Colorism, Anxiety and Neglect within US Foster Care

By Aprili 

Please note that this author identifies by the pronoun "we" and references themselves as such throughout this piece.

We are walking around this babysitter character’s house, kids everywhere. May as well call it daycare, from the scene of it — might even call it a children’s detention center.

Of course, feds called it a foster home.

Some children played with colorful toys in four-cornered playpens; others aimlessly walk around, like me. Happy to be on two feet. The babysitter whose care we were entrusted into is non-observant, white, and not particularly nice, or affectionate. Looking back, she may have been in Karen's anonymous, special wing of the KKK.

We remember this little children's table — plastic, cafeteria-like, round with seats attached to it — yellow, red, blue. My brother who was there with me sat at a larger kid's table. It wasn't too hard to point us out, maybe because our skin was almond and cocoa brown.

My younger sister wasn't there.

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