Graded Blog Post #11
The video we viewed on Monday presented a thoroughly
positive view of foster care, whereas Dorothy Roberts’ account a wholly negative
view. However, the contrasting views were not indirect opposition; the two
differed in their primary focuses within the foster care system. The video we
watched spent the majority of its time presenting foster care families as
benevolent hosts, deeply in love with their adopted children, just trying to do
the best they can to assuage the deep pain and difficulties that the children are
facing. Roberts, in contrast, gave almost no discussion at all to the actual
foster homes that are taking in these children. Rather, the primary contrast
was in the depiction of the family unit before Child Protective services
removes the child. The film depicted the family situations of these children as
horrific. The adoptees themselves gave vivid accounts of the abuses they had
suffered throughout their childhoods. Roberts, however, explains that the black
families losing children to Child Protective Services are merely “victims of a
racially biased system,” (67). Black families, living in “poor neighborhoods
with no social services,” (85) struggle to give adequate care to their children
as they fight against their lack of resources and services. It is not the fault
of the parent, but a racist bias in the system which leaves black families and
their children out of luck. In the view of the film, the children put into
foster care desperately needed to escape their home life, and the birthparents
featured in the film echoed that sentiment, as most of them were deeply addicted
to drugs. Once put into foster care, the children had a mixed experience, some placed
in wonderful homes and some placed in no so great homes, but in both instances
struggling through the developmental issues that childhood abuse causes. In
Robert’s view, the children deserve to be with their families or extended
families, but are stolen away and put into a foster care system that is not
described in terms of good or bad outcomes.
To be fair, very few of the children featured in the film
were black. This may add to Roberts’ point, that the white children in foster
care are put there for good reason, but not the black children. It’s hard to
tell, as the two depictions weren’t inherently discussing the same thing.
Adam K.
Graded Reply Post 11: Hailey R.
ReplyDeleteAdam,
I felt that you described very similar reactions that I had to the book and the film. However, a very interesting and valid point that you made was regarding the fact that very few of the children featured in the film were black (and most filmed eventually achieved positive outcomes after being placed into foster care), which may add to Roberts’ point that white children are typically placed into foster care for legitimate reasons. Perhaps it was more difficult for the film producers to find black participants who could share stories with primarily happy endings, and after all, waiting to hear those happy endings is often what keeps viewers engaged.
The entire time I was watching, I was hoping to hear more stories from black individuals or at least hear an ending to the story of one of the black girls who was in the film (because I don’t recall this). Plus the film, like you pointed out, did focus on the foster care and adoptive families and the passion they had for providing a better life for the children and loving them unconditionally. Roberts consistently wrote about the fact that black children are kept within the system longer and are treated more poorly than whites are while they are in the system – this may make happy endings very difficult to achieve because of the extensive psychological/emotional damage these children endure. Foster care and adoptive families may not want to represent themselves as “failures” in this sense, so maybe more foster parents of black children didn’t elect to be in the film.
-Hailey R.
Graded Reply #11
ReplyDeleteHi Adam,
Great points on the differences between the film and the Roberts book. I held many of the same views as you did and wrote about many of the same things as well. One of the things I might question in your post is the fact that the film presented a "thoroughly positive" view of foster care. While it was definitely much more positive than any of the Roberts text, I still found that there were plenty of struggles that these foster children faced throughout their process. The many types of abuse and other circumstances (i.e. the one boy who went through 35 different foster homes until he settled at his last one) represent the fact that it is rare that a child gets placed into a home where they are completely 100% happy.
I found it interesting as well about the film only including the one girl who was black, with the rest of them being white. It is almost difficult to relate the book to the film in some circumstances because both the film and the book focus on completely different demographics. If the film director was able to branch out to another state other than Vermont (take a state in the south, for example), I have a feeling that there might be some different viewpoints and outcomes that are given by foster children in that region.
Nevertheless, I completely understand where you are coming from in your points that you make. It was an interesting topic to cover and I don't know that we will ever be able to come to a conclusion on what the best scenarios are for foster care!
--Chris N.