Showing posts with label african american issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label african american issues. Show all posts

Muslim Woman Denied Foster Parent License Because of Pork-Free Home

Author: lilisokey
A Muslim woman in Baltimore was denied her fostercare license because she does not allow pork in her home. She is Black, a mother of five, married, and a former foster kid herself. She passed screenings and 50 hours of training. The agency is, of course, denying that anti-Muslim bias had anything to do with their decision to deny her, stating that she just seemed "inflexible" during interviews.

I first heard this story on The Daily Show, and I kept hoping it was a joke. In their parody "Pork or Parents" below, they ask 4 foster kids whether they'd prefer A.) their group-home situation with lots of pork, or B.) a stable foster parent home. (Notice they are all Black. Notice they are not laughing.) You can guess their response.  

This is outrageous. The woman lives in a decent neighborhood, she can relate to foster kids in a way many foster parents cannot, she wants to open her home to kids who don't have one. We need more foster parents everywhere in this country. There's a trend I've noticed even with the small agency I work with--the good foster homes that are willing to take any child for any length of time eventually end up with 12+ kids in their home. The need is that bad. 

Let's get our priorities straight.

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Black Hair Blog

Author: lilisokey
Check out this awesome and beauty-licious blog called "Black Girl with Long Hair: Celebrating the Dopeness of Natural Hair," which features haircare tips and styles from naturals around the world.

It's based out of Chicago, where the writers have started sponsoring meet-ups where folks can congregate and celebrate...HAIR. I love it. Celebrating natural/ethnic hair always feels like a type of protest for me, as for many of us it's tangled up in issues of race, femininity, beauty, self-esteem, and identity. Celebration of this hair is celebration of being a Black woman, of not conforming to the straight-hair beauty norm of yore. It is freedom.

Just because...Here is my hair, free and natural, at a writing workshop that celebrates/nurtures minority writers (I always have my hands in my hair when I'm writing for some reason):



Next time I'm in Chicago I am calling Tara, my birth cousin--whose hair is just like mine--and we are gonna check out one of those meet-ups. I'll be calling you too, Ronni!

Now, if I could figure out how to get Pitt to sponsor bringing this author to campus...
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Birthing Project USA

Author: lilisokey
Recently I happened upon this super cool organization called Birthing Project USA. "The Underground Railroad for New Life." It's mission is to encourage better birth outcomes in the African-American community. To support mothers and soon-to-be-mothers (teen mothers in particular, it looks like). Did you know that African American mothers are twice as likely as non-African American mothers to lose a baby in infancy? No one is exactly sure why, but it's speculated that it's at least partly due to the fact that "African Americans, more than any other group, have a significant amount of accumulated life-long stress, which impacts their general health and that of their babies." (First 5la)

The factors that cause this stress, I would be willing to bet, are also linked to the reasons so many African American children later end up living in foster care instead of in their biological family homes. I'm amazed with the courage of people like Trisha (see my previous post), who are struggling under an inept welfare system in this economy and yet still manage to provide for their kids.

It seems to me that small non-profit organizations like Birthing Project have a better impact overall than large federal programs like welfare. They are more individual. Maybe we're afraid that if welfare goes way, those programs won't have the resources that big tax-funded federal programs will, and therefore some people will fall through the cracks. But don't they anyway?
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