Sometimes it's Embarrassing to Be an Adoptive Parent....

like when a fellow adoptive parent writes the following:

"Is there anything about adoption that makes me very angry? Yes, it is the people who make a career of being angry adoptees, and who try to destroy adoption for everyone else"

Because of course there is nothing worse than the adoptees themselves who are out to destroy adoption.

(maybe while they are trying to save adoption from the adoptees, they can also fundraise for their adoptee's therapy bills after being raised with parents who, not only feel that way, but who would publicly admit it)

 

"Dangerous" Black Boys

Think racial perception isn't an issue.

Here you go....

I have been volunteering at my church, working in the nursery for Vacation Bible School.  Amongst my small people is a little boy named S- He is a 2 year old African American child.  He is very verbal, and a little busy and a little impulsive- just like pretty much every two old on Earth.   I am also working with, among other people, an adult who I will call Adult for the purpose of this post. 

Today S was playing near the other children when one reports that he hit her with a ball.  None of the adults saw it and there was no indication that it happened (or that it happened intentionally- and let's face it- 2 year olds do lots of stuff unintentionally)  Adult and one of the other volunteers mention that we might need a time out spot.  (so already we are talking about punishment- even though no one witnessed the infraction and there seems to be little to no harm from the alleged incident)

About 4 minutes later, another child complains that S has kicked him (and they are all playing in a very small space)  Again there are no indications that there was a conflict or that the "kick" happened deliberately.    Again the time out conversation ensues (and as a behaviorist and a person with experience in child development- time out is inappropriate for the situation)

Then I hear this from Adult (paraphrased)

"Maybe we need to have S play alone- he is dangerous today"

In case you missed it- this is a 2 YEAR OLD CHILD, behaving like a 2 YEAR OLD CHILD. 

Was he being impulsive- yes

Did he hit and kick other children- maybe

Was he being aggressive- not really

But of all the adjectives that could be used (whether accurate or not), the one Adult chose was DANGEROUS, to describe a 2 year old.

Maybe Adult would have used that word to describe any of the other children.

But I doubt it.

Facebook- Your Racism is Showing

So a couple of days ago this story came across my FB feed:

Here the differnce:

In Lions murder there was not a known suspect at the time of the murder.  A search for the killers was swift and thorough.  Once a suspect (suspects in this case) were identified, they were IMMEDIATELY arrested and charges with multiple crimes. 

(and since there is video surveillance it will be difficult for the defendants to avoid conviction)

In the Martin case there was a known suspect who admitted to firing the shots at the scene of the crime, yet police allowed him to leave and did not charge him for several weeks.

(and with the only witness dead and no video surveillance, it is much easier to change the narrative to support the defense)

(and to a lessor degree Lion was assumed to be doing nothing wrong- despite the fact he was actually sleeping off a night of drinking and Martin was assumed to be doing something wrong- despite no one, including his killer, seeing him do anything remotely illegal)

And of course- all of the suspects in Lion's killing will be convicted and go to jail- and rightfully so.  Martin's killer- well we all know how that turned out, despite the fact that he instigated the entire situation.

But then there was this one- which makes no attempt to hide the racist intent

You won't recognize me. My name was Antonio West and I was the 13-month old child who was shot at point blank range by two teens who were attempting to rob my mother, who was also shot. A Grand Jury of my mommy's peers from Brunswick GA determined the teens who murdered me will not face the death penalty...too bad I was given a death sentence for being innocent and defenseless.

My family made the mistake of being white in a 73% non-white neighborhood, but my murder was not ruled a Hate Crime. Nor did President Obama take so much as a single moment to acknowledge my murder.

I am one of the youngest murder victims in our great Nation's history, but the media doesn't care to cover the story of my tragic demise, President Obama has no children who could possibly look like me - so he doesn't care and the media doesn't care because my story is not interesting enough to bring them ratings so they can sell commercial time slots.

There is not a white equivalent to Al Sharpton because if there was he would be declared racist, so there is no one rushing to Brunswick GA to demand justice for me. There is no White Panther party to put a bounty on the lives of those who murdered me. I have no voice, I have no representation and unlike those who shot me in the face while I sat innocently in my stroller - I no longer have my life.

