RE: Overrepresentation of African American children

["Mario Marberry" <marberry@xxxxxx>]

Bill,

The "special issues" that I am referring to, based on the information
that I have on Biracial individuals from a qualitative research study I
conducted this past year, shows that Biracial individuals struggle with
the issue of racial identity development. When I say Biracial, I am
specifically talking of individuals with one parent of African-American
descent and one parent of Caucasian descent.  My study showed that many
Biracial individuals struggle with trying to "find their place" due to
African Americans generally treating them as though they are not "Black"
enough and Caucasians treating them as though they are "too Black".

As I stated previously, many child welfare professionals treat Biracial
individuals as though they are either Black or White and not both.  An
analogy of this would be, we all recognize the color green is a mixture
of yellow and blue but when we refer to green we don't say either "blue"
or "yellow", we give green its own separate "identity". This is not
always the case with Biracial children in the child welfare system. So,
that is what I am referring to...

Mario L. Marberry, MSW, LCSW
Child Welfare Fellow & Doctoral Student
School of Social Welfare
University of Kansas
 
If I'm the descendant of kings and queens, doesn't that make me royalty?

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
[mailto:owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu] On Behalf Of
bill higgins
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 10:02 AM
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
Subject: Re: Overrepresentation of African American children

Mario

Could you clarify - what exactly are "the special
issues confronting biracial children" in the child
welfare system?

Bill


--- "Mario L. Marberry" <marberry@ku.edu> wrote:
> I've been reading the recent ongoing discussion on
> the board regarding the 
> overrepresentation of African American children in
> the child welfare system 
> with some excitement because that is definitely an
> area of interest of mine.
> I 
> think we all acknowledge, or at least some of us do,
> that minorities are 
> overrepresented in the country's child welfare
> system in proportion to their
> 
> percentage of the population, but I don't think we
> make the next step which
> is 
> asking why. We also don't ask the question of what
> we can do to reverse this
> 
> situation.
> 
> I'm curious if anyone on the list is aware of any
> state that is making a 
> concerted effort to address overrepresentation of
> minorities in the child 
> welfare system. What success they have had, what is
> it that they are
> actually 
> doing, and also, a related topic, how do child
> welfare agencies deal with
> the 
> special issues confronting Biracial children in the
> child welfare system?
> The 
> state that I'm most familiar with-Missouri, has
> always just considered 
> Biracial children as African American children. How
> are other states
> tackling 
> this issue?
> 
>  
> Mario L. Marberry, MSW, LCSW
> Child Welfare Fellow
> School of Social Welfare
> University of Kansas
> email: marberry@ku.edu
>  
> If I'm the descendant of kings and queens, doesn't
> that make me royalty?


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