“Bought colored kids” (2003) by Kil Ja Kim is about the practice among White American liberals of adopting children of colour. Kim was one of these children and is now old enough to write about it. She is best known for writing “The White Anti-Racist is an Oxymoron” (2003).
Kim does not call it adopting but buying: Whites using their position in a white racist world to buy people of other races.
No matter how good and wonderful the white parents are, it cannot take back that racist act. But in practice they are not even all that good and wonderful:
Some of my best friends are black: They think having a child of colour proves they are not racist. It does not work like that. Even worse, they become so sure they are not racist that their racism is left unexamined. Leaving the child all alone to grow up in a white racist household!
A bit of Kim’s own experience:
On many times my family would say stuff to me like, “I love you. I don’t see you as Korean. I see you as my daughter.” Or, when debating immigration, my family would be quick to point out that my presence in the US was fine – it was all the other immigrants that had to “get the hell out of the country” (our presence is always “allowed” if white people can regulate it and determine the terms of acceptability). Often, my beloved family would make fun of how Asian people talked by speaking in a mock “Chinaman” voice, never batting an eye but getting really heated when I said something to them about it. Once, my father told me to “Get your wok and go” in front of his new wife, and they laughed and laughed.
Further, her father controlled her friendships, dating and body far more than that of her white sister.
White parents can be controlling in more subtle ways:
They will try to get their Black kids to listen to hip hop. They will try to make their kids “authentic” minorities. They will push their children to have a “racial” outlook, to be “who they really are” (as if you know). Anything to maintain their authority (both literally and figuratively) of your racial identity.
Go back to Africa: And when you challenge them on their racism, what do they do? Throw it in your face how they “saved” you:
A lot of the kids in the orphanage I lived in died before they were adopted. Shit was bad and I probably would have remained in those conditions until someone adopted me. But don’t ever throw some shit like that in my face to deflect an analysis around white supremacy. That is, as a friend of mine puts it, a cum shot to the face. It is dangling in front of me the conditions of my life so as to make your role in the process that created those circumstances and history invisible.
Thanks to commenter vanishing point for bringing this essay to my attention.
See also:
- Kil Ja Kim: bought colored kids – the essay itself
- Is the white anti-racist an oxymoron? – also based on an essay of hers
- Mighty Whitey
- Korean adoptees
- “Some of my best friends are black”
- “Go back to Africa”
Another great post — Thanks.
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I am not an adoptee, though have married into a White family that sounds pretty much like the family Kil Ja Kim was adopted into. The only thing I haven’t experienced is the aftermath of confronting them, but I can guess what that would be… I’m just glad my husband is different and open-minded enough to listen, learn and slowly open his eyes to the racism in our world.
Knowing how it is to marry into one of these families, I cannot imagine how stressful and soul-destroying it is to actually be adopted into such a family and have nowhere else to turn. Growing up in a world that’s mostly White and does not understand, nor want to understand, the pain you are forced to endure.
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This is a difficult issue but I do think parents who adopt a child should love the child as one of their own. They become the child’s parents and they should feel like the child is his child. So saying: “you are my daughter” (and feeling it, too) is not bad.
It becomes bad when you start treating this child differently because he is of a different race than you.
Not to mention the whole idea behind adopting black and Asian children is racist.
Also, did you notice that these people (particularly celebrities) never adopt a black or Asian American child? It’s always a child from the “third world”. (Is there a policy prohibiting inter-racial adoptions in the US?)
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I’ve seen many pics of Angelina Jolie toting around Zahara and her growing brood of bought colored kids as if they were accessories.
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Just wonder what a noise there would be if the rich africans would be buying white american orphans by the dozen and take them back to Africa? Just a thought.
I find it very very embarassing when Madonna or someone else goes shopping for the kids like handbags and drags them around. Why not pay for the childs education and life in his/her homeland? They got the millions to do that for thousands of kids! Why they want to buy them like puppies? ööh… Perhaps that is the reason: a kid gives you more prestige than a dog.
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I found a pic of Angelina and one of the Asian kids she adopted, Pax. If Angelina was so concerned about his Vietnamese heritage then why did she change his birthname, Pham Quang Sang, to Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt? See how she uses him as a prop for the paparazzi. Look at how he tries to shield himself. Disgusting.
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There are some cases where children adopted from Africa have been abused and beaten to death.
Hana Williams (Ethiopian)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016361753_hana30m.html
Lydia Schatz (Liberian)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Lydia_Schatz
IIRC, both couples had biological children they didn’t murder.
So adopted children don’t always gain the ‘better life’ that was expected.
But the assumption that they will is all part of the ‘white is right’ package.
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@ Mira:
“Also, did you notice that these people (particularly celebrities) never adopt a black or Asian American child? It’s always a child from the “third world”.
—-
I think Sandra Bullock (Black son) and Stephen Spielberg (Black daughter) along with former couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (Black son) are the exceptions as far as celebrities go. Bullock’s adopted son, Louis, is from Katrina-stricken New Orleans, if I’m not mistaken. When the media first showed pictures of him, I couldn’t help but think of that movie where she and her husband took in a poor black kid. I think the movie was was called “The Blind Side” or something. At the time it seemed as though life was imitating art.
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So by your infinite wisdom, by definition if you are white you are doomed or destined to be racist. No matter when you were born or how you were raised. I find that to be racist to make a blanket statement that if you’re white you got to be racist. So you look at the color of my skin and determine that I am racist.
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From Kil Ja Kim’s essay:
“They will try to get their Black kids to listen to hip hop. They will try to make their kids “authentic” minorities. They will push their children to have a “racial” outlook, to be “who they really are” (as if you know).
