housing where he and his siblings used buckets of snow as make-shift showers during the harsh Michigan winter. Alexis faced the barriers of suicide by her mother and grandmother, eventually leading her to live with her mental and sexually abusive father. Though she overcame testifying against her father, she almost became the third generation to lose her life to suicide with multiple failed attempts.
Somehow, two individuals traumatized by their environment met one another in the midst of their healing. Despite meeting their future spouse in college, they had yet to unfold the wounded culture from their upbringing, one that consisted of internalizing their pain to express onto others. Though they discuss the galling agony of their past with one another, they avoided the soul-work required to carve a new pathway that did not embody the suffering they endured.
The 400,000 youth who are currently in the foster care system have had to ask themselves, “Why didn’t my parents love me enough to be there for me”. The pain that these parents inflicted has left the youth questioning their existence. The innocent and pure seeds planted in youth who’ve experienced foster care have been poisoned and manipulated by the adults they trusted with their life.
Feelings of emptiness, despair, and desperation for love is the reason why more than 70% of people in prison have spent time in the foster care system. These statistics show that youth who are abandoned by the community are the ones to destroy the environment itself. To quote the late great Tupac Shakur, “The Hate U Give Little Infants F***s Everyone”. We