We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America

It’s not like I did not know the foster care system in America was bad, I just figured it was because, well, just look around you. But it will never cease to amaze me just how depraved our society here in the “good ol'” USA is when it comes to its treatment of children who are not a part of the dominant culture. I have to commend Roxanna Asgarian for digging deeper into this horrifying story: when six Black children were murdered by two white women who adopted them. I remember the sensational headlines splashed across the internet. A despicable tale in its own right, but the story of how those children came into the foster care system and the failures of that system take front and center here. Asgarian focuses on the families ripped apart by poverty and the utter injustice of it all is so staggering I seriously don’t know how some people who shape our policies sleep at night, I guess on a bed of dollars while the rest of society is forced to fight for scraps and just a single shred of dignity, if they even get that. She also dives into the history of the foster care system and its seedy history of ripping marginalized families apart, for example ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Act) is highlighted here and discussed at length.

This is important reading and I hope you read it, because these children and their families demand to be heard and seen. The LEAST we can do is listen.

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