Friday Round Up (11/11/11): National Adoption Month Edition

On Fridays, we post a round up of the week's happenings.

Today, all of our links relate to National Adoption Month.
Feel free to contribute your own links in the comments section, or submit items you feel should be included during the week. Self-promotion is encouraged. 

Weekly Round Up:

• Love Isn't Enough: One of my favorite blogs, and it's all about parenting and race.

• The Business of Domestic Private Adoption: Valuing lives: why does it cost more to adopt a white child? (Sidenote: try googling "babies." Such a sea of white!)

• Dear white adoptive parents: open letter from Resist Racism

• Six Things Your Adopted Child Might Be Thinking But Will Never Tell You

• A Birth Project: "Transracial Adoption from one black girl’s perspective"

• Solid list of resources for adoption and transracial adoption

• More resources!

These are some of our favorite links this week. What are yours?

See Also:
Transracial Adoption
The Colors of Us
Abortion and Condemnation

The Colors of Us

Please welcome guest blogger Carolyn, who is "a wife, mom and campus minister, just taking one grace-filled day at a time." Find more of her writing at Through The Ardennes.

Last week my son and I started reading a book called The Colors of Us. This book was recommended at a fantastic talk I attended recently that discussed racial perceptions in children. We were given a nice list of books to get some good conversations going around the house. And off to the library we went.

The thing is, though, my kid seems to not notice most physical differences between people. So some people might find it strange that I'd want to point out differences to a kid who seems happily "colorblind." I'm of the opinion that if I don't start the conversation, someone else will and that conversation might not be so positive. I want to be proactive. And I also think that the idea of colorblindness is nonsense, to be quite honest.

The woman who gave the talk I attended quoted a statistic that 75% of black children have talked openly about race in the home by the time they enter kindergarten and only 25% of white children have. I'm not sure where she got her stats but, honestly, that stat on white kids struck me as high. 

Maybe I'm pessimistic about white people and racial conversations, but I'm glad the stats show that someone, somewhere is having them. I want to be sure that Josh is comfortable talking about this, and is taught healthy attitudes and language from a young age.

Do I have all the answers? No. But I want him to know from a young age that this is a good thing to talk about, that there is deep beauty in the differences he sees. Or doesn't see yet, but will. Do I know what I'm doing? Not necessarily. Do I feel completely confident that everything I say is being said correctly? No. However, I'm hoping to continue my own education in this area even as I educate my son rather than letting fears or misgivings keep me silent. 

It's very likely that his little brother or sister will not share his ethnicity. I'm excited about that but I also know that that means another type of education that I need to be ready to provide, for both my children. Transracial adoption is not meant to be trendy. It's hard stuff. It will mean many more racial conversations in our family than in the average white family. I look at that as a positive thing. 

So many of us who are white have the option to not think or talk about race - we don't have to because it feels like it doesn't affect us. But people of color do not have that option. For many, their race is a very real part of who they are and it affects what their day looks like. 

If we bring a child into this house who is not white, I want to be ready to help that child understand that there are still systems and structures and people out there who will judge him based on the color of his skin, that this country is still amazingly far from racially reconciled. And I don't want my children to know only the hard stuff, but also that white isn't "normal" and that the "colors of us" are all beautiful and unique.

So we will continue read this book and many more like it. It has already led to some fantastic conversations about his own race and background and it has changed how he is coloring his coloring books. To be honest, it's pretty boring to always use that peachy color when you're coloring in people, anyway. Branching out in our crayola box has added a lot of fun to art time around here.

I look forward to more ways to figure out our world together.

See Also:

Transracial Adoption

Someone Else's Children

Abortion and Condemnation

Transracial Adoption

November is National Adoption Month, and to celebrate all the beautiful adoptive families out there, BTSF will be featuring several posts discussing race, faith, and adoption. Here, we get an overview of some of the considerations for transracial adoption, and later in the month hear form some families with first-hand experience. We welcome other thoughts, knowing that there is much to learn. 

Adoption is a beautiful manifestation of God's love for us. In the same way that God welcomes us into His family, we have the opportunity to reflect His love in a powerful way by bringing a child in need into our home. God "predestined us to be adopted as His children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will" and He has a similar plan to bring families together here on earth.

