Halloween

I just had a friend and co-worker send me this article:
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/10/30/raising-consciousness-about-racist-halloween-costumes/

 

It brings to the point another area that we need to think about.  What is your child dressing up as for Halloween?  This is an area that people can say "oh, it is just mean in fun" or "you're being too sensitive" but are we?  What messages are we sending to our children about their racial or cultural identity?  It is important that we are aware of the images that we expose our child to and have around our homes. 

 

None of these images portray those cultures or races in a positive light.  They are demeaning and harmful.  And because they are "just joking" they are insidious.  The images undermine positive self esteem in a passive aggressive manner. 

 

Now that it is brought to your attention--it is your responsibility to bring it to other people's attention and to continue to change the world.

 

That said, though--Happy Halloween!

Checking Boxes

As an adoption caseworker, there is a form that my families have to fill out and we jokingly call it the "boxes form."  It is a list of races that the adoptive family would consider for races of the birth parents.  It is always a challenging form.  First we all want to be "politically correct" and here is a place where we have to be brutally honest.  The question is not can we love a child of a different race.  That is easy--"yes"  If I brought in a baby at my first visit and said "here, s/he is yours."  Most (like 99%) of the people would accept and love that child.  The issue is can you raise a child of a different race.  Can you help a 6 foot tall African American man negotiate the world?  Can you help a 16 year old Latina girl with her identity?  Can you help your child at the age of 6? At the age of 10? At the age of 13? of 20?  Our children are babies for a very short time. 

However, we have to make this decision at the very beginning of the adoption process.  We don't want to match people with a birth mother who has fallen in love with them and they meet her and then decide they cannot do it.  It is a time of real soul searching.

It is hard enough to see our children in pain.  But to see them a victim of racism is intolerable.  But that is what we sign up for. 

But what is racial identity?  My daughter is about to go to middle school.  I am in the process of touring and looking at not only what is right for her academically and socially but what is right for her racially.  Where will she see other kids that look like her.  Fortunately I am very lucky in that I live in the Richmond District of SF and the two that I am considering have a large Chinese population.  However, is she really Chinese?  If she goes into a Chinese community and does not open her mouth, they would accept her and think she is Chinese.  But once she starts to talk and behave, she is clearly Caucasian.  If she goes into a Caucasian world, she is clearly not White, so she doesn't "fit" there. 

Here is my current dilemma.  For the school that I want for her, it would help her get in if she were "white" because of the way schools are made up and how things are determined here (a subject of another very long post! and too complex to go into at this time.)  I feel I can actually make an argument and check the "white" box for her.  Although I am trying to raise her to have an understanding and love for the Chinese culture, and am devoted to helping her with her racial identity, will she ever really by "Chinese?" Probably not :(  Can I use this to her advantage at this time?  I don't know.  Since she is neither accepted in either world, can I make a case for her to be in the "white" box?  She currently says that she is half Chinese and half Irish.  So she looks Chinese, but feels both Chinese and Irish.  I think an argument can be made that the "white" box can be checked.

What do you think?

Olympic shot put medalist shouts out for adoption

http://chronicle.augusta.com/sports/olympics/2012-08-04/reese-hoffa-can-reflect-his-career-pride?v=1344126922

Although I agree with part of this--and I understand he was adopted at age 5 from foster care, but I have some issues with the reporting of it.  First, why is his mother called his "a mom" for "adoptive mother" and not mother--unless that is something they worked out and his "adoptive father" is just his "father"? 

I don't consider myself an "adoptive mother" or my child to be an "adopted child."  Rather I am her mother and she is my child.  She also has a biological mother and a foster mother and we created our family through adoption, but I am very careful of the labels we use in our home.  I wish the writer of this article had been as sensitive.

