We adopted a black male because quite frankly black male children are the hardest to place. Never to shy away from a challenge, during our homestudy we said, "We can do that! Bring it!" When Brendan actually moved in, I was not quite the person I had hoped. I struggled: he looked different, he felt different, he smelled different. It didn't come naturally to me like I thought it would. I worried about crazy stuff. I remember one day only a week or two after he moved in actually thinking: "Is it possible he will kill me one day?" I know you are thinking I am crazy--I beat myself up over it. Why am I so uncomfortable? Would I feel the same if it was a white child we adopted? Is it because he is adopted or because he is black or both? I agonized for a long time.
Now, for clarification, I share all these pretty personal details of my thought-process not because I am an over-sharerer and like to make others feel uncomfortable (I do not. Really.). Rather, I really am hoping to help others, especially those close to us or others going through adoption, to understand our challenges as well as our triumphs.
Of all the things I thought I would experience with adoption, it never really occured to me how much I would have to become an advocate--not just for adoption, but for race relations. All those feelings I didn't expect in the beginning helped me to grow to the person I had thought I was all along, and then some. So, this a.m. I asked Jason, "Do you think I am overly sensitive about race?" Without a beat, he responded, "Yes. Absolutely." Now, I get this--Jason and I have two very different approaches to life in general: I am usually the one planning for college while Jason is pretty content that we just kept all three happy and healthy one more day.
Okay, so, yes, I am overly sensitive, let me ask this question a different way. "I saw this on Facebook yesterday, and it infuriates me, do you think I am justified?"
So, me being me, I comment: Hey, this offensive. Okay, some of these are somewhat amusing and certainly may ring true, but first of all: C'mon, just be nice. Blowing out someone else's candle, doesn't make yours burn brighter, people. More importantly, "white girl with 3+ multi-racial children" is offensive and completely inappropriate. Well, the response I got from a "friend's friend" who doesn't know me from Adam, was that I need to just lighten up, afterall, it will be St. Patrick's Day in a few weeks and we will all tell Irish jokes and no ones going to get bent out of shape about that, and then the kicker: I should learn to take a joke, so all my friends don't end up "unfriending" me.
Okay, first of all, if my choice is between not having a friend and having a friend who makes jokes at the expense of others, then I'm okay without friends (we are all adults here, right, this isn't high school any more...) My being bothered by this post only grew more after such a response from what I do assume is an educated person. Really? There IS a responsibility that comes with social media. This bingo sheet clearly paints multi-racial children/families as a negative. I don't believe I am reading into that in any way. If you perpetuate (aka, "share") that, you most certainly do have responsibility to it.
I do think that I can take a joke: humor is a key component to making it through each day because, believe me, the insensitivity and racism isn't confined to Facebook. When we started our adoption journey, we thought we were being led to give a family to a child. We didn't realize the responsibility we would take on in being an advocate for Bren, multi-racial families, transracial adoptions and pretty much any one who looks different. That, we absolutely do take seriously.
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