—
I have seen just the opposite when it comes to white people I know who have adopted black kids. Most of the parents seemed to make little effort in terms of helping the kids to embrace anything about their ethnic identity. The kids appeared (to me at least) somewhat confused. It seemed as though they either thought of themselves as white or wanted to be white, based on some of the kids’ statements. To be fair, I think there are white parents out there who adopt with good intentions, and who don’t “buy” kids of color to hip or chic. IMO people who decide to adopt cross-racially should be very mindful of how they treat their kids and who/what they expose their kids to.
Just a pet peave of mine…If you are a non-black parent of an adopted black or bi-racial child, please learn how to do their hair! If you don’t know ask somebody! Simply shaving it all off or leaving it unkempt is not the answer!
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I NEVER approved of white parents adopting black children and verse vica.
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Thanks for this post Abagond!
May I repost on By Their Strange Fruit (with the appropriate intro and links)?
This is National Adoption Month and so all November we are examining race and adoption (http://tiny.cc/z3eg2). This fits in perfectly!
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Thought-provoking indeed. Well done, Abagond.
This whole thing is based on pity, which is the name for the kind of thinking ‘I am privileged and not willing to change the unfair system that gives me certain advantages over certain communities, but I will share a little of my resources, just as much as would earn me a good reputation, with some members from the underprivileged community’. The more underprivileged the community is, the better the reputation. So child+coloured+third world makes an excellent purchase. Colored too is a good buy (yes, I’m skeptical of Sandra Bullock and Speilberg as well).
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@ StrngeFruit
Go ahead! It is fine so long as you link back to the original.
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@ Steve Hunnell
I never said all that.
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This is just..ugh! And everybody know that when these celebrities adopt these kids of color, theyre not thinking “oh boo hoo these poor babies need a home.” “This has made me want to throw all my riches away” Theyre thinking “awwwww yeeeeah, people magazine will love this!” I remember when i first saw angelina with her wannabe mick jagger lips i was like “please girl, yo ass aint foolin nobody”
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Well, you have a point, but I think it doesn’t matter whether the child and its buyers are color matched, it’s still pet slave trade with another name.
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I honestly have to say that everytime I see a magazine cover with a white celebrity carrying black children, I want to tear the magazine up. It seems like black adoptees are like toy dogs to these people.
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I think some people who adopt ther races can be well meaning, but at the same time some may have some ulterior motives that maybe becomes clear later on……I won’t go into details.
Anyway, I have witnessed some people unfortunate to come out of the scenario in the main story and they are usually unbalanced, angry, resentful people and I think I understand why that is.
At the end of the day, if you are going to foster or adopt children, regardless of colour, you should be able to give them the love, care and attention that they deserve……Children are not accessories to complement your attire…..another point I want to highlight is that if people are going to go into mixed relationships or adopt children of a different colour, it is important to know who how to take care of these children’s hair in the correct and proper fashion, let them learn about their culture, their history and so on……Most important is love, care, respect and attention, which some of these children just don’t receive.
The relationships in these families can also be toxic and filled with hatred, especially if some of the children are biological children and others are adopted into the family of a different colour, I can imagine how, without the proper and correct management, these relationships can end up turning sour and toxic.
After all, in families where all parents are from the same father and mother and of the same colour there are conflicts to be found, so bringing in children of other ethnicities and just dumping them in the family can have some disastrous consequences of sibling rivalry, favouritism, disrespect and resentment setting in.
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Wow! I had mixed feelings about interracial adoption, but this post has made me swing to the, “it’s not good” side. I think Zahara (Jolie-Pitt) is a beautiful child who is well loved, but I wonder how will she feel growing up with no other Black people close by. It seems like Pax was adopted so that Maddox could have someone in the family that looks like him. Brad and Angie don’t seem to care about her having a “matching” sibling.
I used to frequent a lot of Ethiopian adoption blogs and found quite a number of White families adopting from Ethiopia. The majority of them were devout Christians who saw it as their Christian duty to help these children. A good number of them had many children (adopted and bio) as well. Some would adopt an Ethiopian child and before that child was even acclimated into the family, they’d be filling out the paperwork for another (maybe one from China this time!). It was like they were addicted to adopting.
The final straw for me was when a White mother took her one year-old daughter to the salon to get her hair braided. She felt that she was treated badly by the Black beauticians who had to work on her screaming toddler’s hair. The mother wondered whether she was a victim of racism in the salon. The White parents in the comment section seem so thrilled to be able to validate a case of Black on White racism. I was sickened. I posted a comment telling her that she was probably treated coldly because she adopted a Black child and didn’t bother to learn how to do her hair. Black parents do not take their toddlers to hair salons. I didn’t mention how I felt that she and the other parents were chomping at the bit to prove that Black people can be racists. And that I hoped that when their Black children experience racism, they will be just as eager to label it as such. I stopped going to those blogs after that.
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Oh, ok, I just re-read the last part of my comment above.
I meant to write…..After all, in families where all children are from the same biological father and mother and of the same colour there are conflicts to be found, so bringing in children of other ethnicities and just dumping them in the family can have some disastrous consequences of sibling rivalry, favouritism, disrespect and resentment setting in.
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this is a topic i struggle a lot with, and would love the input of others. i believe almost 100% that transnational adoption is a seriously problematic practice, hinged upon the exercise of white supremacy and imperialism.
when it comes to domestic transracial adoption, however, i am conflicted. i am a white person who does not have to have biological children of my own, though i wish to adopt children. one important fact to know is that many times white couples wishing to adopt in the US end up adopting internationally because the wait for a white baby here is often years and years. the demand for white children to adopt is very high. so many families turn to eastern europe or asia.
there are, consequently, many black and Latin@ children who do not get adopted. another important factor is that many of these children are not actually orphans, but have parents who either can’t take care of them, or have been deemed “unfit” to parent by the (racist) criminal justice system.
is there any way for a white person to take such child into hir home and not be upholding a white supremacist system that criminalizes parents of color while valuing and promoting white parenthood?
we need to fight to end this system, but in the mean time, how can we make the best lives possible for these children?
