Then there are times when it is overt or, as was the case for Mr. George Floyd, violent.
More than 25 years ago, a point on my personal timeline of racism presented itself. At the height of the crack epidemic, when the criminal justice system was breaking apart Black families, it created a pipeline to the child welfare system. The racism fueling incarceration for drug use was severe and unrelenting in all Black and Brown communities and had rippling effects. For example, in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the number of children of color coming into foster care more than doubled.
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