Different races, different reactions

As many of you know, I have daughter who was born in China, so my personal experience has been raising a daughter who is of Chinese culture.  I have been taking care of a little boy--13 months old who is Moroccan.  He has beautiful dark brown eyes and curly brown hair and is of medium complexion.  I have been noticing that when I am walking with him, I have been getting noticed by many people who are African American and who acknowledge him (and me.)  I have been told by mothers who are raising African American children that in that culture/race, it is common to acknowledge each other on the street.  As well, this baby and his family live near the Filmore district.  At first I thought it was just because he is cute.  But yesterday I was walking by a younger group of African American girls--teens??  And one of them said "Is that a sister?"  It took me a second to realize she was talking to me (as I was pushing him up hill in a stroller) and my response was that he was a boy, but his eye lashes were so long that it was hard to tell.  She smiled at me and said how cute he was and what beautiful eyes he had and the other girls around him smiled and talked to him.  Along that same street, I had an African American store keeper stop me and give me a balloon to put on his stroller.

Often when I am talking to couples about adopting transracially I talk about the differences and the challenges that occur.  But these last few weeks and these experiences remind me of the wonderfulness of adopting transracially---the invitation into another race and/or culture that as a Caucasian woman I would not normally have access to.  It also reinforces the openness and love that babies bring in the world and that can happen between all races. 

I think at times, we get caught up in how "hard" it is and how much responsibility we have--and don't get me wrong, it is the responsibility of us as parents.  But, please remember how wonderful it is as well.  I would not have had these experiences and shows of love if I had been walking with a child of the same race.

Important Kickstarter Project about Chinese girls

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/677091478/somewhere-between-a-documentary-film

The preview is very interesting and for me personally, was the reason I started the Transracial Adoption Workshop at Adoption Connection.  Take a look and support if you can.

"African American" or "Black"

In a January 2011 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 42% of respondents said they preferred to be called black, 35% said African American and 13% said it doesn't make any difference, and 7% chose "some other term"

The article went on to say that this younger generation of people preferred to be called "black" instead of "african american" because of many reasons.  1) "african american" sort of screams this political correctedness 2) or it is a word that people who aren't black use to describe black people 3) it is a political tool.  In a Senate race against Obama in 2004, Alan Keyes implied that Obama could not clam to share Keyes' "African American heritage" because Keyes' ancestors were slaves.  During the Democratic presidential primary, some Hilary Rodham Clinton supporters made the same charge.  Last year, Herman Cain, then a Republican presidential candidate sought to contrast his roots in the Jim Crow south with Obama's history and he shunned the label African American in favor of "American black conservative."  Then there are some white Americans who were born in Africa.  Paulo Seriodo is a U.S. citizen born in Mozambique to parents from Portugal.  In 2009, he filed a law suit against his medical school, which he said suspended him after a dispute with black classmates over whether Seriodo could call himself African American.  "It does not matter if I'm from Africa and they are not" wrote Seriodo at the time. "They are not allowing me to be African American!"  And so, the saga of the name continues.

overheard on the bus

So, just a quick post about what happened on the bus today I though you'd all find interesting.  I was riding the 38 Geary bus--for those of you who don't know, the bus goes from Ocean Beach to downtown.  It goes through my neighborhood which is primarily Asian and Russian.  I get on and this attractive, older (maybe in his 50s or 60s?) well dressed, African American man was talking on the phone.  The bus was packed so I was standing right next to him.  I could not help overhearing his conversation.  Now, I could only hear his side of it.  But he was talking about race being a more challenging issue than gender. And what he said next really caught my attention--he said something to the effect "When I am behind a white woman, I make sure when I pass her I go out of my way to go by her, into the street and around her, so she knows I am not going to attack her.  I watch her looking in business windows and looking behind her to see where I am."  This is his reality. Here is my question--is this yours?  When I walk behind someone as a white woman,  I am not threatening to them,  I don't have to change where or how I walk.  If I had an African American son, his reality would be different.  It would be my job to help him live and navigate in his reality.  What is your responsibility for your child who is of a different race?