Tell your friends about me, tell you families, get tee shirts with my face on them and make the world pay attention, just like you did for Trayvon.

While no less tragic- again I feel compelled to point out that the killers were apprehended and charged  for killing West.  The beef this one has is that the killers (who were 17 and 14 at the time of the murder) aren't eligible to get the death penalty.  So being tried and likely convicted isn't enough for the writer of this.  It's not enough until there are two more dead kids. 

Here the definition of a hate crime (to address that part of the post)

A crime motivated by racial, sexual, or other prejudice, typically one involving violence.

The motivation was robbery, not race.  Simply having a perpetrator and victim of different races is not by definition a hate crime.

(although you might argue the Martin killing was a hate crime since Zimmerman following him very possibly was motivated by racial prejudice)

President Obama hasn't talked about most victims of homicide- including the ones who "look like him"

  How about Quianna Tompkins was a 6 year old child shot yesterday who is fighting for her life.  Bet you haven't heard of her .  Or what about Dylan Samuel Peters or Ryker Petersen or Michael ayers or Nazario Boykins or Scarlett Porter or Brantley and Nolan Ralston.  

Those are just some of the children killed by adults in gun homicides since March.

The outrage in the Martin case was the significant delay of time between the crime and the arrest and then of course the verdict which managed to take these 3 relevant facts:

A armed man followed an unarmed teen depsite police admonishments to stop

There was a confrontation between the man and teen (and it doesn't matter at all who started the actual confrontation.  If the man had stopped following the teen, the confrontation would not have happened)

The man shot and killed the teen

A jury somehow went from those facts to not guilty- shocking all but the racist contingent of our country.

But the fact is that most crime is black on black or white on white- so cherry picking 2 or 4 or 6 cases out of the tens of thousands of murders every year and then using that to try to make some kind of racist point really just goes to confirm exactly why this case sparked outrage. 

How many pregnant woman are killed who never get the media coverage of Laci Peterson or how many other young black girls are shot in Chicago who never get the coverage of Hadiya Pendleton or the list goes on and on.  How many of those victims who never get coverage are white?  How many are black?  The truth is most murder doesn't get covered- there are too many.  

Where's your outrage about that fact?

Each and every one of these cases is tragic with real people left dead and their families and friends left grieving.  They are all senseless.  But in each case, the system attempts to bring to justice the perpetrators of these crimes.  The system failed in Trayvon Martin's killing.  His killer was not initially brought to justice until the howls of public outrage became to loud to ignore.  Most of the country will argue his killer was never brought to justice.

But whether the verdict was just or not, the fact is the killer of Trayvon Martin instigated a confrontation, killed him and now is a free man.  

The same can not be said of the killers of either Marley Lion or Antonio West. 

And to use their cases to attempt to discount the very real racial issues that factored into the Trayvon Martin murder, investigation and trial diminishes their lives and their deaths.

Sorry America, but your racism is showing.

Tee Hee Hee

I was cleaning up my hard drive and found this....

Seems as Relevant Now as Ever- White Privilege

This post has remained the most read post in the history of this blog and I was planning to re-run it in August as an anniversary post but in light of the comments and content I am seeing on Facebook and the web in general- running it a few weeks early seems necessary....

(I have modified the post slightly from the original)

 White Privilege is Not About Feeling Guilty

In 1988 Peggy McIntosh wrote a brilliant essay entitled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Every white person should read it in my opinion, but it should be required reading for white parents adopting transracially. (If you haven't read it you can read it here) And while we have passed the 20th anniversary of the writing, little has changed. Certainly a few of the minor things are no longer issues (for instance, Crayola has changed the “flesh” colored crayon to “peach” and you can fairly easily find people colored crayons in some of the variety of hues that people come in) but the major tenets of white privilege remain as unchanged as they were 20 years ago.

