Acknowledgments

Many people contributed to this book long before I ever had an inkling that there would be a book, beginning with many workers and advocates in the child welfare system who helped me get my bearings when I arrived for a one-year sojourn that turned into one more than a decade and counting. I must thank many individuals who helped me when I began to explore connections between capitalism and the system I found myself a part of, but I can only begin to identify them by name. Friends and colleagues encouraged me to write on the topic, including Nordia Nelson Shackleford and Regina Schaeffer, who read and commented on an early draft of the article that was the genesis of this book. As I began to develop the arguments that now form the book, my colleagues in the Education Unit at ACS (now grandiloquently rechristened the Office of Education Support and Policy Planning): Roberto Romero, Nancy Santiago, Melissa Cueto, Chris Tan, and Kathleen Hoskins were willing to engage in discussions that refined and sharpened my analysis.

Folks at the Child Welfare Organizing Project agreed to help me develop the first of three panels on child welfare at the Left Forum, and I learned a great deal from our discussions, so I’d like to thank Allison Brown, Sandra Killett, Mike Arsham, and Jovonna Freison. Jovonna has been an inspirational and humbling presence each time I’ve appeared publicly with her. Seth Wessler of ColorLines also appeared on that first panel, and Doreen Matthews of Fostering Positive Action, Rolando Bini of Parents in Action, and Dave Bliven (a lawyer representing parents), appeared on subsequent panels. I learned something from each of them.

An embryonic version of this book appeared in an article in the International Socialist Review, and various people at the ISR and its periphery read and edited drafts, or otherwise helped to push it forward for publication, including, in egalitarian alphabetical order, Paul D’Amato, Jason Farbman, Brian Jones, Danny Katch, John McDonald, Jen Roesch, Keith Rosenthal, Lance Selfa, Ahmed Shawki, Ashley Smith, and Sherry Wolf.

At Haymarket Books, I would like to thank Anthony Arnove, Nisha Bolsey, Julie Fain, and, of course, the editors who worked on the manuscript. Alison McKenna identified a propensity on my part to overstate my criticism of professionals in the system, and her informed critique resulted in many important modifications, even if they didn’t fully resolve every difference over a subject about which we both hold strong opinions. I appreciate her contribution. Annie Zirin made incredibly useful suggestions for clarification and greater accessibility, and I greatly appreciate her contributions and enthusiasm for the book. And Dao X. Tran has been a great friend, advocate, and editor from the first, which is why she has earned, in addition to my lasting gratitude, a long-promised key lime pie.

My coworkers at Sinergia were extremely supportive when I needed to take scattered vacation days to work on the book. Any Nuňez, Lore Barcelona, Rebecca Maitin, and Yesenia Estrella, in particular, helped to ensure that my absences were disconcertingly inconsequential. Yesenia was also a focus group of one when I had to quickly come up with a new title, and gently pooh-poohed a number of truly bad ideas before I adapted the quote from Malcolm X for the present title.

I would also like to thank my wife, Monica Johnson, LMSW, who has been waiting for the book to go to press so she can find out if I really savaged her profession as much as I kept telling her I did. (I didn’t.) She also barely mentioned my leaving the living room half-painted for months while I worked on the manuscript, which was a great help. Kristian and Katelyn, who will replace us both in the workforce when we are worn out, were also very understanding about late nights and weekends spent working on the book. I owe them a trip to Disney World, although that may hasten the previously mentioned wearing-out process.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of my brother Rich, of Local 333 of the United Marine Division of the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots and the International Longshoremen’s Association, who died while I was finishing the book. We miss him.