Only Now They Notice?

Almost a month ago, Christopher L. Thomas, Jr., a baby boy in the Milwaukee County foster care system, was tortured and murdered by his aunt, who was supposed to be his caretaker. His sister was also severely tortured. I've been covering the whole thing since the story came to light at my home site, Cognitive Dissidence, including who was responsible and why it was allowed to happen.

Christopher, who was African American, and his death, went unnoticed by the right wing media. Not a peep from any of them.

Yesterday, when a story broke that the white couple who had wanted to adopt Christopher, but was denied, was being harassed by the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, the right wing media finally noticed the story...somewhat.

Sykes did something on his show about it, but I was working and missed it. On his blog, he does his usual copy and paste job on a story of how the BMCW was stonewalling Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Crocker Stephenson. Most of the commenters on the site should their usual lack of insight by stating this would never have happened if the BMCW was privatized.

I got some news for them. The agency that employs the worker who moved Christopher into the home where he was to die, and the workers who have been harassing the former foster parents IS a private agency. This is what happens when you privatize critical services like foster care. The agency is a subsidiary of Children's Hospital.

This illustrates the cluelessness of some of Sykes' most avid listeners.

We also have PaddyMac that finally noticed the issue. Well, actually, he finally noticed that James Widgerson finally noticed. Their Paddy's point, I think, is that it was terrible that BMCW is harassing this white couple, and that is why there are so few foster homes in Milwaukee County.

I've got news for them as well. Foster homes have dropped by 78% since 2001. This has been an ongoing problem:

Fueling the problems is a grave shortage of foster homes.

"The bureau's main challenge is its continuing lack of safe placements for abused and neglected children," said Eric Thompson, senior staff attorney with Children's Rights, the New York-based advocacy group that brought the lawsuit. "That leads to poor placement choices. It leads to poor licensing decisions. It leads to abuse and neglect in foster-care placements and the inevitable shuffling of children from one inadequate, inappropriate placement to another."

Over the last six years, the number of licensed foster homes in the county has dropped from 2,800 to about 620.

Denise Revels Robinson, director of the bureau, noted that foster placement stability "has really not been acceptable to any of us in terms of the number of times a child is having to move." As to the rise over the last year in confirmed cases of maltreatment, she said: "Clearly we need to do better to protect the children in our care."

So what happened in 2001 that would have precipitated such a drastic fall in numbers? That is when the State of Wisconsin booted Milwaukee County Workers out of the foster care field and privatized it all.

I wonder how Charlie and Paddy are enjoying their supposed tax savings now. I wonder if these two are even capable of connecting the dots. I also wonder why they didn't say anything about a black baby being killed, but find it worth talking about a white couple being harassed.