With Friends like These, Black Children Don't Need Enemies ; A Law Professor Claims Social Service Organizations Are Systematically Destroying African-American Families

Miller, Allan, The Christian Science Monitor

Jornell typifies the black welfare mother who cannot comprehend, let alone navigate, Chicago's labyrinthine foster-care system, which seems determined to prevent her from regaining custody of her little boy.

She had her first child 25 years ago, when she was 15. Dropping out of school, she moved in with her boyfriend's mother, who took over raising the child. She passed a GED test, took some secretarial training, and worked at an assortment of temporary jobs. "By the time she reached her 30s," Dorothy Roberts writes in "Shattered Bonds," "Jornell was plagued with severe health problems that kept her from holding down a job. She was overweight and diabetic, and she had …

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Publication information: Article title: With Friends like These, Black Children Don't Need Enemies ; A Law Professor Claims Social Service Organizations Are Systematically Destroying African-American Families. Contributors: Miller, Allan - Author. Newspaper title: The Christian Science Monitor. Publication date: January 3, 2002. Page number: 17. © 2009 The Christian Science Publishing Society. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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