Photo credit: Johnny Huu Nguyen / AP; Devonte “Hart” Jordan hugging Portland police officer Sgt Barnum
Trigger and content warning: This piece discusses several topics that may be disturbing and upsetting - murder of children, police violence, transracial adoption, foster care system, child protective services, and failure to provide adequate resources and support to struggling parents.
I started my consulting firm, Chidimma Ozor Consulting in 2018, about four years ago. I was so excited to get started officially with this work that I designed this website in 12 hours. Today I decided to update my website and I stumbled on this 2014 picture of Devonte “Hart”, son of Sherry Davis, who was hugging Portland police officer Sgt Barnum, who asked, “Can I get one of those?” which was a free hug. Devonte regularly held up a homemade poster board with ‘FREE HUGS’ on it.
Photo credit: Unknown; Devonte “Hart” Jordan at the 2014 Portland protests
When I first designed my website, I included Johnny Nguyen’s photo from the 2014 Portland protests of Devonte hugging Sgt Barnum, and the caption under the photo was ‘A little love goes a long way.’ This is a teaching moment. This is a nuanced photo for so many reasons. First, now that I know that Devonte was likely murdered by the two white women adopters who transracially adopted six children, three of whom were Davis’ and who knows what Devonte really wanted to tell the police. Second, while this is a beautiful picture of two members of humanity, there’s far too much history to not contextualize the racism and state sanctioned violence at the hands of police. The data does not lie. There is a disproportionate amount of Black people dying at the hands of the police in the US. Third, the history of the police in the US is deplorable. Police officers were created to catch formerly enslaved people. They were unable to see the humanity of Black people and most still do not. In 2014, we had Eric Garner and Michael Brown stolen from us. In 2016, Philando Castile was murdered. In 2020, we had two taken from us: Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Finally, Devonte was taken from his mother and his aunt despite them being better parents to Devonte than the two white women who took his life and that of five other children.
While a little love can go a long way, that is trite in light of the theft of lives, trauma, grief, and loss. Especially in light of the white woman adopters who were the perpetrators of violence and who made Devonte and his siblings hold up those signs. Their essence reeks of “wokeism” and white saviorism, which is part and parcel of the white savior industrial complex. They also committed significant child abuse and neglect.
I define white saviorism as, “white people ‘saving’ or attempting to ‘save’ those who are non-white, and often, living and working in the Global South.” They ‘saved’ these children from their actual parents and we, as a society, need to look at how we failed these children. I failed these children. This is why I had to turn my ignorance into a teachable moment. While it will not bring these children back, I am holding space for Sherry Davis and the other parents of the children who were stolen. I am also committed to continuing to do this work so that this does not happen to another family. A little love, truth, honesty, directness, empathy, compassion, and understanding goes a long way. As does dismantling problematic systems. And I’m here for that.