Anti-Violence Work

From selling away the children of the enslaved to Native American “boarding schools” to separating migrant families at the border, family policing has been a tool in the arsenal of US colonial practice. This commentary examines the role of a particular media cluster in resisting a contemporary iteration of that tradition, the removal of Black, brown and working families’ children through “child welfare” or foster care systems. The cluster begins with an inspiring venue for resistance and solidarity, the online magazine RISE, published by and for parents who have lost children to the system. Articulating a powerful vision of intersectional political analysis including an explicit recognition of the effects of colonialism on people of color in the US, RISE is the backbone of an increasingly aware, abolitionist opposition to family policing. RISE emerged from a prior publication, Represent, a forum for teens in foster care. Both magazines also have community organizations underlying them. They have a relationship to the magazine The Imprint, a non-profit daily news outlet focused on child welfare and youth justice. This article explores the ways these and related projects work together to produce structural analysis, foster collectivity and solidarity, and create possibilities for mutual aid against the violence work of family policing.