Broken Promises: How Systemic Racism and Economic Divestment Endanger Black Children in America
- Karen Brittingham-Edmond
- Sep 3
- 6 min read
Echo Press Investigative Report
Child Abuse In America
2 September 2025
Foreword: Foster care and family services play a critical role in safeguarding children from environments where they are endangered by adults—whether parents, relatives, or strangers—who, due to mental or physical unwellness, lack the empathy and capacity to protect, nurture, and refrain from harming their children. Within the Black community, a deeply traumatized subpopulation continues to suffer the generational effects of chattel slavery, systemic mistreatment, miseducation, and internalized abusive behaviors inherited from their ancestors' enslavers. This legacy, compounded by the absence of reparations, persistent poverty, and the psychological scars of Jim Crow and segregation, has fostered cycles of destructive behavior that too often place children at risk. It is imperative that intervention services act decisively to remove children from abusive situations, regardless of race, and provide culturally sensitive alternatives that address the root causes of trauma and systemic racism. This report examines the urgent need for such interventions, recognizing both the historical context and the ongoing challenges faced by vulnerable Black families, and advocates for solutions that break the cycle of abuse and ensure every child's right to safety and dignity. Miss. Karen Brittingham-Edmond Editor/Publisher Echo News TV LLC 09/03/2025
Child Abuse Prevention: In a formal review of the persistent and deeply rooted challenges facing Black American families, Echo Press examines the mechanisms of systematic disenfranchisement that continue to undermine the well-being and future of Black children. This report focuses on three interlocking systems: economic divestment, systemic racism in foster care, and the historical legacy of mass incarceration—each contributing to the ongoing vulnerability of Black youth.
Economic Divestment: A Deliberate Withholding of Opportunity
Economic divestment remains a central pillar of Black disenfranchisement. For decades, Black communities have faced targeted withdrawal of investment, discriminatory lending practices, and corporate downsizing. These actions, often justified under the guise of economic strategy, have systematically stripped Black neighborhoods of resources, jobs, and opportunities for advancement. The result is a cycle of poverty that disproportionately affects Black families, limiting access to quality education, healthcare, and housing. This economic marginalization is not accidental; it is the product of policies and practices designed to maintain racial hierarchies and suppress Black prosperity.
What is downsizing? The concept of corporate downsizing originated in the United States during the 1980s and became more widespread in the 1990s & 2000s. It emerged as a strategic managerial approach for companies that were resistant to civil rights enforcement and the implementation of affirmative action during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Affirmative Action enforcement provided highly educated Black citizens with opportunities to apply for corporate positions that had previously been inaccessible due to systemic barriers linked to their ancestry as descendants of individuals who survived American chattel slavery.
The implementation of Affirmative Action also allowed long-term disadvantaged Black teenagers plus adults to apply to and be accepted by historically White colleges and universities. These institutions provided curricula and resources that empowered and engaged Black American students, enabling them to thrive and acquire the skills and knowledge necessary for emerging careers that require a college degree. That usually was reserved for white citizens and insourced immigrants from outside countries whose caste thinking beliefs aligned with White Confederate philosophy and or ethics, such as child molestation and human trafficking. Access to these educational resources helped break the cycle of perpetual poverty faced by a historically marginalized Black American population
Systemic Racism in Foster Care: Disproportionate Harm to Black Children
The American foster care system, intended as a protective measure, has instead become a site of systemic harm for Black children. Black youth are removed from their homes at rates far exceeding those of their white peers, often for reasons rooted in poverty rather than neglect or abuse. Once in the system, these children are more likely to be placed with foster parents who lack cultural understanding or, in some cases, harbor explicit racial biases. The risk is compounded by the documented history of abuse—including sexual exploitation—by some foster caregivers, a legacy traceable to the abusive treatment of Black children during chattel slavery. The foster care system, rather than serving as a refuge, too often perpetuates trauma and instability for Black children.
Mass Incarceration: The Pipeline from Childhood to Confinement
Mass incarceration is another instrument of systemic disenfranchisement, disproportionately targeting Black men and women and, by extension, their children. The removal of parents through aggressive policing and sentencing policies destabilizes families and increases the likelihood that children will enter foster care. This “cradle to prison pipeline” is not a coincidence but a predictable outcome of laws and practices designed to criminalize Black existence. The cycle is self-perpetuating: children of incarcerated parents are more likely to experience poverty, educational disruption, and further involvement with the criminal justice system.
