Before I became a Program Manager, some of you know that I was a foster care social worker in DC. I worked primarily with teens, including unaccompanied refugee minors.

Goal was reunifying kids with their bio-parents, but sometimes that wasn't possible so we moved to adoption.

Part of my job was doing school visits, helping parents navigate the special education system etc.

I say ALL of that to say that my work was predominantly with children who had been traumatized by their bio parents.

1,179 children in DC are in the foster care system.

108 children have the goal of adoption.

Children spend an average of 46 months in the system (twice the national average).

77% of kids in DC waiting to be adopted are over 11 years old and will age out.

When folks like Mike Pence say they're Pro-Life, they're full of it because if they were we wouldn't have a single child in foster care.

Remind them of that hypocrisy every chance you get.

That's not the point of this, but it had to be said because alot of y'all are the same.

In any event, I would work with about 15 youth at a time.

Most of them were young black and brown girls.

I lost count of how many times I got calls from schools to come & pick up one of my kiddos b/c they were "being disrespectful."

When I'd arrive, you know what I'd hear?

"She made a face."

"She gave me attitude."

"She rolled her eyes."

"She was being disrespectful."

"She was being pushy."

"She wouldn't fix her face."

Please understand that I've worked with white kids before & heard that about them 3x in my career.

Why does that matter?

Well, because we live in a white-dominant society that puts white people in positions of being the arbiter of what's "normal" repeatedly, and then we wonder why we get coverage and comments from those white people about a black woman on the national stage.

Kamala "wouldn't fix her face."

Kamala was "arrogant."

Kamala was "pushy."

It's something heard time and time again and allowed to let slide by people who proclaim to "not be racist" despite all evidence to the contrary.

Reading some of these tweets highlights this.

Guess what?

If our people, despite slavery, Jim Crow, school segregation, eugenics, Black Wall Street, Rosewood, the assassinations of Fred Hampton, Malcolm & MLK, the state-sanctioned murders of Sandra Bland & Breonna Taylor,
& countless injustices at the hands of white folks

Can somehow muster the strength to STILL be here, then y'all can refrain from telling us to "fix our face."

Y'all can refrain from telling us we're "too arrogant."

What you're seeing is humility & grace because we survived what y'all couldn't.

#MVPHarris #FixYourRacism