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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 119
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 15, 2006 - 05:51 pm: | 
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A Mother Adopts, and Discovers Her Own Racism
By Lisa Lerner, ColorLines
Posted on August 21, 2006, Printed on September 15, 2006
When I was trying to decide who and from where to adopt, I had a lot of questions about transracial adoptions, and most people responded to my curiosity with a subtle discomfort. I felt embarrassed voicing possible concerns to my liberal friends, because all of us were adamant that race made no difference to our choice of friends, lovers, or tiny babies up for adoption. But in looking around at these friends, they all seemed a pretty tribal bunch: when it came time to make a family, in nearly every case, like colors had stuck together.
The first photo I received of Vaishali showed her with fair skin. I was surprised, because from what my adoption agency told me, the child assigned to me would be much darker. After I got over that surprise, I had another: I felt relief. Suddenly -- guiltily -- it was a comfort to know that she would not look so different from me, and even more important, that her light skin would save her from a lifetime of prejudice.
But ah, the magic of flashbulbs. A few months later I received several more photos and gaped at them in shock. The baby was much, much darker. Worried that the child to whom I had grown unbelievably attached had been given to some other family, I sent a bewildered email to my adoption agency in Maine which then made a bewildered phone call to their trusted social worker in India, who assured us that she had seen the child on many occasions and all the photos were of the same girl. Phew, I thought, as long as this little girl is the same one I have held in my heart for three months, she is my daughter and I am going to bring her home.
I flew to Bombay and became a mother. For the first week, my new daughter Vaishali clung to me, terrified, and I sacrificed eating, sleeping and bathing in the service of comforting her. Over and over, I told her: Mama is here. You are my baby.
Back home, after a couple weeks had passed, I stared at Vaishali's naked bottom -- her darkest part -- and tried to ignore the insistent whispers of fear. Instead of brimming with pride, I felt like a trespasser, performing ablutions on this private flesh with color so foreign from my own. It was one thing to swoon over her photographs for months, but now she was in my home; she was my family. How could this be my daughter? I looked at her and tried to find similarities between us, relieved that her hair was straight, her lips not too full. Just thinking these thoughts made me feel horribly ashamed. I tried to sort emotion from fact: was it the dark color of her skin that was making me uncomfortable, or just that she did not look like me? I ached to talk to someone about it, but I was too afraid people would disapprove, would doubt my ability to be a loving mother.
Worse, what if (since I had only been awarded guardianship and the adoption would not be final for another six months) some Indian official found out how I was feeling and took her back?
Finally, I got up the nerve to confide in a friend who has two biological children, both white, as well as an adopted Indian toddler with skin the same shade as Vaishali's. "After a while," she said, "you don't really see what your children look like. But every so often it's like returning to your home after a long vacation, and you can see it again for the very first time." Surprisingly, she confessed that one day she'd realized how dark her adopted daughter is and started comparing her to others: Is she lighter than that Black man mowing his lawn? Darker than that Indian woman at the mall? Once she'd said it aloud, I admitted that I had done the same thing, and it had shocked me. I adored this little girl, and every single day my heart pounded stronger with love. What was I so worried about?
I thought hard. What had I done, taking this helpless child from her native land halfway across the world? I chose to adopt from India because I felt a familial pull toward its people and its culture (there is actually a community of Indian Jews!), and because I learned that the babies were usually healthy and birthed by poor, unwed village girls who were not prone to ingesting any unhealthy substances. I wanted to give an infant girl all the human rights she deserved and every possible opportunity to find gladness at being alive. I wanted to make a family with a child who had none; I wanted her to feel wanted. But had I simply upset the balance of the world?
Very soon, my daughter will have a lot to process. She's adopted, she's the child of a single mother, she's an Indian Jew by conversion. We spent the summer with my father in upstate New York, and she was nearly always the darkest child in music class, gymnastics and day care. In New York City, even Blacks and Indians in Vaishali's and my social circle are lighter than she. Over and over I see how light skin equals privilege. Now that I have become Vaishali's mother, I realize: We need darker friends.
I can't help but worry -- I'm a Jewish mother! -- and yet so far, our non-traditional family has been met with a surfeit of loving acceptance. My fears about disapproval from the Black community for adopting a dark-skin child seem laughable now. Before, riding the subway, I received no special response, but now, Black men and women offer me and Vaishali warm smiles; they give up their seats. Do people just, as a friend hypothesized, love babies? Maybe, but this never happened to me when I toted around my equally adorable niece, nephew and godson, all of them white as snow.
