Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare

by Dorothy Roberts

Shattered Bonds is a stirring account of a worsening American social crisis--the disproportionate representation of black children in the U.S. foster care system and its effects on black communities and the country as a whole. Tying the origins and impact of this disparity to racial injustice, Dorothy Roberts contends that child-welfare policy reflects a political choice to address startling rates of black child poverty by punishing parents instead of tackling poverty's societal roots. Using conversations with mothers battling the Chicago child-welfare system for custody of their children, along with national data, Roberts levels a powerful indictment of racial disparities in foster care and tells a moving story of the women and children who earn our respect in their fight to keep their families intact.

Genres: Nonfiction, Race, Social Justice, Social Work, Fostering, Adoption, Sociology

352 pages, Paperback

Published December 25, 2002

About the author

Dorothy Roberts is a scholar, professor, author and social justice advocate, and currently the 14th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She has published a range of groundbreaking articles and books analyzing issues of law, race, gender, health, class and social inequality, including Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (1997), Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (2002) and, most recently Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century (2012).

Reviews

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I read Dorothy Roberts (fatal invention) she rocked my world, and she’s done it again! I’m a baby obsessed freak who’s excited about family planning, and I really really wanted to read more critical takes on the foster care system, and if that is also you then this is absolutely it. Also I heard that she might be updating this book, and that prospect is very exciting to me. Because while this book was rad it wasn’t perfect. I thought it started a little slow, but once I was about 70 pages in I started annotating and couldn’t stop.


I was absolutely fascinated on the history of federal policy and how it shapes child welfare, and her connections to the indigenous American resistance movement to the adoption of native children by white families. I learned so much about this incredibly flawed system and how it upholds white supremacy by surveilling and disrupting the Black family unit, which she connects to the legacy of enslavement, when separating Black families was a lethal tool of white supremacy. The middle 100 pages and last chapter were especially good to me! She mostly drew from social work academics, psychologists, Black studies scholars, and her interviews with Chicago parents and other kin seeking reunification (love that she’s based out of chicago, so I can really see the home turf application) but I felt like I was missing the perspective of current and former foster youth. Hopefully that is something to be updated, as the voices of former foster children/ adult adoptees are often underrepresented in these types of works!

Anyway, provided tons of food for thought on a subject I knew little about, especially as a white future parent who is unsure how to navigate the various options of family-making

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent analysis of the US child welfare system and how ridiculously broken it is. While the general view of foster care is that children are only taken from their families when they are abused or grossly neglected, the truth is that many children (especially black children) are taken from their families for no reason other than that they are poor. [return][return]And because regardless of how true it is for individual cases, as a whole, biological parents are coded as black and foster parents are coded as white, so the government is willing to spend tons of money on foster parents (for example, in California, not only foster parents, but also parents who adopt through the state get paid monthly for each child until they turn eighteen, plus the children can go to any UC or Cal State school for free), but is unwilling to instead spend that money on helping poor families so that their kids aren't taken from them in the first place simply because they had too small an apartment or couldn't afford a babysitter or had no food in the house or were homeless.[return][return]The book lays out how the current system ends up harming not just children by taking them away (often unnecessarily) from their families but the black community in general, and the unconsious racism that drives the decisions to favor placing children in foster care and terminating parental rights rather than working to keep families together.

[Quin Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this gripping account of the racial injustices perpetuated by the child welfare system, Roberts powerfully argues for a transformation of child welfare policy from its current punative, "rescue-based" orientation towards a vision of community empowerment and collective concern for the well-being of all children. Detailing the coercive functions of the child welfare system on Black families, as well as it's links to racist criminal (in)justice and stigmatized welfare systems, Shattered Bonds is a must read for anyone invested in an intersectional feminist future for all families.

[Gaylynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was like Dorothy Roberts followed me around every day at work. Crazy and haunting and frustrating and outrageous. This book is a must-read.

[Kaileigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dorothy Roberts has written a second genius work of scholarship with specific implications for my life - the other book being "Fatal Invention" which concerns the use of race in genomics science. This book, on foster care, feels bizarrely up-to-date for a book written more than 15 years ago. That's in large part due to Robert's accurate predictions of the future. She doesn't need to have seen the last 15 years play out to perfectly predict the consequences of what was happening in the late 90s and early 2000s.

This is a "required reading" book for foster care, sadly I haven't seen it being promoted nearly as much as things like "The Connected Child," which is trash and stuffed with pseudoscientific nonsense. Not that this book will teach you how to parent. Hopefully it will teach you enough about the system so that you can make careful choices about how to resist and reform it - and probably think very carefully about your choice to participate in the system at all.

I'll admit, as a white foster parent this was at times a challenging read on a moral level. There were times where it illuminated aspects of my experiences that were deeply uncomfortable for me. Being a foster parent is a lot like being a cop in the current political climate. Too many of the people who are all-in on the system are deeply racist, and your presence as a participant helps prop up a racist and deeply destructive anti-Black institution. I came away feeling there are moral ways to participate, but just barely. I think engaging morally means engaging aggressively as a reformer, and striving relentlessly to counteract the negative impact of the institution has on families, communities and directly on children. I hope I can rise to the challenge. It's really the book every person associated with foster care needs to read and understand.

[Tiffany Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading for anyone in child welfare. While one or two things have improved since this was initially published, there is so much people need to be aware of.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A crucial book on racist state control over black families. Does not, unfortunately, have much conception of a care system that isn't based on control and is almost totally devoid of the voices of the young ppl who are pushed into foster care or adoption.