Within groups of adoptive parents there are many reactions to the whole concept of white privilege. To some they use the minor details (like skin colored band-aids) that do not continue to hold true as an excuse to negate the entire thesis. Some will argue that other groups have privilege too so it isn’t a white thing. There are also other kinds of privilege- you can also be afforded privilege based on your gender, age, physical ability, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, education and religion. But if you look closely at the list you will see how many of these privileges co-exist together, tied up in a nice little bundle with race. The fact that there are other privileges also does not negate the fact that in the United States privilege primarily exists on the basis of your skin. And the amount of privilege you get is also directly proportional to how light your skin is. The lighter you are, the more privilege you get (my African American friends refer to it as how well you can “pass” [for white])

guilt·y adj

1. responsible for a crime, wrong action, or error and deserving punishment, blame, or criticism

One of the major response from 

adoptive parents   all people who do not accept the idea of white privilege is the idea that they have no reason to feel guilty about having white privilege because they didn't own slaves, they aren't racist, (the "I have black friends" defense) or that there are reasons that others don’t have privilege. However, shaping the conversation around the idea of guilt has no place here and even if you felt guilty- it would be counterproductive. You are not responsible for the white privilege that exists. You didn’t ask for white privilege and you did nothing to deserve it or achieve it except have the fortune of being born with white skin. You did not create the conditions that result in white privilege. And even if you did feel guilty, you can’t get rid of your white privilege. You benefit from it- accept it. But at the same time also accept that other people do not have that it- and what they don't have impacts their life in thousands of subtle and not so subtle ways.  
 Spending all your energy protesting how you aren’t going to feel guilty is an easy way to avoid looking at the real problem. 

But here's the point...

White privilege is about the racism of institutions and socialization far more than it is about the racism of individuals. When someone talks about white privilege, they are NOT calling all white people racists. They are talking about the results of years of socialization, most of which is unconscious and unacknowledged. They are talking about the end result of a GROUP of people who have historically held power over another group-maintaining that power through an intricate web of economics, education, policies, practices and in some cases brute force. Beliefs and practices that we all internalize because we are socialized from birth to believe these things all without ever even realizing that it is happening. Practices that have instilled the dominant culture (in this case white) as the norm and everything else as “other.”

That is what white privilege is all about, plain and simple- it’s not about calling a person racist, it’s not about people feeling guilty. It’s about one group being the norm and the resulting benefits that result from that fact. Benefits like

-knowing that if you are pulled over that you probably won’t be searched by the police (and while I know there are some folks who want to think this doesn’t happen it does. My former boss (an always well dressed black man in his 30’s) and his friend left the mall and were pulled over within minutes under suspicion of robbing the mall. They were both frisked and the officers began to search the car when they received word that the actual suspects in the robbery had been apprehended at the mall. The police however, continued to search the car despite the fact that they no longer had probable cause to even continue the stop, let alone the search)

-knowing that almost anywhere you go you will see people who look like you and if you don’t, you have probably made a conscious choice to be where you are

-knowing that you will not be followed in a store

-knowing that you will see people who look like you reflected POSITIVELY in the television shows you watch, the magazines you read, the news you hear and the textbooks your children will learn from

-knowing your history is not relegated to one month a year, IF there is time in the curriculum

-knowing that you can sleep each night understanding that race is not an issue you have to think about at all if you don’t want to

One of the examples used in a recent (online) conversation I was having was the example of being able to find dolls that match your skin tone. There were many explanations of why there are not as many dolls of color and they all may be true or partially true. But at the end of the day the privilege is that you can walk into ANY store that sells toys and find a doll to match. Knowing that your skin, your features, your group is represented. The privilege is the fact the doll is there, the why it is there when there are no (or few) dolls of color is the system of socialization that determines what beauty is, what consumers are being marketed to, and what media message is sent- that’s the racism behind white privilege. 

We can’t stop white privilege (at least not yet) and no matter how much we may want to, we can’t get rid of ours. What we can do it understand it exists and recognize when we are benefiting from it. We can do what we can to make sure our privilege is not at the expense of someone else. But the best thing we can do if we really want to effect change for the world is to point out our privilege to other white folks. This is not something that is easily accepted by the very people who need to understand it. But once you understand, once you can see it, then slowly change will take place. 

When enough individuals change, then institutions and practices will change and when institutions and practices change, then this system based on unearned and unmerited privilege will end.

People don’t talk about white privilege to make you feel guilty, or like a racist, because it isn’t about guilt or individual racism. If it were it would be a whole lot easier to eliminate. They talk about it because they want you to understand, to become aware because when we all understand, the world will be better for it.

Speechless...

 

 

Mmmm, Strawberries