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Although saying all this, from what I can see with many families, there is no handbook on parenting, so I guess some parents just try as best they can to bring up the children the way that they know how to, unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out the way that they planned.
I’m not making excuses for bad parenting, just saying.
Also, I think that some people who do adopt mixed children do try their best to love and take care of those children and allow them to form lifelong bonds with the other children. Of course some people do it better than others. Of course the main problem would stem from the parents and the way they bring up the children.
@saadiyah
I think that bonding is important for children and that’s probably why some people fill out the forms to adopt another child as soon as they can so that they can all grow up together and get along as soon as possible.
It’s a bit like being the new pupil at school and then you join late, it can be hard to make friends when everyone else has picked their little groups and cliques, same kind of thing, I suppose.
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I don’t think there is a problem with anyone saying `you are my daughter’, but the rest of that sentence (which I think you were paraphrasing) says it all: `I love you. I don’t see you as Korean. I see you as my daughter.’ In other words, the parents have to force themselves to forget or ignore the child’s race in order to see her and love her as their own daughter. This also implies that, when they do notice the racial differences, their feelings towards her are altered. In other words, their love for their adopted daughter is conditional and dependent upon how racialised she is in their eyes. The poor girl has absolutely no control over her race or how she appears to them.
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Going along with what Iris commented, please check out this clip regarding the pain a young Korean woman felt about her mom’s refusal to acknowlege her background.
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@Origin:
Omigosh, I don’t have children, but it breaks my heart knowing these children cruelly suffered.
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Leigh,
Thanks for the clip. I can’t imagine how painful it was growing up to have your identity ignored, but this poor woman had suffered a lot as I can tell from the tone of her voice.
I heard about the story of Hana Williams on White Watch a few weeks ago, and I was sickened by it.
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It’s so sad and insulting that Whites adopt children of Color as accessories to their supposed open-mindedness when in reality behave in racist, classist ways toward their adopted children. The tragedies of Lydia Schatz and Hannah Williams breaks my heart. It shows me that those White families don’t have the children of Colors’ interest at heart.
La Reyna(Stephaniegirl)
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Black children are the least likely to be adopted. I think everyone should be happy when a child is welcomed into a non-abusive loving home. People should be able to adopt kids no matter the race.
Also, do any of us really know Angelina/Brad or any other white couple’s motives in adopting children of another race? Or are we just letting individual situations fit our preconceived of how the world works?
@spinner
Your comment is truly disturbing.
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Don’t believe the celebrity hype.
There is a racial hierarchy when it comes to adoption. The sad reality is that African American children in foster care wait longer to be adopted than children of other races. African American infants in the private adoption system are also apparently less desirable than their white counterparts. I remember reading somewhere that black adoptive parents preferred light skin black girls over dark skin black boys.
About 13% of adoptions by American parents are international. And most of these children come from Asian and Latin American countries. I can’t be mad at Jolie or other white celebrities for adopting domestic or foreign black children when even among blacks, black children are undesirable.
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My heart breaks for that young Korean woman. Her mother seemed totally oblivious to her daughter’s pain. If her different ethnic background was such a bother to her, then why adopt a child who she didn’t want to “see”?
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I believe Mariska Hargitay is also part of this group as well. She has an adopted Black daughter.
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Very recently the renowned British cricket writer, Peter Roebuck, leaped to his death from his hotel room in South Africa after allegations of assault were made against him by a young Zimbabwean man. Roebuck housed about a dozen other young Zimbabwean men, originally from an orphanage in Zimbabwe, in his very large house, also in South Africa. The police are now interviewing them.
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All else equal is it better for a white person to adopt a black child or to leave that black child in foster care?
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@shady: If you are a millionaire, many times over, and if you are sincerily concerned about the lives of the children in underdeveloped countries, why not build a school, a small childrens hospital, decent housing and start somekind of business so that the parents can take care of their children?
Angelina Jolie has easily enough money to do that in few villages in Africa. She could save perhaps hundreds of children by doing this in two, three villages alone. Why not do that? Because there is no good photo options, no paparazzi food, and one could not pick up her own little black pet and say to one self: I am a good person.
On the other hand, if race does not matter in US adoption business, why the black kids are least wanted?
And, as we all know, there have been white families who have raised orphan black kids just fine, but they have not done so for publicity stunts like Madonna and AJ, who go around the world with wad of bills shopping kids like exotic pets.
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@Sam,
I think the problem with most people who are millionaires and billionaires is that they like to flaunt their money.
There are plenty of millionaires and billionaires who do good work quietly and anonymously, but then there are the ones who are helping people and want the people they are helping to KNOW that they are helping and show some gratitude and grovel, that kind of thing……I observe it everyday, it’s kind of annoying too.
Anyway, I think that what these children need most is love, because you see some people raised with all the money and things it can buy and they are very angry and bitter…I think those tendencies are more likely in adopted households or basically where the children to grow up to feel that they are not wanted…..I observe that everyday too.
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@OK, try and become a foster parent.
