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To our FosterClub members:
This week we watched the news of George Floyd’s death with horror and sorrow. Many of you reached out to us and to each other. We want you to know we hear you. We see you. We stand with you.
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To our FosterClub friends, supporters, and the rest of America:
Like you, we are heartbroken and outraged by the ongoing and persistent violence against Black people in the United States. The recent murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor (and far too many others) expose the ugly, unjust blight of racism which threatens the lives of Black men, women and children across America every day.
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From sleeping in the place you call home, to jogging around your neighborhood, or even as a child playing in a public park, any activity can unjustly cost your life, simply for being Black.
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The pain caused by these daily injustices and the insufferably absent societal progress enrages us. While heightened by the recent events, this pain is representative of decades of oppression. Anger from communities of color is rightfully boiling over. Seeing this play out before our eyes is heartbreaking - moreover, traumatizing for our nation's black children and families experiencing it.
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Weeks ago, during National Foster Care Month, we were horrified by the headline of a 16 year-old Black boy who was restrained to death at a foster care group home in Michigan. For throwing a sandwich. It saddens me to read news reports indicating Cornelius Frederick’s last and too predictable cry was, "I can't breathe!”
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Whether in response to a child like Frederick - or on behalf of the thousands of Black and Brown families who experience the injustices baked into the child welfare system - we must face the reality that racism is firmly planted in the very institutions that hypocritically exist to keep America’s children safe.
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We can no longer stand by and say nothing. Our communities need us to act.
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We need to collectively and actively dismantle structural and institutional racism. We need to use our platforms to speak out against injustice and its impact. Inaction equals complacency and our kids, especially marginalized young people like those in foster care, deserve better.
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FosterClub has the honor of working to support and connect young people through the foster care experience, and we have long centered our work on supporting stigmatized children and youth. We’ll continue to invest in spaces where young people can gather to find peer support. Now is a time in which our kids need this support more than ever.
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We commit to lifting up the stories of young people of color who know all too well racism’s abusive hand within foster care. America must also hear of the harm that is done when families of color come into contact with the child welfare system. These are stories that must be told.
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We will show up.
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With gratitude and hope,
Celeste Bodner
Executive Director, FosterClub
[email protected]