Transracial adoption further reflects the beauty of God's Kingdom by joining in unity the diversity of God's creation. It is a unique opportunity to become intimately bound with one another, and to bear with each others' burdens. Joining together across race to form a family helps us understand one another more deeply in a way that is otherwise impossible.

That being said, the very need for better racial awareness can make transracial adoption a problematic endeavor when the parents are white. There are some well-intentioned adoptive parents that really have no idea about race in the United States ("isn't that what the agency's 'diversity training day' is for?"). Some may believe that love is all their child of color will need, and that it will be basically the same as raising a white child.

But these are often the same folks that think racism is only about hate crimes, that 'reverse racism' is alarmingly out of control, and that talking about race just perpetuates the problem. A lot white folk hold to these beliefs dearly, so it stands to reason that such thoughts persist after adoption day. Furthermore, White parents sometimes see their children as exceptions to racial stereotypes, rather than evidence that such stereotypes aren't valid (“my child isn’t like those kids…we raised her better than their parents do”).

It is important for all children to have a solid foundational understanding of racial history, but this education is severely lacking in schools. Parents that are under-prepared in their own education are ill-equipped to provide such a grounding for their children. White parents adopting transracially must be vigilant in their own education for the sake of their children. They must be sure to instill in their children a self confidence, knowledge of their history, and love of their race that will serve as a foundation against the constant barrage of marginalization that comes in life. 

Without careful preparation, children of color may end up in white 'colorblind' homes with parents inadvertently perpetrating daily microaggressions ("we don't have a lot of people of color in our neighborhood, but everyone is really nice and accepting, so our kids will be fine!"). White parents often raise their children to believe that racism is a thing of the past and that it will have no bearing on their lives. Children may be raised to believe that the white history taught in their schools is the only history out there, and to believe that the beauty standards on TV are the only features a spouse will ever want.

Understandably, white parents often want to live into our hopes for the world. But without an understanding of the realities around us, this practice sets children up for a rude awakening when they inevitably encounter the racialized world. Then, when that reality hits, children are unprepared, and isolated from the support to process through it. Parents who think that racism largely consists of overt acts of hate, will be unprepared to advise/relate to (or even believe!) the daily smog of microaggressions that their child faces.

Finally, there is a historic baggage of white folk's systematically removing Black, Asian, and Native American children from their 'savage' parents to raise them as 'civilized' white people. It is even still happening today (See: South Dakota Foster Care and Deportation Adoption). We must understand that these events effect how we approach transracial adoption (with respect and sensitivity).

Unequivocally, I support adoption. There is far too much need on both sides of the parent/child equation to believe otherwise. There is tremendous opportunity to receive God's grace through the gift of both cis- and transracial adoption. Furthermore, white folks that encourage within-race adoption sound dangerously like the anti-intermixing, racial-superiority arguments of old, which opens the door for those that feel we aught to 'stick to our own.'  

There are many great parents out there that have navigated transracial adoption elegantly. At the end of the day, transracial adoption issues aren't that much different than the general racial education issues we have elsewhere. White folks need to immerse themselves in situations where they are the minority, and bury themselves in literature written by POCs (not just others talking about POCs--see this week's 'Friday Round Up' for some good recs!). White folks need to talk about race-A LOT. To each other, to POCs, and ESPECIALLY to their children. Early and often, identifying race as the blessing from God that it is, and understanding that it is subject to the same consequence of a broken world as other blessings. 

I'd love to hear from our readers on this topic. There's is a lot to delve into!

Friday Round Up (11/04/11)

On Fridays, we post a round up of the week's happenings.

Feel free to contribute your own links in the comments section, or submit items you feel should be included during the week. Self-promotion is encouraged. 




Weekly Round Up:

• Does Race Still Matter? Playing the Blame Game: Check out the dedication! 

• Common Prayer: Recommendation from @ThePeacePastor

• Is Social Justice an Essential Part of the Gospel? Wallis and Mohler Debate

• Are Evangelical Christians Really Pro-Life? Tony Campolo has his doubts

• Using the term 'Multiculturalism': Definitely Salient for the Church

BTSF also had several guest posts go up this week on other sites:

• Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Stranger in a Strange Land
• InterVarsity Christian Fellowship: They'll Know We Are Christians
• ChurchLeaders.com: A bunch of 'em!