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During university, I remember watching a talk show (one of those David Letterman/Jay Leno types), where Anjalina Jolie stated that one of the reasons she was “adopting” kids from various countries was because she thought “that’s how the world kinda ought to be,” in terms of varied-hued people living and loving together. I admit that I was initially impressed (not being the cynical 25 year old I am now). When I think about her utterly ignorant and entitled statement now, it makes me livid. Jolie is so blinded by her whiteness that she absolutely does not see the implications of claiming that a wealthy, white AMERICAN couple buying poc children from their homelands, Anglosizing their names, raising them in a racist, hegemonic culture that devalues their personhood is “how the world ought to be.” With her millions, she can contribute to infrastructure for pregnant women to decrease maternal mortality in colonized countries or to ensure that poor mothers are better able to care for their kids, instead of putting them up for adoption. Oh wait, but that wouldn’t give her the warm and fuzzy feeling of being goddess of her own, private United Nations.
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and United Nations for the most part = white authority figures + poc subordinates
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@happiness: “There are plenty of millionaires and billionaires who do good work quietly and anonymously.”
I must admit that I am a cynic about these. In the first place, where and how did they accumulated their wealth? When we are talking about billionaires, they are one reason why some others are eating pebblestones and drinking sewer water in the first place. That kind of wealth does not come from thin air but usually is connected with cheap child labour, third world enviromental catastrophes etc. That is the reason why you have 30 million poor people in USA, why people work for dimes, why housing is abysmal, why you do not have universal healthcare etcetc.
And another question: how many millions a single person needs to live comfortable? If you make say 10 million a movie and you have cumulated some 50-60 million, I think you have a bit more than you need. You could keep, say 3 million, and spent the rest for projects to help those in third wolrd countries, instead of going over and buying kids for pennies.
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@Sam, actually people like Bono and Jolie have spent quite a lot of their time, money and resources trying to assist with just the sorts of things you list. It’s not just swoop in, get a kid, smile for the cameras and go.
We don’t know Jolie and have no clue what’s really in her heart. I do know that if she didn’t do anything-if she just had her own biological kids and didn’t give one second or one dime or one thought to any charitable/transformative projects designed to help children of color in the US and elsewhere-people would criticize her for that too.
Perhaps 20 years from now her adoptive children will write a book excoriating her as a horrible mother, a vile bigot, a thoughtless narcissist. I don’t know. Until that time though absent any evidence to the contrary I’m not going to blast her for adopting kids of a different heritage.
I never wrote that race doesn’t matter in adoption in the US. Perhaps you are responding to someone else. It does. But when the choice is between going to live with a white family or staying in foster care, I think that’s an easy choice to make.
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your logic bares the marks of emotional thinking. Based on your logic . . . if an alien from outer space came and did not understand any racism in America . . . that would make that alien a racist.
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That last statement of mine was not racist. It is honest. Your statement IS NOT logical.
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I play down slavery the same as a mother with a lost son would play down the loss of her son. It was a terrible thing and it is better to move on than dwell on it. That does not make me a racist in any way. Its the same as saying that if I dealt with the witch trials more than would make me seem less bigoted against witches. I don’t dwell on it because it was a terrible time in the past. This does not at all mean that I would do the same thing to witches now. I usually only put up three comments at a time. Ive reached my quota . . . unless someone wishes to respond in which case my quota is reset.
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@ mike00000000001
You put your comments in the wrong thread. They belong here:
Cut and paste them there and I will delete them here.
Thank you.
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Check this one regarding racism and adoption:
_____________________________________________________
I’m on CNN with Don Lemon! by Lisa Marie
Yesterday morning I got a call from CNN to participate in a panel commenting on transracial adoption, race and of course, Sandra Bullock. As a rule, I stay out of conversations that center around celebrities or that would seem to be looking at or critiquing one person’s life personally. However, they ensured me I wouldn’t be commenting about her directly, but was asked to come on as a scholar to comment on the overall climate in the web/ blogisphere. Supposedly everyone is all a ‘twitter’ and blogs are blowing up with comments from everyone who has something to say about her adoption of a black child. I had no idea people would care so much and also chose not to even really read anything around it, do you know why?
For many of us scholars who are adoptees / fostercare alumni, the questions that are raised by SB adoption, and that were asked in this interview / panel were the same questions people have been asking over and over since transracial adoption became more of a public issue politically and racially during the 50′s when the Korean War adoptions began and the 1970′s when the Vietnamese Baby Lifts happened. So for us, So Sandra Bullock is like one tiny bump in a long history of black and brown children being adopted by white families. The issues remain the same except now we have moved to a place where we aren’t only concerned with domestic adoption but with the connections between child exploitation, paper orphaning, continued resistance to family preservation, devaluation of families of color and the entire economic market of children of color that continues to exploit unwed mothers who if they had the economic means, societal approval and support, would otherwise keep their children.
So regarding Sandra, its not really about her or her choices. Its unfortunate they have to be all over the media, but for us, its about an entire history and continue replication of a specific narrative around adoption and race and one that usually never includes adult adoptee researchers. So first, I have to hand it to CNN for taking the leap on putting someone, specifically an adoptee, who is a researcher and scholar on adoption issues who actually knows what they are talking about on their programming.
So. . . back to me. Personally, the whole day was super surreal, but I had a great time. I had my first ‘superstar’ moment when CNN ‘sent a car’ to pick me up. I actually found this incredibly important because everything happened so quickly, I really needed the time from my house to the studio in SF to go over notes, focus and stop giggling with excitement with my other AFAAD board member, Lisa Walker, who went with me for moral and technical support.
Talk back:
First, I couldn’t see either Don or Wendy in while I was set up in the satellite room, so I had no idea what Wendy looked like. I don’t have cable, so I don’t even watch CNN, so I had no sense of what they were putting on screen while any of us were talking. Overall, I’m pleased with how it went down, I was nervous but it felt great when I was done. yay!
