A Letter from Former Kidsave Foster Youth, Brandi Moore
Many people are asking how we all can work together to make a change of racial injustice. While we’ve made progress over the years, it hasn’t been enough, and racism still seems like a disease without a cure.
I think we should start by recognizing the humanity in our fellow human beings and giving them dignity and respect regardless of our racial differences.
Today I ask those who serve the public, whether that be a police officer, a social worker, or a politician. I ask you all to rid racism in every sense of the word. We need to embrace diversity, and stand up to discrimination towards minority individuals, particularly black Americans.
Black people have been murdered and brutalized as people stare on for far too long. But black lives DO matter and we have to end the dehumanization of people in black communities. If not now, then when?
I ask that you show empathy and compassion to people who don't look like you, to people who are in underserved communities, to black and minority children, men, and women.
I ask you to encourage your family members, friends, and neighbors to join us to make a change, and to realize that, “All Lives don't matter,” until “Black Lives matter.”
I ask that you join the movement for change and justice!
About Me:
I was placed in the foster care system one month before my 10th birthday.
Upon entering foster care, efforts were focused on reunification with my mother or having my grandmother adopt me. Unfortunately, those options fell through and I remained in foster care until my 18th birthday, by then I had lived in over 40 foster homes and group homes.
I remember I was told when I was 13 years old that I wasn't adoptable because of my troubling record. There was no way the social worker who told me that could have known that those words will stick with me and haunt me today. How bad it hurt, to feel so devalued.
I am now 27 and I am happy to say that during my foster care experience I found a host family through Kidsave who made what I thought was impossible, possible. My family, Tracie and Sari, have shown me the true meaning of love and support. Because of them, my daughter and I have someone to spend holidays with, a family who cares.
No words can describe the life I lived, but today I continue to thrive because of my thick skin, and resilience and the people I have found along the way who have shown me genuine care without regard for my skin color.
I always dreamed to be an advocate for those who have a voice and are afraid to use it. My passion is to help people, and I genuinely believe that God put me on this earth to do so.
I am the proud single mother to a beautiful one-year-old baby girl. She’s my sunshine in the rain and I will continue to chase my dreams with my baby on my hip until I get there.
