The UpEnd Movement isn’t just uneasy about Disney’s forthcoming live-action Lilo & Stitch remake; it also takes aim at The Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot (2024). Personally, I think everyone should see this movie.
“Sound of Hope never enjoyed the marketing muscle of blockbuster releases, yet it circulated widely in conservative Christian circles. Based on a true story from a Black community in East Texas, the film inspired groups like the Christian Alliance for Adoption to publish screening kits and launch foster-parent recruitment drives. In our view, it’s the most insidious strain of copaganda: by foregrounding Black foster parents, it sidesteps charges of white-savior storytelling while propping up the very system that fractures Black families.”
UpEnd argues that—even if every foster parent were exemplary—the trauma of family separation would still fall heaviest on Black and Indigenous children, because the modern foster-care apparatus grew out of slavery, settler colonialism, and white supremacy. Abolition-minded family-policing critics therefore call for dismantling the current system and replacing it with community-based supports that keep children with their own kin, free from the threat of forced removal.
