regina calcaterra

Almost every night for the past few weeks, I looked forward to watching the next episode of Manifest, until tonight. My interest immediately ended when the "Griffin" character was introduced. I grew up in, and aged out of, the foster care system. On my own, I obtained a college and law degree, wrote a NYT Times best selling book about my experience in the foster care system and run my own boutique law firm. Clearly not what the Manifest writer's would expect from a former foster child. The majority of youth in the foster care system are there because they had parents who could not parent, not because of anything they did. Rather than being sensitive to the trauma, plight and stereotypes of foster youth, Manifest reinforced the stereotype that foster youth are criminals, and in this case wolves or murderers. Before creating characters around an implicit bias, please seek guidance on how you can better serve a community of those who are working harder than most of you, just to survive. I put the breaks on after watching that segment. No