Foster Home Nightmare
The city of Edmonton is in a flutter because a recent incident has brought focus to problems in the foster care system. A small boy died last week of head trauma while in the care of a foster mother. The foster mother is a registered nurse, has one other foster child and two biological kids, and also works part-time. She is being charged with second degree murder.
The foster mother claims that the boy threw himself on the bathroom floor and died from self-inflicted wounds, and that he has a history of violence towards others and himself. Public support of the foster mother so far has not been very favourable.
Last night, several news programs ran an interview with the biological mother of the deceased boy, an Aboriginal woman who has been in rehab for the last several months battling substance abuse. Her face was scarred, her voice slurred and her speech not very articulate. Another relative was interviewed, an Aboriginal male, this time enormously overweight and also lacking quality television skills.
I guarantee you that these interviews have swayed public opinion with the suddenness of a weather vane. It placed the boy’s condition in a certain context and gave credibility to the foster mother’s claims that the boy had severe emotional problems. Ten seconds looking and listening to the biological mother, and suddenly the foster mother is probably in the right because, hey—look at the kid’s parents!
I think it was irresponsible of the news to air these interviews as they did. One channel, to be fair, did censor the biological mother’s face, but it’s all for naught if every other channel doesn’t bother.
All in all, it was a bad day for Aboriginal press. The same Edmonton newscasts have been running stories all week about homeless Aboriginal persons claiming that the city police have been picking them up and dropping them off in remote locations – sound familiar, Saskatoon? Of course every Aboriginal person interviewed in the story is homeless and sounds drunk and doesn’t look all that good. I know there’s nothing you can do about that, but it’s depressing for me, a person who advocates human rights, to see the news dominated by this negative coverage that only feeds fire to racist rants. Fortunately – if a person can use that term here – some homeless white people have begun to speak up about the behaviour of the police. So now instead of hating Natives, we can get back to doing what capitalist societies do best – hating poor people!!!
The foster mother claims that the boy threw himself on the bathroom floor and died from self-inflicted wounds, and that he has a history of violence towards others and himself. Public support of the foster mother so far has not been very favourable.
Last night, several news programs ran an interview with the biological mother of the deceased boy, an Aboriginal woman who has been in rehab for the last several months battling substance abuse. Her face was scarred, her voice slurred and her speech not very articulate. Another relative was interviewed, an Aboriginal male, this time enormously overweight and also lacking quality television skills.
I guarantee you that these interviews have swayed public opinion with the suddenness of a weather vane. It placed the boy’s condition in a certain context and gave credibility to the foster mother’s claims that the boy had severe emotional problems. Ten seconds looking and listening to the biological mother, and suddenly the foster mother is probably in the right because, hey—look at the kid’s parents!
I think it was irresponsible of the news to air these interviews as they did. One channel, to be fair, did censor the biological mother’s face, but it’s all for naught if every other channel doesn’t bother.
All in all, it was a bad day for Aboriginal press. The same Edmonton newscasts have been running stories all week about homeless Aboriginal persons claiming that the city police have been picking them up and dropping them off in remote locations – sound familiar, Saskatoon? Of course every Aboriginal person interviewed in the story is homeless and sounds drunk and doesn’t look all that good. I know there’s nothing you can do about that, but it’s depressing for me, a person who advocates human rights, to see the news dominated by this negative coverage that only feeds fire to racist rants. Fortunately – if a person can use that term here – some homeless white people have begun to speak up about the behaviour of the police. So now instead of hating Natives, we can get back to doing what capitalist societies do best – hating poor people!!!
posted by Kris at 12:53 PM
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