When Chief Justice John Roberts gutted the Voting Rights Act last June, he argued that the United States is no longer divided along racial lines. In other words, he maintains that the country has managed to eradicate racism and that protective measures to ensure tactics such as poll taxes, literacy requirements and gerrymandering do not suppress minority votes are, therefore, no longer necessary. The Chief Justice’s remarks sparked substantial outrage, and the force of his argument was undermined by the almost immediate enforcement of voter ID laws in Texas and Mississippi. Officially intended to combat voter fraud, these measures did not pass the “preclearance” procedures under the Voting Rights Act and could substantially suppress minority and low-income votes.
The attempt by Republican state politicians to suppress these votes through the enactment of voter ID laws is indicative of a more engrained racism that is closely connected to what is the “right” path for society to follow. Conveniently for the Republic Party, voters most likely to be affected by the new laws—blacks, the elderly, students and people with disabilities—are disproportionately more likely to vote Democratic. Thus, in suppressing those votes, the new laws are privileging the vision of a 1950s United States, the country that could have put Mitt Romney in the White House.
This engrained racism is expressed outside of the context of voter laws in the realm of child protective services, in particular in determining what is in a child’s “best interest.” When an incident of child abuse is reported to social services, the standard for all action taken by service providers is the child’s best interest. This is a highly fact-based analysis that takes account of such things as family connections, the child’s history and even the child’s own expressed desires (assuming he or she is old enough to vocalize those desires).
In the end, however, it is an adult member of a local Department of Social Services who makes the decision whether to take a child out of his or her biological family to protect his or her best interests and keep the child safe. This was the justification that South Dakota Department of Social Services director Virgena Wieseler gave in 2011 for her department’s practice of taking Native American children away from their families and placing them with white foster parents. This is the reality, despite the federal statute that only justifies social services intervention in an emergency situation and the Indian Child Welfare Act, which mandates that Indian children be placed with relatives, a tribal member or at least another Native American, if at all possible.
A similar standard for removal of children from their biological family exists in Ireland, the site of the recent controversy over the removal of a blonde, blue-eyed child from her family home. The 7-year-old girl was taken away from her family home in a Dublin suburb after a neighbor informed police that the little girl did not look like her Roma family. The child’s parents submitted the child’s birth certificate and a passport to the police, but these documents were not accepted as conclusive proof of their status as the child’s biological parents. Instead, it took DNA testing to convince the Dublin family court that the blonde little girl had not been “stolen” by the Roma couple.
Granted, the United States does not have the same complicated history with the Roma as many European countries. It is, however, true that the fear of Roma parents with light-skinned children, that police of skinheads could try to “save” their children by taking them away, reflects an engrained racism similar to that manifested in the problem social services has in the United States of taking Native American children away from their parents. Both the Roma and Native Americans are the stereotypical “other.” Both groups have a culture and history distinct from that of the country they live in. In many cases, members of these groups speak a different language from the majority population and may live in an isolated enclave (either a geographic reality, as in the case of a Native American reservation or an artificially imposed reality, as in the case of “Roma camps”). As the degree of “otherness” increases, the majority becomes more and more concerned about the fate of children being raised by this “other.” And this concern is only multiplied when the child looks more like the majority than like the “other,” as in the case of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Roma child.
This whole discussion might seem a little irrelevant to the life of the average member of the Duke community. But that is precisely my point. Chief Justice Roberts may be under the impression that racism has been conquered in the United States, but a more caustic and damaging form of racism survives under the surface. It manifests itself in the form of concern for children’s well being.
Joline Doedens is a second-year law student. Her column runs every other Wednesday. Send Joline a message @jydoedens.
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