Resilence

Sunday, April 17, Marcus Mosiah Garvey's birthday, was also the artist reception for AfroSolo's art exhibit, curated by Kheven La Grone,"Resilience." It is a lovely exhibit. Also closing that afternoon, was another exhibit depicting children in foster care. I wanted to adopt six children: Jasmin, Jessica, Maurice, Paul and then as we were leaving we saw three siblings who came as a package deal. I just couldn't figure out where I'd put them, because the heart was certainly willing.

Part of the sales pitch was the way the photographer's captured the innocence and sweetness in the children who were hoping for a match, compared to the lives of those children who'd been adopted often by their former foster parents. The foster care system has too many children to account for, and with the state snatching the children of women who are incarcerated so easily many children are losing their families a lot faster permanently than before.

The children sounded so sweet. Just in a week, TsSin showed me seven children had been matched. On their photographs were stickers that said, "matched." That is so wonderful, yet sad that these kids have to have a benevolent marketing agency to give people a face to match the statistics about the terrible state out foster care system is in, in California. It is a terrible place to grown up in.

So the opportunity to escape...is fabulous! One of the children adopted during the course of this exhibit is 17. I love it when older kids are matched. 17 and black, what a winning combination.

The adoptive families came in multiple configurations--two mothers and one mother with two kids, two dads. One family had 10 children. All of the children live here; many expressed a desire to stay local so they could retain contact with their birth families.

The art in the African American Center at the San Francisco Main Library, 3rd level is wonderful too, from the photographs by artists, Jim Denis, Opal Palmer Adisa, Kimara Dixon, TaSin Sabir...to the paintings by a number of artists, like Orlonda Uffre, and sculpture by Nina St. Louis, the work was outstanding.