Sunday, January 29, 2012

stop racism

This happened on TAM airlines.

A 50-something year old white woman arrived at h...er seat and saw that the passenger next to her was a black man. Visibly furious, she called the air hostess.

"What's the problem, ma?" the hostess asked her
"Can't you see?" the lady said - "I was given a seat next to a black man. I can't seat here next to him. You have to change my seat"

- "Please, calm down, ma" - said the hostess
"Unfortunately, all the seats are occupied, but I'm still going to check if we have any."

The hostess left and returned some minutes later.

"Madam, as I told you, there isn't any empty seat in this class- economy class.
But I spoke to the captain and he confirmed that there isn't any empty seats in the economy class. We only have seats in the first class."

And before the woman said anything, the hostess continued

"Look, it is unusual for our company to allow a passenger from the economy class change to the first class.
However, given the circumstances, the commandant thinks that it would be a scandal to make a passenger travel sat next to an unpleasant person."

And turning to the black man, the hostess said:

"Which means, Sir, if you would be so nice to pack your handbag, we have reserved you a seat in the first class..."

And all the passengers nearby, who were shocked to see the scene started applauding, some standing on their feet."

Monday, January 23, 2012

"not in San Francisco...."

This is often the comeback I get when I talk about racism--"not in San Francisco"  Acutally it happens more often than you'd think.  My reply--ummmm--"yes, in San Francisco!"  It always suprises me that people believe that racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. do not occur here because it is seen as such a liberal city. While it may be better than some other cities and/or other parts of the country, all of these things still happen.  Although this may be a little off-topic, I was out the other night with a friend who invited several of her friends that I did not know.  They were delightful people, save one.  Now it is important to mention that my friend is very liberal, open minded, and loves my daughter to pieces and the one person whom I had issues, she did not really know and she ended up kicking him under the table all night and apologizing to me afterward.  Also of note was that some of the others were drinking quite a bit while I was drinking water as I was the designated driver, so inhibitions were lowered, so internalized homophobia became externalized.  So this guy all of a sudden started going on about his gay friend who took him out to the Castro and how "all the gays" kept hitting on him.  My immediate thought was "if you think 'all the gays' were hitting on you, they definitely were not"  Now I found myself in a quandary.  I was offended by what he was saying not only because I have family and close friends who are gay or bi, but I value and respect people's desires and their right to love who they love, and to top it, I knew there was another guy there who was gay.  Normally, there would be no question and I would stand up and say something and not give it a thought, but this guy worked with my friend and had direct influence on her job.  If I actually said what I was thinking, that would not have been either appropriate or probably even helpful  and possibly detrimental to the situation. And I most definitely did not want to get my friend fired.  So I chose to ignore and not talk or interact with him for the rest of the night.  Now why I bring this up is for a couple of reasons.  First surprise, surprise (written with an ironic tone) there is homophobia (and racism,sexism,etc) in San Francisco.  All those happen everywhere. And secondly, and very importantly, how you respond to it is up to you and that may vary depending on the situation.  So if someone says something racist to your family and you have adopted transracially, and it is against your child's race, what do you do?  Although you do need to take a strong stance against racism, it isn't always so clear as what the "right" thing to do is.  However, it is of the utmost importance that you talk to your child about it if/when it is developmentally appropriate.  When your child is a baby, I do think it is our responsibility as parents to not only address comments or situations that directly affect your child, and to address racism as a whole, how we do it changes with the age of the child.  There are different options we can teach our child--how to respond, how to go to a teacher, an adult,etc, how to walk away, or even to ignore if that is appropriate.  It is crucial to include your child in the conversation as developmentally appropriate.  When my daughter was about 5 she was playing in a park in the East Bay.  She and the other two girls with whom she was playing came running over to me and said there was a boy (about their age) who was chasing them and "being mean."  Then my daughter said the boy "said I smelled like I was Japanese!!"  So, first I told her that this was a racist statement--a comment based on the way she looked, in this case the shape of her eyes, and asked her what we should do.  She shrugged her shoulders.  I asked if she would  like me to talk to his adult/parent.  She said "no." I think she did not want to make a big deal out of it and it wasn't someone who she was going to see again.  I had been watching while they had played with this boy and had noticed his adult/parent had been yelling at him when they interacted, but not yelling about his behavior, so it seemed like he did not have a very approachable or insightful person.  I always think,especially at that age, children just espouse the values of their parents.  So I said to the girls "I know that you are all kind and compassionate girls and you would not want to hurt anyone and what he said is not something that I think is kind or true" thus validating what he said was a) racist and b)not the belief of our family.  Then I said "Maybe it would be better to just stay away from him if he is not being nice to you all."  They all agreed and said they did not want to play with someone who is mean.  Now, I often use humor as a way to deal with the world and to model for my daughter that things don't always need to bother us and more importantly in this case, so she did not internalize this kid's comment and said "besides, why did he say Japenese, you are so Chinese"  and she said "right!! I know" and started laughing and ran away happy and giggling.  In this case, the issue was addressed but I did not confront the kid or adult/parent. This is what my daughter wanted and I respected it.  That said, there was another time when she was older when a Chinese aunt of a child in her class came up to her on a field trip and started telling her how "lucky" she was to be adopted because "they kill baby girls in China."  I actively stepped in front of her and told this woman that she was being inappropriate and could not talk to my daughter and it was not ok to say anything about adoption or her idea in front of my child.  I then talked to my daugher.  So how you address comments is dependent upon many factors--the age of your child, the situation, the comment, the environment, just to name a few. There is no absolutes here.  There are many ways to address racism.  But address it, we must.  Not only is it important to our society, but to our culture, our own personal growth, and most importantly to our children.  They need to know we are behind them; that a racist (or sexist,or homophobic) comment made to them is like it was made to us as well. It has to be that close.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Kung Fu Panda 2 and the issue of transracial adoption

