EnMasse

[The Evil Twin]

I read this article from a self-described "white Jewish liberal" from NYC who adopted a baby from India and admits to to unease over her dark skin colour. It's causing quite the shitstorm over at Alternet with many callng her racist, questioning interracial and/or international adoptions, questioning whether its immoral for a Hindu girl to be raised as Jewish, etc. Personally, I have nothing against interracial/international adoption. I have known quite a few happy well adjusted people of Indian, Chinese or Korean origin who were adopted by white parents. I also don't think this woman is evil as she admits to feeling shame over her racist feelings but I'm confused:

full article:

http://www.alternet.org/story/40531/

[Tehanu]

Hum. That's a tough one. There were some brutal comments, weren't there? But I didn't read it quite the same way ... I saw here saying more of an "oh, god, I didn't realise that I do have racist feelings!" which happens (or should happen) to all of us. No matter what our background, we're all going to have internalised crap because of the constant barrage of racist material we're subjected to.

So while I think she does sound pretty darned naive, I found the article to be honest ... and to be speaking of something that most of us don't want to admit.

Inter-cultural adoption is another issue, though. I'm always uncomfortable with the idea that rich childless North Americans can "rescue" poor babies from developing countries ... which I acknowledge is another big huge stereotype. I'm working on it.

[Corey]

A part of me can't help thinking that the author should probably have taken her misgivings to a support group and/or a counselor experienced in such things to work on in confidence, before writing them up in full confessional for ColorLines magazine and an alternative newspaper syndicate.

[Tehanu]

Let's fervently hope she was using a pseudonym.

[Makwa]

I have big issues around transracial adoption. Parents who think they are well meaning may be reproducing the colonial experience on a small scale. Unless the parents are already very familier with the child's culture, and can provide the child with genuine cultural support and learning so that the child can successfully negotiate life in a white supremacist culture, they can be pulling the child into a terribly stressful environment, whereby the original culture is devalued and the dominant culture becomes the 'rescuing' environment. I am absolutely appalled at this parent for the inconsiderate and selfish choices she has made. She doesn't need "darker friends" (how colonial is that?), she needs a course in anti-racism, and fast.
PS: Did the 'giving up the seat on the subway/bus whatever' anecdote resonate with anyone but me?
_________________
When the madness comes, let it flood on down and over me sweetly, let it drown the parts of me weak and blessed and damned, let it slake my life, let it take my soul and living completely, let it be who I am. {Van Der Graaf Generator}

[Makwa]

Whoa! Going through the posts, saw a link to this and it hit me like a slap upside the head. Dag I have a new identity!!!!

_________________
When the madness comes, let it flood on down and over me sweetly, let it drown the parts of me weak and blessed and damned, let it slake my life, let it take my soul and living completely, let it be who I am. {Van Der Graaf Generator}

[Tehanu]

Wow, that's quite the site, Makwa. I'm still going through it, and some of the articles under "Abduction Politics" are very strong. I didn't realise you'd been adopted ... and certainly the removal of first nations children from their families is a lasting shame for Canada.

I remember that there was a Haille Barry/Jessica Lange movie, Losing Isaiah, that had transracial adoptions as a subject, but it was a while ago that I saw it and I don't remember the details (IIRC is was pretty pro-white adoptive parents).

What doesn't often seem to get discussed with transracial (and transnational, which seems to be a growing phenomenon) is the "rescue" aspect. I wonder how many adoptive parents are activists working towards the reduction of social and international inequities? Or is it enough to get a warm glow from taking a baby or small child from detrimental circumstances? And how detrimental do those circumstances have to be?

But I don't think it would be fair to characterise everyone who adopts a baby from another race as evil exploiters with no understanding of racial and cultural issues, either. It's a hard one.

[vee michel]

[sparqui]

I absolutely agree with Makwa and think the site linked to is an important one with respect to the larger issue of transnational/transcultural 'adoption'. Just because people who choose this option are often well-meaning, doesn't make it right. And often, you only have to scratch the surface to see an incredible degree of selfishness and repressed racism.

Foreign babies have become a market commodity that attracts adoptive parents who want quick and relatively inexpensive adoptions. Personally, I find many of these organizations to be very similar to puppy mills.

Then there is the inherent racism that dominates this business. Here is a nice excerpt from the Transracial Abductee site:

[Corey]

[Jingles]

After the fall of the eastern bloc, babies from Romania became all the rage. Like the selloff of state assets, criminal theft, privitization, and other western-imposed economic weapons, the children of the poorest of the poor became just another resource to be exploited by the wealthy. It's no coinicidence that many of the foreign adoptions are from countries that have borne the brunt of the west's economic rapaciousness.

At the same time, these children are in a desperate situation. Most adoptive parents are motivated by the thought that they can do something to save one from a terrible fate. Orphan girls most likely end up traffiked as prostitutes, so the desire to do somthing concrete to help is a powerful incentive.

It is an old story. The Imperialists create these situations, then rush in to the "rescue".
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V V V

[ephemeral]

[Corey]

And tonight BBC World aired a fascinating short piece (not available online to non-UKers, alas) on Abdul Sattar Edhi and Bilquis Edhi and the Edhi Foundation, the acclaimed non-profit social agency that they lead in Pakistan, part of whose work is running (very good and loving) orphanages and adoption services.

And it strikes me that a country's being poorer, while it of course doesn't mean prospective parents love their prospective children any one bit less, does mean that its prospective parents have incomparably less access to the fertility treatments and reproductive technologies that are becoming all but routine for prospective loving parents, trying to have children but needing such help, in the wealthier world.

Outside of extraordinary episodic collapse (potentially, the Eastern European orphanage system in recent decades, and the wake of some wars, famines or natural or man-made disasters) or long-term but localized distortions (potentially, the One Child Policy in China, and the preferring of boys in some contexts), I'm not quickly convinced that the relative population of prospective loving adoptive parents - even, within each country's prevailing economic context, financially capacious loving adoptive parents - is sure to be any higher in the Global North than the Global South, let alone so much higher as to justify the overwhelming larger flow of babies South to North.

Are the adoption agencies of Vaishali's country, India, complaining of a shortage of parents?

Adoption agencies faced with shortage of children (Roli Srivastava, The Times of India, March 12, 2004)

[voice of the damned]

I have to wonder if the people heaping praise on that "transracial abductees" webite have actually read what Tobias Hubinette, one of their featured writers, has to say.

[Makwa]

[voice of the damned]

[Corey]

[voice of the damned]

Bruce Cumings is an American historian, former Peace Corps in Korea, and married to a Korean. He has almost certainly done more than anyone to bring the left-wing Korean perspective to a western audience, and has probably even made a few contributions to that perspective himself.

http://www.answers.com/topic/bruce-cumings

Funny story: during the 1987 pro-democracy protests, when anti-American demos were breaking out all over the place, the US State Department asked Cumings to fly to Korea and go on the radio to tell the protestors that they had misunderstood his writings and shouldn't blame the Americans for their problems. Apparently, the guys at State thought that Cumings was the inspiration for the protesting students. Cumings replied to Foggy Bottom that he had no such influence over Korean activists, and that if the Americans wanted the protests to stop, they should quit supporting Korean dictators.

[Tehanu]

Long, excellent article over at AlterNet which says that the majority of babies adopted by Westerners overseas are almost certainly NOT orphans, and in many cases have been trafficked. Adopt a child stolen from its parents? It can happen.

[Tehanu]

Not what she ordered, I guess. A woman in Tennessee sent a seven-year-old boy she had adopted from Russia back. With a note. Alone.