Adoption Carnival VI: the Racism Rainbow
Feature, racism — By admin on February 26, 2010 at 6:37 am
I didn’t know what the topic for this carnival was going to be until today when I read our newest writer’s post; Little Bigots at Basketball. It hurt my heart to read it. Then, I read Tonggu Momma’s post on Chinese Food. Seriously, what kind of parents are we raising?
My family lives in a very white community. And by white I mean WHITE. It’s a posh Chicago suburb–high rent, good education (the reason we live here), but it has little culture. The community has been good for our special needs son and, so far, they have welcomed our Guatemalan son. But, will the children continue to welcome them as they grow older? Will their parents teach them tolerance? Will they show them that race doesn’t matter, that skin color is really only skin deep?
This month, coincidentally, is African American History month. A month wherein we are supposed to reflect upon the history of racism in America and how we abolished slavery: how we rid the nation of segregation.
If you read the two posts above it looks like racism is still in America. Perhaps parents need to feed children a few more Skittles (ya know, so they can experience the rainbow?).
How do you handle racism? GIMH knows that some of you may not have encountered this in adoption but what WOULD you do if you were to encounter it?
Make sure to link your post directly to Mr. Linky below!
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22 Comments
OK, I linked an older post I’d done — suitable for everyone, whether you’ve adopted transracially or not — on talking to children about race and racism. I always think it’s nice to have a how-to piece, amongst all the posts decrying the problem. Hope it’s helpful!
And FYI, the March/April Adoptive Families magazine has a good article on transracial parenting, including reprinting another post of mine about how my kids dealt with “Chinese eyes” taunts at school:
http://tinyurl.com/y8vsmor (brag, brag, brag!)
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We handle racism head-on. Our family policy is no tolerance for intolerance.
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I have been blogging about the race issue in our family for a while now and would love to share. We are 2 Caucasian moms raising 3 African American daughters. They are excited to outnumber the white people in our family and I work so hard to ensure they feel as entitled as the should. Race always creeps back in though and I know it always will. Anyway, here are a couple of links on the race card in our family
http://rasmusfordfamily.blogspot.com/2010/02/does-beauty-have-color.html
http://rasmusfordfamily.blogspot.com/2010/02/me-and-judge.html
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Thanks for inviting a blog carnival on this good topic. I’m a white wife to a man who was adopted from Korea as a toddler. We have three Hapa sons, yes, biological–all teenagers. After many years of living next to my husband I have to admit; I’m racist. He’s racist. Even our kids, benefiting from our best efforts are racist. We don’t accept that we have to continue to be racist and we do fight hard against it. But we are products of this culture we live in that is steeped in assessments of people based on their color, their ethnicity, their class and their education. It’s really important to remember, especially for any of us who are white, and living with people we love who are from marginalized groups; we benefit from white privilege every single day, whether we want to or not. Denying this is counterproductive. Facing it honestly is the best thing we can do to combat oppression.
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Here is also a sad post to see where things are when they get to college:
http://resistracism.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/the-compton-cookout/
And don’t go posting to that site- they don’t like white adoptive parents. just listen and learn
And I wanted to remark that my daughter began to feel she wanted to be normal like everyone else in the first grade in her all white private school. So we changed her to a different more multicultural school-including some Chinese like herself which had a variety of races and which was also academically excellent. It was, unfortunately, also more expensive but it was/is worth it. She is much happier, and no longer feels like the “odd one out.” Difficult transition in terms of friends, but the racial comfort was totally worth it. Would definitely move to less posh area if that was what it took to send my child to a more racially diverse school.
Everything I have read about children of color being almost the only one of their race in a class of white folks does not bode well for their confidence and self esteem in the transracially adopted blogs
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I am linking a post I wrote almost a year ago regarding racism and my daughter. I wasn’t prepared enough for the situation then, but I’m certainly prepared enough now (I think anyway).
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I followed the link from Harlow’s Monkey to GIMH. What strikes me most about this post is the white racial framing. Racism as adoptive families are anticipated to experience it is by “encounter.”.
I want to weep and rage! Segregation is not over. Race does matter very much. The very WHITE community does not look that way accidentally. The fact that your community is white is an daily encounter with racism. Your community does have culture, all communities do.
GIMH, I appreciate that you want what is best for your adopted child, your whole family and yourself. I’m glad you are thinking and writing about adoption and race. This is a good.
Now, it is time to start digging deeper. To learn more about your home state and community, I encourage you to read books by James Loewen. (He is also from Illinois.). I’m currently reading Sundown Towns. I recommend this book because learning about this hidden dimension of racism will make visible institutional racism, past and present. Here is a link http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/sundowntowns.php
There is a lot what white mothers like you and I can do about racism. First, we need to recognize our white racial frame. Then, we will see many opportunities to work for change.
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Slightly different take, because most of the discussion around race and international adoptees is dictated by US culture. In other countries, the issues are both the same and different.
http://osolomama.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/gimh-carnival-5-racism/
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I completely agree. We are just starting out. We adopted our second son just a year ago and while we knew these things would come up we have never had to deal with them (and still have not had to). So, we are in the process of preparing ourselves. Thanks for the recommendation!
Marcie
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And why is it always assumed that we won’t raise a racist? I mean, there are racist children out there. Someone is raising them. The impulse to racism is almost universal. At some point, our kids will be exposed to racism in a way that may invite them to participate too.
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O Solo Mama, I think you make an interesting point. This is one of my favorite resources. http://fixracism.com/
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Great topic for a blog carnival, and it’s wonderful to see so many people discussing race-related issues. We can’t improve things if we don’t talk about them, and so many people are afraid to touch upon the volatile issues regarding race.
Here’s a post I did last month about “positive” stereotyping, which is, of course, not positive at all. It’s amazing how many people think it’s perfectly fine to speak judgments like this. http://tinyurl.com/ygg5cv9
Thanks for running this carnival.
http://www.UnchartedParent.com
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Mollie, I love that site. Especially: admit you have a race, even though race theory is. . .you know. But it gets at a lot of great stuff.
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Although the fact that these incidents happened makes me incredibly angry, I am grateful to the authors for being good examples to others.
My post will be up at Adoption Blogs tomorrow (Monday) morning:
http://transracial.adoptionblogs.com/weblogs/adoption-carnival-the-racism-rainbow
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I totally suck..I linked my whole blog instead of just my post. Sigh. I’m blaming it on the wine.
Here it is..
http://peaceofcricket.blogspot.com/2010/03/adoption-carnival-six.html
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this is a topic I write on often, so I am coming to this Carnival after the post (hope the reverse order is alright). It is actually a post about an act of education to help promote an end to children’s literature segregation as it were. I talked to the author directly, and wrote about that. The link is with linky and here: http://mamacandtheboys.com/2010/03/01/segregation-on-sunday/
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I could have sworn that I commented here last night ::shrug::..probably the gremlins again ;) I didn’t link to my actual post on Mr. Linky so I’m adding it here..
http://peaceofcricket.blogspot.com/2010/03/adoption-carnival-six.html
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We are fortunate to live in a very diverse community where you can go to the store and see just about every ethnic group represented, yet we still get some stares at times when I’m out with our adopted son from Guatemala. I don’t think it’s an issue of his race. More an issue that his skin color and mine don’t match. But we often talk about how much he resembles Dad with his humor, his brother with his laugh, his sister with his creativity, and his other sister with his sensitivity. We tell him he was the missing puzzle piece to our family–we are all made differently but fit so well together.
I wrote a bit about the race issue on MLK Day. I linked it above and it can also be accessed at http://goodnessandmercyshallfollow.blogspot.com/2010/01/let-freedom-ring.html
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