For the most part, I will let the video speak for itself. My only overall comment is that I think its incredibly important for us to recognize the distinctions between mixed race biological children who are raised by a white parent and transracially adopted children of color raised in white families. As much as adoptive parents want to act like race doesn’t matter, sometimes they want to forget that adoption matters just as much.
Certainly for the mixed race person or adoptee, issues of struggling with the whiteness of your parent, the privilege of your parent who doesn’t want to recognize you as a person of color is similar. But what people forget is how the negotiation of two family histories is always part of the adoptee history, whether or not that adoptee acknowledges it or not or has the support from their family to explore issues what it might be like to think about a connection to a birth family and how that connection changes the parent – child relationship. (its not a good or bad change, its just a shift thats important to recognize.) In other words, a mixed race person with a white mother IS connected to that mother in a way where they can see their origins, their heritage, their family history as DIRECTLY connected to them. In a TRA family where the parent or parents are white, that connection is NOT there. Its there because of shared memories, its there because of a shared history since the adoptive relationship began, but not because the adoptee can look at the family and say, oh, i look like Aunt Edna, my nose is my mothers, I look like my brother, or I understand how great grandpa came over on the Mayflower and that’s a part of me. For and adoptee, that part is missing. There is no mirror of recognition in the faces of our families, or a history that spans back generation. Imagine how powerful it was for me to find out after 40 years that on the Filipino side of my family my grandfather came from the Philippines to work in the fields in Hawaii, and how amazing it was to find out that on my Black side of the family had a few active Black Panthers. Two tiny details that have given a kind of grounding to place my feet in. I am from somewhere.
Finally, I’m concerned about Ms. Walsh’s comment regarding her and her daughters being a ‘welcome racial curiosity’. Its this kind of language that forces me to remind parents of children of color that what is cool for you, is certainly NOT always cool for your kids. You may get off walking down the street with your beautiful exotic mixed race kid, who gets stares and comments. But how exactly do you think your child feels about being on display, about being stared at, about having people think that you dont really belong to your family. This is where the connection between mixed race children and adoptees DOES cross. Its not either or. Try to hold both at the same time folks.
Please comment and share. I’d love to get your thoughts on Don, Wendy and I. Lets talk folks!
What a great day. oh and to my OAKLAND folks. dudes, I’m SOOORRRY okay? I was looking at the reflection of myself in the screen with the picture of the GG Bridge behind me and SF just came out, I love and REP Oakland folks!! lol!
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Example…
http://detnews.com/article/20111122/METRO03/111220420/Families-cemented-on-Adoption-Day
One wonders where this little girl’s parents are and didn’t she have any other relatives who could take her in. Was the state to quick to remove custody? But am I willing to automatically say that this white couple is doing a bad thing? Probably not.
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White women have no clue how to take care of black hair. This is another reason they shouldn’t be adopting black kids.
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Shady Gray,
Sam is right. If Angelina really wanted to help third world kids it would have been better just give money to an orphanage.
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@proudchocolategirl
There is much truth in what you say here re the hair situation. I have spoken only recently on a different thread about a female that was known to me that had a mixed race daughter and the issues of hair care therein. Disappointingly, this woman was friends with a diverse group of people – many whom had daughters and they learned how to ‘manage’ the childs hair. This woman would not get to grips with it – despite being shown how by her peers black and white saying ‘I just cant do it’. Even minimalist things such as choosing a decent product were out of the question for her and slowly the childs hair turned to braken. The last I heard was that she had chopped it all off just in time for secondary school as the mother had split from the father and he didnt take up the hair care either!
Another 2 girls who lived on my estate whilst growing up, their hair always favoured the ‘static’ look where the hairdresser would just chop away dead ends and leave. They only seem to have come to grips with things themselves as adults though not sure if they visit Afro Caribbean hairdressers or whether European hairdressers are more adept at tackling mixed hair of this kind now.
It really is a shame that worldwide, a POC cant walk in to any hair salon and know the needs of their hair will be catered for…maybe too much to hope for at this moment of time…
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Also apparently by Kim
http://apimovement.com/michael-moore/connecting-dots-michael-moore-white-nationalism-multiracial-left
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Abagond:
White actors such as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are so phony it’s nauseating. They view themselves as globalists, but, there’s nothing global about what they’re doing. Using poor black kids as props to make themselves look good in the eyes of other white libs is not helping black folk. Africa has real problems, Haiti has real problems, Brazil has real problems, and so forth. Liberals ignore real racism on this planet, and instead, focus a lot of energy and attention on perceived racism that may or may not exist.
Tyrone
Black Eros Movement
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Isn’t it odd that when a white person reaches great wealth and celebrity, they often decide to adopt a baby of color? Its as if their saying that by so doing they lose nothing in terms of white privilege with their peer group.
In the real world, I white couple would hardly look at a child of color: certainly not a Black child.
Good!
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@actually, I won’t speculate on the “motives” of Jolie-Pitts. I hope they don’t adopt anymore, because doing so will make the kids feel like collectibles, depriving them of individual attention. I seriously think that’s why Mira Farrow’s daughter left her for Woody Allen. She couldn’t stand being a toy.
Anyway, Angelina and Brad do donate to charities, hospitals and schools in Africa. So does Madonna.
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@ Lara, Jolie and some others do donate to 3rd world orphanages. Anyway I can’t, absent some proof of malice or neglect which no one here is likely to have, say that Jolie and Pitt did a bad thing by adopting children with less melanin than they have. I have no idea what sort of parents or people they are.
And it is also incorrect to to make a blanket statement that white women have no clue how to take care of black hair. Some do, some don’t.
