Dorothy Roberts: “Excessive state inference in Black family life damages Black people's sense of personal and community identity. Family and community disintegration weakens Blacks' collective ability to overcome institutionalized discrimination and work toward greater political and economic strength. Family integrity is crucial to group welfare because of the role parents and other relatives play in transmitting survival skills, values, and self-esteem to the next generation. Families are a principal form of 'oppositional enclaves' that are essential to democracy, to use Jane Mansbridge's term. Placing large numbers of children in state custody – even if some are ultimately transferred to adoptive homes – interferes with the group's ability to form healthy connections among its members and to participate fully in the democratic process. The system's racial disparity also reinforces the quintessential racist stereotype: that Black people are incapable of governing themselves and need state supervision.” Dorothy Roberts, 'Feminism, Race, and Adoption Policy,' in Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology, Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2006, p. 46-7.