On Dec. 3, a 28-year-old black mother lost her parental rights to her four children – ages 1 to 9 – in a Minnesota courtroom, just outside the Twin Cities. Instead of opening presents with their mother, the children spent Christmas with a white family two hours away.

Across the country, black parents – like this mother, whom we will call Jane R. to protect her privacy – are more likely to lose custody of their children than their white, Asian and Latino peers. While African Americans account for 13 percent of the U.S. population, their sons and daughters make up 23 percent of the 442,995 children in foster care.

According to an important 2017 study, 53 percent of all black children will be investigated as potential victims of child abuse by age 18, 16 percentage points higher than the rate for all children combined.

[For more on this story by Daniel Heimpel, go to https://chronicleofsocialchang...black-families/33681]