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The idea that it is better to leave a child in an orphanage or shuffle them from foster home to foster home than adopt him or her doesn’t make sense to me. At all. But perhaps we should ban transracial adoptions completely. That would evidently make some people feel better. And that’s the important thing.
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from ASIA NEWS:
» 11/28/2011 13:09
SRI LANKA
Colombo: sister of Mother Teresa arrested for “selling” children
by Melani Manel Perera
The first Missionary of Charity to be jailed, she was accused following an anonymous tipoff. Sister Eliza runs a hostel for unwed mothers. Confusion surrounds her arrest. According to fellow nuns, the incident is due to an outdated registry.
Colombo (AsiaNews) – Sister Mary Eliza, from the Missionaries of Charity, has been in prison since Fraiday night accused of selling children. Since the congregation was founded, she is the first nun of Mother Teresa to be arrested. An anonymous tipoff informed police, which then burst into the Prem Nivesa of Moratuwa, a hostel for young unwed mothers run by the Sisters of Mother Teresa and arrested the nun. The hostel is now impounded. Sister Eliza, superior of Prem Nivesa, is now in jail at the Women’s Prison of Welikada, and has not been able to see a lawyer yet. Today, a judge is set to charge her formally with illegal trafficking in children.
Last Wednesday, a group of people led by Anoma Dissanayake, head of the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA), surrounded the Prem Nivesa hostel to examine the situation of the children and mothers living in the facility run by the Missionaries.
“Police and NCPA officials burst into the home at around 11 am, causing panic. They checked every nook and cranny in the facility and took away our files,” a nun told AsiaNews.
Two days later, on Friday evening, police agents took Sister Eliza and two nuns to a judge’s home. Sister Eliza was then taken by car to Welikada Prison, whilst the two other nuns were brought back to the convent.
“Police, NCPA officials and media rushed to our facility,” Sister Eliza said before her arrest. “They cross-examined the unwed mothers and took away many documents.”
“We have never been involved in child trafficking. It is against our faith,” she reiterated. “Our mission is to take care of unwed mothers and their children. We have never taken money for our work. Children are adopted in accordance with the law.”
The circumstances surrounding the arrest of Sister Eliza remain murky. Some local media accused the Sisters of “selling the future of the country to foreigners for few thousand rupees”.
However, the Missionaries of Charity believe their mother superior is prison because the home opened its doors to an underage pregnant woman without informing the police and because the number of children in the facility was greater than the number reported in the registry, which had not been updated.
The confusion is compounded by the silence of the Church, which has not yet issued an official statement about Sister Eliza’s arrest.
There are nearly 760 convents of Mother Teresa worldwide with more than 5,000 missionaries. The Prem Nivesa has 75 children, 20 pregnant women and 12 new mothers.
The National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) is an independent organisation under the Office of the President.
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@ Shady Grady,
I think more needs to be done to promote intra-racial adoption among Black families before having Black children adopted by well-meaning whites. I would find it somewhat unsettling if folks from Nigeria suddenly began adopting children from Ireland.
Wouldn’t you?
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Interesting post. I’m a black woman. I was adopted from birth into a white family. I have two white brothers (my parent’s biological children) and a black brother, another adoptee. The one time I ever did ask my parents just why they adopted black kids: they literally had no answer. “I don’t know” just doesn’t ever cut it. So I’m left to wonder all sorts of things. I was born in late 1968, so the climate in America speaks volumes on why a liberal couple might want to adopt black children…
Through circumstances I won’t go into here, I spent most of my early/formative years growing up in Africa. So I learned about my ancestry, but that didn’t help me much to learn about being African-American. My mom did her level best to keep up with things that would happen to me, especially about my HAIR. I would get teased because I was wearing the elaborate braided hairstyles my mother learned from african women. She ran around asking black friends and coworkers who was the person to go to, to get my hair straightened when I’d finally had enough and wanted to fit in and end the teasing. (funny, I think me wanted to straighten my hair broke my mom’s heart more than anything else).
I suppose I’ll end up writing a novel about how it was to grow up a middle class white girl on the inside and black on the outside. I’m not sure that there are exactly laws now, against people doing what my parents did back then, but I believe the adoptive courts strongly encourage people to adopt within their race. Unless of course you’re a hollywood star. Then I guess you can do whatever you want.
These are the parents who when I got arrested at 16 for protesting against apartheid, congratulated me took me out to a celebration dinner. But when I was confronted with all the fun things that happen while being black in America – being pulled over, once at gunpoint, having racial slurs thrown at me, etc the list goes on – were unable to really cope with that part of my reality.
Maybe their feeling was in adopting black kids, is that they could somehow protect us from all that, shield us from the results of our blackness, I don’t know. I just wished they’d said anything. Just something. Taking two human lives into your family is not a small thing. There must have been a very strong reason for doing such a thing. Maybe all these years later they felt ashamed of their naive idealism or something, and thought it would be best to just not say anything.
Anyway, I’ve written far too much already, I just wanted to say something. This post struck a chord (obviously) and I also wanted to say how much I’ve enjoyed reading your blog.
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@uepa:
Thanks for your perspective. It seems your parents, although well-meaning, were ill-equiped to handle the complexities of raising black children.