The Attack On Black America's Women
Black women have been stereotyped as neither man nor woman but a thing per racist ideology administered by pedophile North American slave masters since the era of chattel slavery. The assertion that Black women were not considered female was linked to differences in hair texture, body structure, and beauty standards compared to White women in the Western Hemisphere. This perception enabled perverse and criminally inclined penal colonists to justify the murder, plus abuse of her children, both boys and girls, and to label her as a "beast of burden falsely."
Darwin, who was affiliated with the Protestant Unitarianist religion—now referred to as Unitarian Universalism—embraced a belief system that rejected the doctrines of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Darwin's developed philosophy should have served as a warning sign to self-proclaimed American Christians during the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s.
But because Darwin's man-made science claimed that Africans were animals and not human beings (totally ignoring what the bible preaches) justified colonists' rights to kidnap, murder, and rape African men, women, and children. And this is why North Americans and their Spanish allies deemed Darwin a genius for being able to conjure up such a universal lie.
Historical Context: The Roots of Systemic Harm
The origins of these interconnected systems can be traced to the era of American chattel slavery, when Black children were routinely separated from their families and subjected to abuse by slaveholders. The ideology that justified such cruelty persists in modern institutions, manifesting as policies that continue to devalue Black life and family integrity. The legacy of penal colonists and their descendants, who established and maintained these systems, is evident in the ongoing overrepresentation of Black children in foster care and the criminal justice system.
Legal and Policy Implications: The Need for Immediate Reform
The evidence is clear: Black children are systematically disadvantaged by state-sanctioned practices that remove them from their families and place them at risk of further harm. This constitutes a violation of their fundamental rights to safety, family, and cultural identity. Legal scholars and advocates, including Dorothy E. Roberts, have documented the racial biases embedded in child welfare and criminal justice policies. These systems fail to address the root causes of family instability—poverty, discrimination, and lack of support from their own people, plus their ancestrally founded institutions, i.e., Churches, NAACP, Urban League, Legal Defense Fund—while disproportionately punishing Black mothers and children.
"Born Again Slave Syndrome (B.A.S.S.)" Hypothesis
In her study "Prison, Foster Care, and the Systemic Punishment of Black Mothers," Dorothy E. Roberts articulates several complaints regarding the systemic issues faced by Black mothers. One key concern highlighted in the study is the way in which institutional structures, such as the foster care system and the criminal justice system, plus state-led homelessness enforcement, disproportionately target and punish Black mothers. Roberts argues that these systems often operate under the assumption that Black mothers are unfit or negligent, leading to unjust or systematic enforcement of separations from their children. This complaint underscores a broader critique of the societal and institutional racism that perpetuates negative stereotypes and reinforces cycles of disadvantage for Black American families.
Echo Press calls for immediate legislative and policy reforms to:
End the disproportionate removal of Black children from their homes.
Prevent the placement of Black children with foster or adoptive parents who do not honor their humanity or cultural heritage.
Address the root causes of family instability through economic investment, access to long-term, non-credit-based housing, community support, and equitable access to resources. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/homestead
Dismantle the cradle to prison pipeline by reforming disciplinary practices in schools and ending the criminalization of Black youth.
Create entirely state-funded and Black American Church-owned orphanages operated by The African Methodist Episcopal Church and The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of North America, that will provide an alternative and nurturing environment for Black children at risk of foster care, away from abuse and further harm.
Conclusion: A Call to Action
The survival and future of Black America depend on collective action to dismantle these oppressive systems. Every Black child lost to foster care or incarceration is a loss to the community and a violation of justice. It is the duty of Black citizens, allies, and policymakers to demand accountability, invest in Black families, and protect the rights and dignity of Black children.
Echo Press remains committed to exposing injustice and advocating for systemic change. The time for passive observation has passed. The answer must be action—now and for generations to come.
For the sake of every Black child, every Black mother, and the promise of a just future, we must stand together and say: No more. Not our children. Not our future.
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