See Also:
Halloween Costumes
Make My Brown Eyes Blue

Make My Brown Eyes Blue

Please welcome guest blogger Kevin Robinson. The following article originally appeared on the Accord1 blog for the purpose of "Building The Bridge Together" over the ethnic/cultural divide. 

A beautiful senior with great wit and sensitivity seemed to be cloaked in a tinge of despair in her voice. She, by the occasion of her age, had been raised in a different era, and apparently had a dissimilar perception, worldview, and self-awareness.

As I looked into her eyes during the conversation, I couldn’t help but notice that they were the most beautiful shade of blue. I spoke up to compliment her concerning her eyes and she said something striking : “White people don’t think that any of us black folks can have blue eyes.”

This was one of those unspoken truths that articulated much more than the mere words themselves. I thought for a moment to myself as I, also African American, looked through my green eyes and realized what a larger truth that she addressed.

Ethnic bias, whether of one’s self or toward others, comes from many different sources. The sources are not the problem because they will always be there. The question is, how do we take the silent despair away from this beautiful senior woman and those caught in the trap of ethnic bias?

First of all, it comes down to education and learning about whom we really are, the human race. We are one large family. As in our natural extended family, some members have the long darker hair from dad’s side of the family because his grandmother was half Cherokee, while others have the freckles passed down from grandpa of the Irish decent. Since we all come from the same gene pool, we can expect in the human family that any characteristic can, and will, appear anywhere it pleases in the family.

A lot of the problem exists in our system of western-culture system values. Values are defined as: “what a given group ascribes to as beautiful, desirable, good, ugly, undesirable, bad…” If we mix a value system that says blue eyes are beautiful, desirable, and good with a value system that says people of color are ugly, undesirable, and bad then that offers us a paradox. 

Though the majority of people don’t think in such harsh terms as the aforementioned, the softer sentiment of ethnic bias does exist today that articulates a clandestine message of what was prevalent in the days of old; in a time when the beautiful senior woman was younger.

 The believer has the answer in the person of Jesus Christ:

“But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name –Who owe their birth neither to bloods nor to the will of the flesh [that of physical impulse] nor to the will of man [that of a natural father], but to God. [They are born of God!]” -John 1:12, 13 Amplified Bible (AMP)

The Word of God says that we are “received of God.” This acceptance is not based on physical impulse of the flesh (value system) or human nature but is from the will of God.

The unfortunate matter is the worldly value system, and the universal negative repercussions, are in the Church and have been for quite some time. The word universal is used to explain the total circumference of the problem all around the ethnic/cultural chasm, example given with what the senior woman thought and said.

As the Church, we must first be intentional in our efforts to bring down the wall of partition called ethnic bias from between us. We must readjust our thinking to be in line with the word of God as in the early church:

“For He is [Himself] our peace (our bond of unity and harmony). He has made us both [Jew and Gentile] one [body], and has broken down (destroyed, abolished) the hostile dividing wall between us,

By abolishing in His [own crucified] flesh the enmity [caused by] the Law with its decrees and ordinances [which He annulled]; that He from the two might create in Himself one new man [one new quality of humanity out of the two], so making peace.” -Ephesians 2:14, 15 Amplified Bible (AMP)

In the so-called household of faith, we believers in Christ and His salvation must not only believe; but, we must live as the new man spoken of in the prior scripture as regenerate souls. In a day when the Church is focused on the “mote” of our societies’ downfall of morality and behaviors we neglect to observe that we have a “beam” of ethnic bias, distrust, and division in our own eye.

Many New Testament words describe the actions and events the testament believers are named for. However, the bible only speaks of one way that people will know that we are Christ’s disciples. That is not our religion, tradition, dogma, self-righteousness, or aloofness; but we are true followers of Jesus by our love for one another:

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another”. John 13:34-35 King James Version (KJV)

See Also:
Kanazawa's Ugly Lies about Beauty

I Don't Know

Microaggressions