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Just read through tons of comments and feel heartsick, though not surprised. Here’s the challenge: Check out the statistics of African-American children languishing in foster care and what the long-term consequences are for those kids. Does anyone think that is better for the children than being in loving families, regardless of the parents’ color? I am white. I want to adopt. Do you really think I should tell the agency I only want to adopt a white child? Can that really be what the majority of posters on here are suggesting? I am hesitant to adopt an African-American child ONLY because of the attitudes about this from some African-Americans, displayed by many comments, and not knowing how to handle that. I almost married an African-American man many years ago (I did not, and the reasons had nothing to do with race). When we were a couple (4 years), we definitely ran into some racism from whites. But we ran into more racism from blacks, some of whom flat-out told me I didn’t have a right to be with him since I was white. That was hurtful, as we were two people in love, both culturally sensitive but not culturally-bound. We knew what issues our biracial kids would face if we had them and were ready to address all that, and we knew we would stand up against racism from both communities. Fast-forward 10 years: The man I ended up marrying was white (and again, don’t make that about race as it was not). I had expected to have biracial (which in American society is frequently viewed as African-American) biological kids AND to adopt (as I’ve always had a heart for adoption, even before knowing I wouldn’t have biological kids). Am I to avoid African-American or biracial children now, when I have love to give and there are overwhelming numbers of minority children in foster care? And if I move forward, how would you suggest I respond and teach my children to respond to the attitudes of those who assume their adoptive mother (me) is racist and somehow they don’t belong with me since I’m white. (BTW, I have white friends who have adopted black children and are aware of white racism but are clueless that many African-Americans are so critical of their family and their supposed motives. Ignorance may be bliss but is likely to catch up with them. But should those of us who are aware leave the kids we’d love to love in the foster care system instead? My friends have beautiful, loving families and their children have parents who love and care for them; they are not being sent from one foster home to the next to the next.) It seems to be a no-win situation for kids when you say that they have to have African-American parents but the numbers of African-Americans wanting to adopt vs. the numbers in foster care just don’t match up. Yes, you can work on things at a system level, but do you sacrifice the individual kids in the system in the meantime? Would you really suggest I tell our agency I only want a white child when in fact I am open to all races? Is that really the preference?
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@ Adopting,
I don’t think that’s what anyone is saying You can’t blame the children for what you experienced, if your afraid to adopt a black child because of the “backlash” you think you would get, you should rethink it. You also can’t think in the perspective of, “Well blacks don’t adopt those kids and I’m the victim because they might not like me!”, your not doing them a favor from coming in like a “white savior” and rubbing it in their face how much more “caring” you are than their own people.
Just don’t adopt them thinking you can erase their their race, you have to see them as black children and give them the support they need to flourish.
Just adopt a child, that’s what I say. Children need to be adopted, and many families don’t adopt black children, so if you want to, I would. If you feel like you can offer them a loving home, what does their race have to do with that? And why care about what backlash you think you will get? Is it about you or the children?
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In NO way am I blaming the children for my other experiences! I mention my other experiences only because they gave me insights into attitudes I may not otherwise be aware of, caused me to think through how we’d help our biracial children handle racism (which would have been easier as a mixed couple, now we’re trying to figure it out as a white couple), and gave me a taste of what I and my children might experience. Also, it is not an issue of being a victim or a white savior or anything else, and your comment that assumes I think I’m “doing them a favor” by being a “white savior” or that I think I’m “more caring than their own people” (NONE of which at all describe how I feel or is what I said) just proves the point (that you got all that out of my post shows a lot of false presuppositions) of how hard it is to just be a caring parent loving a child, regardless of race, in this society where people make those assumptions about how I think/feel. Now before anyone jumps on me for the “regardless” let me explain that “regardless” does not mean ignoring race in terms of helping the child with identity and experience, etc, but it does mean it doesn’t affect my love or feeling that this child is my blessed child if I adopt and raise that child, just as if he/she came out of my womb, regardless of if our genetic makeup (including color) “match.” However, TO BE ABLE TO GIVE A BLACK CHILD CULTURAL SUPPORT, I have to be able to interact positively in/with the black community AS THE MOTHER OF this child. It sounds as if there are so many negative underlying assumptions about white parents and black children and their supposed motives, etc, that it may hard to do that, so it feels like a very difficult situation for the CHILDREN BECAUSE of the adults. That is, if my family walks into a primarily black church, will we be welcomed as a family, or will people be mumbling under their breath that we must think we’re the great white savior coming in there to show it off? I’ve heard comments like that, and that can’t be good for the kids, so I’m just trying to figure out how to make it work. For example, I know I can adopt a Hispanic child without the same issues, because I speak Spanish (as a second languag but very well), have lived in Latin America and Spain, teach in a primarily Hispanic setting, and have many Hispanic friends who would be supportive and be part of our lives. Where I currently live, I would have to seek that out a little more for an African-American child, and the attitudes I’ve seen on multiple posts and experienced make it sound as if my family would be anything but embraced as the very fact of me being white automatically leads to people assuming things like “white savior” mentatlity. Here’s another “regardless”: I don’t want to be embraced or excluded because of my color or that I’ve adopted a child of color; I want to be embraced as the mother of my child and as a fellow human being who wants to grow personally and wants to give her child everything he/she needs to grow. If I am not, our child will pick up on that, and I’m sure THAT would add to identity issues too.
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White foster parents seem to have much less problems with enlisting black assistance, Adopting…
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Then why ask this question? It should be obvious – take the easy way out. You are far more worried about what other people think of you, and who you can ‘enlist’ to help raise your child, so it seems rhetorical.
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@ adopting
Sounds like you have a lot of insecurites about adopting an AA child, so just adopt a Hispanic child (as you posted) or someone that fits your cultural background better.
It’s quite presumptious to assume that all the AA people you come in contact with, will be hypercritical of your family if you decide to adopt a Black child. Abagond’s commenters aren’t a monolith remember, we come in all shades of grays just like you. Good luck to you, hope you find a child to love real soon.