[Asher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned so so much from this.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice review of data about institutionalized racism in the foster care system by a law professor. Best chapter was the one on the history of welfare programs. Also important was the point about how many children are taken away directly as a result of poverty - under the rubric of "neglect" - when there isn't any harm done to kids by the parents, but, for example, they live in a home that is not up to code and don't have money to fix it. Somehow the system has come to the conclusion that expensive and damaging foster care is better than a couple hundred bucks to fix dangerous wiring.

My main complaint about this book is that it wasn't sure whether it was an academic book or a general readership one. Certainly the cover and the way it was styled made it look like a general readership one, but the actual book read much more like a textbook. Despite the content, very non-polemic, just the facts, ma'am.

There were many things mentioned in passing that sounded like fascinating bits of history for the general reader (for example, something about placements based on skin tone and hair texture) that unfortunately weren't fleshed out in favor of more data, and only treated with a reference to source material that is somewhat obscure in an endnote. Still a good read.

[Tannya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Again a required text book for one of my classes, and again a very good book. When you have 4 kids and life seems overwhelming reading books like this make me stop complaining, yelling at my kids, or not appreciating my husband. That might be one of the greatest aspects of reading really tough things like this book, in doing a real look at how great my life is in comparison to the many women in this book. Dorothy Roberts is a very compelling writer, although if you don't want to hear about issues of race you won't like this book. She is a successful and talented attorney and writer who does so much to help single mothers. I liked the book, however, it is a little bit confusing, and really took some teasing out for me to do my final essay on it.

[Em · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roberts is occasionally a bit too extreme (and i think overreaches her hypotheses) but it's still an interesting read, and a good look at some of the problems within the current child welfare system. (If you're looking for an overview, I'd recommend supplementing the book with other references, like Conlan's discussion of new federalism in the welfare state and Bartholet's evaluation of the child welfare system).

[Laurie Bertram · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always a well written and well researched work from Dorothy Roberts. She breaks down the institutional racism and bias that black children and families face when dealing with the child welfare system.
It is one of my top 5 reproductive justice must reads.

[Michelle Mlacker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a must read for everyone devoted to social justice issues, but especially those who have worked in the child welfare system or plan to.

[Chuk's Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

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Feelings about the book:
- A must-read, especially, if like me, you've been in this system. Albeit in the UK.

Premise/Plot:
- Dorothy Roberts lays out an examination of how black children and families are disproportionately affected by the welfare system. Especially given the institutional racism embedded in the US legal system.

Themes:
- Racial bias, punitive & regressive policies, heartbreaking family testimonies, state control, family separation and more

Pros:
- A relentless critique of America's child welfare system

- Passionately argued while clearly articulating the problem

- Compassionate and empathetic approach

Cons:
- I don't know now that I think about it. Sometimes topics like these are so dreary that the reading experience isn't always great. No matter how important the subject.

Quotes:
‘There is evidence, then, of racial bias at every stage of the child protection process. On the other hand, there are also studies that show race is not a significant factor in predicting children’s involvement in the system. Which should we believe?’

‘Lindsey concluded that the child welfare system is unable to tell which children should be removed and which should be left at home.’

‘New York City lawyers admitted in federal court that removing children on an “emergency” basis without seeking a judge’s order was routine agency policy.’

‘By promoting adoption so myopically, some advocates forget that our ultimate goal should be to reduce the need for adoptions.’

‘The prison system supplies children to the child welfare system when it incarcerates their parents. The child welfare system supplies young adults to the prison system when it abandons them after years in foster care.’

‘This brand of liberalism recognises that poor Black families are victims of societal injustice but uses their victimisation as an excuse to intervene in their families instead of a reason to work toward social change.’

[Carla Hendricks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hard read, but essential reading for anyone in the child welfare realm. It's a bit dated, but could have been written last week, because unfortunately not much has changed. African American youth are still grossly overrepresented in the foster care system. Racial and economic bias still leads to far too many children being removed from their first families. And families of color are still marginalized, scrutinized and penalized by a system that supposedly exists for the welfare of children. Like the author, I will continue to fight for a system that supports and uplifts children AND their parents. Change is possible, and this book will hopefully open minds, the very minds that have the power to create that change.

[Emilee]

"Old" in terms of policy perspectives, but in a way, unfortunately still relevant. Does that make it a classic? Important read for white reproductive health activists, realizing that while we have fought for the right to not have a child, reproductive health also includes the rights to have and raise the children you want, especially for women of color.

[Gilbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-researched book that I read as a supplement to a child welfare policy class I took during my social work education in order to gain better insight to the role of child welfare in the US to abolition, and also to understand the role of child welfare and its relationship to race.

[Cullen Dilldine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few weeks back I finished @DorothyERoberts's Shattered Bonds. Similar to Torn Apart, this book does a great job digging into the machinery of child welfare to challenge the intention and execution of the system. Her writing has made me think differently about my work, for sure.

[Celine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A scathing critique of child welfare systems. The evidence is blatant and compelling (Roberts has done her research!) but the impacts are what kill you. Necessary reading for anyone working in or with child-serving systems.

[Tori · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is essential reading for anyone who works in the child welfare system.
I only wish there was an update edition!

[Nicole Luttrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this.

[Elizabeth]

As heard on At Liberty:
https://soundcloud.com/aclu/how-disma...

[Jessie Heckenmueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for those who care for and love children and families, especially those who do so in social services.

[Elizabeth Johnson-Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filled with incredible insights and harsh realities. Worth the read for anyone who is a mandated reporter.

[Katie Fletcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for class. Reads like a research paper. Good concepts for discussion, tho.

[Kokoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hope all policy makers at every level of government can read this book. 😢

[Carol Keefer]

Good critical thinking about foster care and poverty