Prior to 2013, I was considered, by some, to be an adoption activist as I wrote and presented about historic trauma, and the role of legislation in determining legitimacy as a family, a person, a representative of an ethnic group. Adoptions were bad, staying within family/community was good. But then a funny thing happened on […]
Tag Archives: race factor
I don’t remember the first time someone told me I was White. But I definitely remember the last. It was the summer of my junior year in college and I was a new student orientation leader. My university was diverse but mostly segregated, and this staff was about half White and half Black – plus […]
I went to the local animal shelter yesterday. I do that sometimes. To get back to my roots. This is therefore in two parts. The first part summarises details from the trip. The second part poses some of the questions as: To be chosen or not to be chosen, is that the question? What are […]
This tweet recently appeared on Twitter: I WILL constantly #judge you if you #adopt a child and constantly refer to them as: “my #black #adopted child”. It was followed up by the above question. I’ll leave it open to your interpretation and response.
The controversy over Jerzy Kosinski’s novel The Painted Bird remains, but for me the central image of the novel still holds: A birdcatcher paints one of his flock in bright colors; seen as foreign by the other birds, it is attacked and killed. This is the image that occurred to me after reading a news […]
I came across this essay by Prof. Asma Barlas [ link ], entitled Racism’s Labyrinth. It’s a quick read, but quite interesting on a number of levels. An excerpt: Whether white people want to claim their whiteness or not, whiteness claims them by positioning them as potential saviors of people of color. Liberals speak on […]
I keep thinking about this Adoption Horrow Show [ link ] and how it sets back humanity on all levels a couple of thousand years. And I keep re-reading what I initially wrote when I saw this: Adoptees have no will. Adoptees do what they need to do to survive, even if at the expense […]
I came across this today in a Twitter bio: “Adoptive vanilla mama to handsome chocolate son.” Comments?
I’d like to ask a question here that reflects a concept that has come up from time to time, but as is often the case, it is overshadowed by our focus on race and ethnicity in terms of transracial/transcultural/transnational adoption. That concept is one of the division of class. I’ve been thinking about it more […]
Do you believe transracial adoptees do not struggle as much with their cultural identity when they have a sibling who is also adopted from their same cultural background?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the general lack of response to our claim that our culture, language, and identity have been destroyed, and by the willful replacement of this with “culture” and “heritage” camps and the like. This was touched on in the item Neo-colonialism: APs on the front lines of Empire, but I’ve […]
A father regains custody of his child through the Indian Child Welfare Act: http://www.facebook.com/KeepRonnieHome http://www.facebook.com/KeepingVeronica Alaska’s Supreme Court’s ruling on one such case: http://www.courts.alaska.gov/ops/sp-6680.pdf And then there are the adoptive parents: http://www.facebook.com/SaveVeronicaRose Who echo the sentiments of organizations such as this: http://caicw.org/ In the above case race, nation, and culture won. What do transracial adoptees […]
I have been reading your blog with some interest as myself (British) and my husband (Indonesian) are just starting the process of adopting. We plan to adopt in my husband’s home country of Indonesia and plan on living there for the foreseeable future. So my question is as adoptees do you think you would have […]
I randomly came across your blog tonight and can’t stop reading. I am a white adoptive mom to my African-American three-year-old daughter. I already feel some ridicule just by saying that and in a crazy way feel I need to give you a synopsis to justify her adoption but am trying to just stick to […]
On an adoption web site I recently saw a topic concerning a child who was being bullied by another boy. The discussion seemed to be more concerned with whether the bullying was racially motivated [the child is from Guatemala], or whether it was even bullying to begin with, and not just “normal” child’s play. I […]
