Anti-Racist Parent
Last weekend, I attended a full-day adoption workshop on Attachment. It was pretty good - I learned a lot. There was also a decent amount of time spent discussing the issue of race (all the prospective parents in the workshop were adopting internationally - most from Guatemala, and one very cool couple adopting from Ethiopia).
Once of the things I think it really hard for us white folks to give up on is the idea that color-blindedness is the goal. I'm starting to understand that this attitude, although (perhaps?) worthy goal for the society as a whole, would do a grave disservice to a child of color growing up today.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, we are far beyond incidents like the Jena 6, but there is of course more subtle racism here. The only bad thing about that is that it's easy for people to think there isn't racism at all anymore.
Race matters. White privilege exists. And pretending that this isn't true means that my child goes out in the world unprepared and handicapped.
I know that adopting a child from Ethiopia means the *I* have to change - I need to frame it up in my mind not that my *child* is of another race, but that I am part of a multi-cultural and multi-racial family.
And with that (in my opinion) comes an obligation to advocate against racism. So, although it feels awkward and weird - especially when trying to articulate this to folks who are not sure racism still exists - I believe it's important for me to put myself out there and advocate.
Luckily, I'm not alone! (Amen to that.)
I got a reminder of that this morning: I subscribe to a great blog called Anti-Racist Parent, and they've just posted a great resource - an 11 page E-Book "How to Be an Anti-Racist Parent". (If you are interested, you can download it here.)
5 comments:
good for you .. it would be easier to say ... no it's all ok really and hope that your saying it somehow will make it true ...it's much harder to say no this will be a challenge for my kid and this is what I'm going to preemptively do about it... good for you!!
I'm very impressed that you are being so pro-active. I wish other PAPs were as pro-active as you. Kudos Chou-Chou!
Thanks for passing this along! I'm going to download it tonight. Hey, if you get a sec, could you send over that baby buying list you were telling me about? Thanks!
In reference to this: "Race matters. White privilege exists. And pretending that this isn't true means that my child goes out in the world unprepared and handicapped.
I know that adopting a child from Ethiopia means the *I* have to change - I need to frame it up in my mind not that my *child* is of another race, but that I am part of a multi-cultural and multi-racial family."
... WOW. Exactly. Being from an already multi-racial family, I'm often blind to race or to racism, because I can't fully understand that the life I live in my white skin is not the life that my step siblings, step father, and nephew live. Thank you for giving me something to think about.
Good on you!! And you're right - you are not alone :-)
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