Ok, so this is a little tongue in cheek, but I realize that everything my daughter sees since we are a transracial family may be viewed differently. So, if you have not seen the film, the second one starts with Po, a panda, having a dream or vision of being left by his panda mother and he wakes up disturbed and upset.  This really hits home for me, because it is common for the girls in China to be "abandoned" by the women because of the one child policy and culture of the importance of boys.  Maya has already asked about getting in touch with her birthmom.  With great difficulty I had to tell her that we don't have information about her birthmom; but that she loved Maya so much that she was found with a note pinned on her of her birthdate and she was six weeks old so her mother loved and took care of her for six weeks and made sure she was put in a place that she would be found.  So, Po, the panda, like all of our kids has some cellular memory of their birthmom and of the time of "abandonment."  We, as parents need to remember and acknowledge this.  The movie then goes to a scene with Po and his father--who is a goose.  Po directly asks "Where did I come from?"  And here the father stumbles when saying the word "adopted."  This is an issue for me.  First, Po, or any other child should not be at an age where the "discover" they are adopted.  It should be something they always know.  And as parents, it is our responsibility to practice or do what we need to do so we don't stumble around the word adoption.  It is how our children came to us, it not their only definition.  Aso, Po a ginormous panda does not look anything like his father--a goose.  It is unrealistic to think a) he would not notice until he was an adult or b) no one else would not notice nor make a comment.  I was not back from China for a couple of days when in the playground and people would ask "where did she come from?" "is she yours" "is she Chinese" or any other many variations of the questions we all get when we are a transracial family.  Even when Po "confesses" to Tigress that he found out something big that changes his life and says he was adopted, she says sarcastically (although it goes right passed Po)--"you just figured that out?"  So, our children know from early on that they look different than us.  Did Po's father really think Po would never "find out" he was adopted, like adoption is something bad.  I find this frustrating and misleading.  Kids who are adopted show no signficant issues around self esteem when raised being able to talk about adoption.  It is only a part of who they are, it is not their only self definition.  Having it be such a hidden fact in Kung Fu Panda keeps this myth alive--that raising a biological child is the saame as raising a child in a transracial family.  It is not the same.  There are issues we need to address--feelings around the loss of the birth mother/family especially if there is no contact or information, issues of different race and culture and teaching our child skills and information to navigate in different races and cultures, and in races different from our own.  It is something we need to be thoughtful and proactive about.  Po has to push his father to tell him the story of his adoption.  Again, he should never have had to ask.  Our children need to know their story from the beginning and they should always feel comfortable asking us about their story or any questions they have around adoption.  If they can't come to us, who do they go to?

Then Mr. Ping--Po's father asks Po as he is leaving to fight the dragon warrior "You are still my son, right?"  Po doesn't answer.  This is also normal for many kids who are adopted and as parents we cannot personalize this, however hard that may be.  It is a normal part of development--especially in young adults to search, question, and perhaps even leave their adopted family or adopted race and go to their own race and be with people who look like them. 

One of the lines in the movie to which I really took exception is when the Peacock--the "evil" character says to Po; "I watched while your parents abandoned you."  That one sentence packs a lot of punch and was thoughtlessly written by someone who clearly does not know anything about adoption.  That is very hurtful to a child who either was actually abandoned or feels abandoned.  Shame on dreamworks for allowing that line and sentiment to be in the movie.

Po continues his journey and quest for inner peace around his adoption.  Finally he returns to his father after his search.  Although he does not get all his questions answered, and probably neither will all of our children, Po says to his father "I know who I am."  His father says "You do?" and Po says "I am your son."  This is the goal of our parenting for our children.  For them to know they are our children.  We know it from the beginning and each child will have a different journey, but the ideal is to have them feel that they are "ours" no matter how they came to us.  We are all families.