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@adopted:
Get a dog! That way you wont have to worry about society’s views. Besides it’s cheaper and you don’t have to worry about the dog lippin off as it gets older.
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Look, it’s not about what other people think of me. If you knew me you’d know that! But I realize you don’t and I can see how you might get the wrong idea as it’s difficult to explain. It’s about trying to figure out realistically how to give the kids what they need if it’s challenging to be accepted as a family by the group from whom I would need support. And no, I am not assuming that all AA feel that way, but I’m reading a lot (on various sites) that lead me to believe it’s fairly common. I hope it’s not. In response to the “easy way out” as you put it, we may adopt a Hispanic child, but at the moment there are a ton of African-American and biracial (black/white) kids coming through the system and needing families, so we could wait for a Hispanic or white kid, but right in front of me are dear children who are no longer with their birth families who need permanent famlies and it breaks my heart as I know we could give them that family, so I’d like to figure out how to make it work. Again, it’s NOT about ME and I’m sorry if it comes across that way, but I’m trying to proactively think about the potential problems and how to address them for the sake of the child and maybe I’m not communicating my concern well. Realistically do you not think that if their white adoptive parents and their family structure are not accepted it will negatively impact the kids? And I’m reading a lot of sites that are really strong against white parents, so I’m wondering what effect that has on the kids. There are all these posts about how white families didn’t do a good enough job of understanding the complexities or nurturing the child’s culture or origin, but theen there’s all these others who immediately judge any white adoptive parents who enter the black community with black kids as “white saviors” or what not. I pray there are many who would be very supportive, but I have run into and read much to the contrary, and I am trying to make a decision that will be good for the child in the long run, which includes putting some of these awkward (easy to misunderstand or judge) concerns. If the end result is people just say take the “easy way out” and go elsewhere, that really doesn’t help me or anyone else or any of the many African-American children in the system. If I am reading the rants that don’t represent the majority, go ahead and set me straight! I’d love to hear that, if it’s true. There will always be some who are negative or judgemental, and I and my kids can handle that. But percentages and degree do make a difference. And practical pointers instead of just judgement. Yes, I can take the easy way out, but is that the best way…
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My first instinct was to completely ignore Hernieth’s rude and mocking comment (H says I should get a dog), but perhaps it’s valuable to simply remind everyone that that I made myself vulnerable, sharing definitively-non-PC but real concerns and insecurities (the kind most of us like to hide, myself included) in hopes of getting some help (not necessarily reassurance, just guidance and clarification and if others’ experiences are similar and what impact that has on the kids, etc). I put my heart and fears out there, apparently not very well, judging by how it’s been perceived, but I truly am trying to figure things out and ask myself and others some of the hard questions. It would be easy to sweep all these things under the rug and just jump in and hope it all works out. Maybe there’s something to that. Fake it til you make it and all. But I was just trying to face my concerns head-on. If I have offended, forgive me; that was certainly not my intent. If I’ve provided entertainment (to mock), well that wasn’t my intent either, but so be it. However, when someone new (this is what I hope will be helpful to others in the future) comes on and puts something out there, maybe try to give them the benefit of the doubt and help them out…
I’m done writing for good. I will check in later to see if anything’s been written from which I can learn.
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I am definately skeptical of (some) White people, who adopt black children internationally. They have no black friends, fellow parishoners or neighbors. And even worse, the international adoption agencies and orphanages are usually NOT owned by the natives of countries in Haiti, Ethiopia, Liberia and Uganda. Take a guess who does…..
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It seems that more and more black / biracial American kids are being adopted by Europeans, esp. the Dutch
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/world/international-adoption-us-children-adopted-abroad/index.html
It seems that the mothers feel that it is better to be adopted by a European in Europe than in America — they think they can grow up with less racism there.
I wonder.
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Does this: “Whites using their position in a white racist world to buy people of other races.” mean the act of adoption itself is inherently racist in and of itself totally independent of all thoughts, intentions, and world-views of the people involved?
Does this mean that when it comes to adoption, one should stick to one’s own race, even though that seems to sound racist to me too (you’re making a distinction of how to treat people on the basis of race), unless perhaps one is already in a mixed-race relationship?
Also, “adopting” mentioned: “There are all these posts about how white families didn’t do a good enough job of understanding the complexities or nurturing the child’s culture or origin, ” Which suggests they do need that cultural stuff — but how does that jive with the idea that making them an “authentic minority” as mentioned in the blog OP is racist?
Another interesting question: if you decide to go for “white kids” because you don’t want to “be racist”, how do you stymie the development of racism in that white kid as much as possible?
And what about black people adopting white kids. If the “white antiracist is an oxymoron” (does that mean that white people should just stick with being racist since what’s the middle between racist and antiracist? “non-racist”? Sticking with being racist sure doesn’t seem like a good thing to do!), so that only blacks can be antiracist, maybe antiracist blacks could better raise a “non-racist” or “less racist” white child than whites could?
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What a nightmare for kids like her to grow up a person of color in a family of white racists.
I find that white people who marry PoC and have mixed race kids often do so because of their own psychological baggage about wanting to be an honorary PoC (while remaining white with white privilege) to expunge their white guilt and become “interesting” and “exotic” and “have culture”. The ones who married into my ethnic group can be really obnoxious about trying to get me to accept them as an ethnicity-mate. It’s precisely BECAUSE they are white, however, that they don’t understand that even if they really were my same ethnicity that would be no guarantee that I would like or accept them or vice-versa.
It would be a nightmare for me to marry a white man and have white in-laws and have to put up with white BS even when I want to relax at home, then have people like that influence my kids, maybe even have my half-white kids say racist crap to me.
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