as ACS—the weightiest acronym in Dasani’s life. This agency investigates about 55,000 reports of child abuse or neglect every year. In 2012 alone, ACS will remove 4,072 children from their homes, placing them in a foster care system with more than 13,000 children—the vast majority of them Black or Latino. Almost half of New York City’s residents (and a quarter of its children) are white. Nearly all of the city’s foster children are people of color. Don’t become a statistic is something Dasani hears all the time—from the teachers at McKinney to the preachers on the street. There is little that
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