It might just be Vaishali's vibe. Certainly her tiny size, enormous charm and extroverted nature would draw in anyone with a beating heart. As her mother, I am constantly on my knees before her, big-eyed with happiness at her intelligence, dead-on comic timing and fearlessness. She is so curious and ecstatic, so engaged with the world in ways I never was as a child, and rarely can be as an adult. Still, I wonder if her same spirit were encased in a lighter shell -- who would her admirers be? In the six months we have been together, my fears for my daughter have not disappeared, but I'm betting that in the battles ahead, my own good sense will prevail. Note the matter of sunscreen: two specialists, one in infectious pediatric diseases and himself half Black, the other a famous, white dermatologist, both assured me that Vaishali's dark pigment is enough of a natural sunscreen.
Vaishali's current pediatrician, a mocha-brown Indian, counter-advised me to put it on her. In the park, I approached the Black parents of a toddler the same color as Vaishali, and apologetically asked them for counsel.
"We put it on our baby and ourselves," said the mother. "Black people wear sunscreen to prevent skin cancer. We worry about our baby's skin the same as any one else." And more, I wanted to add, but I just thanked her. It became suddenly, ridiculously simple. I am my baby's protector, and I'm not taking any chances. I whipped out the SPF 45.
Reprinted with permission from ColorLines magazine.
Lisa Lerner is the author of the novel Just Like Beauty.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/40531/ |
Igbogirl
Regular Poster
Username: Igbogirl
Post Number: 39
Registered: 09-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 15, 2006 - 08:07 pm: |
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She should not have been allowed to adopt that child. |
Misty
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Misty
Post Number: 449
Registered: 02-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 15, 2006 - 11:23 pm: |
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this is nothing new, the majority of them have issues with race (even the ones who adopt black), she was simply bieng honest about it.
ill give her this though at least she's being honest with herself about it and trying to get over it and work through it for the sake of the child.
still they should get stable minded people (including those with no race or skin color issues) to adopt children. i agree with igbogril, she shouldnt have been allowed to adopt the baby. |
Semperfemme
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Semperfemme
Post Number: 83
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 16, 2006 - 07:23 am: |
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Everyone in America has skin/race issues. Regardless of how "liberal" or "One with all" someone claims to be, seething in the back of their minds are their preconceived notions and prejudices. Fortunately, there ARE people who are actually willing to admit it, face it, and attempt to modify their thought processes. The most we can ask of human beings is evolution, and these things take time.
I'm just glad the child found a good home in a world obsessed with babies fresh from the Chinese mainland or the bowels of the Czech Republic.
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2758
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 16, 2006 - 10:33 am: |
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Igbogirl:
Or you could have adopted her instead. Or she could have been kept by some parents or relatives. But maybe her parents are dead and maybe her relatives had to face the prospect of allowing her to starve to death if they had to take care of her.
You ought to go by the juvenile court in your area some day and see the working married parents that have to put their youngest kids up for adoption because they just can't afford it.
Right. The child should have been allowed to languish in an orphanage and been sold into prostitution at 12--
Face it. There are millions of little girls and little boys who are going to face things a lot worse than being adopted by a parent with race issues--
That's how ugly your world is. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 121
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 16, 2006 - 01:20 pm: |
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Yeah...Chris...but sometimes those SCARS you CAN'T SEE are a MILLION times worse than the ones you can.
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Igbogirl
Regular Poster
Username: Igbogirl
Post Number: 41
Registered: 09-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 16, 2006 - 02:43 pm: |
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"Igbogirl:
You ought to go by the juvenile court in your area some day and see the working married parents that have to put their youngest kids up for adoption because they just can't afford it. "
That's dramatic. And it's also bullshit.
"That's how ugly your world is."
Um, you live in this world also. Or do you think that you're God or something?
I don't look forward to the day when the little girl grows up and reads her mom's article. A child of color is better off in poverty than with a white racist adopted parent. |
Dahomeyahosi
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Dahomeyahosi
Post Number: 90
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 16, 2006 - 05:31 pm: |
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Igbogirl I agree. I'd rather grow up in poverty than be raised by whites. In fact I did grow up in poverty and I'd relive it a thousand times rather than be brought up by any kind of white person....racist or not. |
Moonsigns
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Moonsigns
Post Number: 1454
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 01:25 pm: |
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If Kola's views regarding color can't be considered racist --this womans can't possibly be either. |
Igbogirl
Veteran Poster
Username: Igbogirl
Post Number: 52
Registered: 09-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 03:08 pm: |
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"If Kola's views regarding color can't be considered racist --this womans can't possibly be either."
Yeah but Kola's not adopting an innocent white child and then freaking out over the child having such pale skin. That's the difference. |
Moonsigns
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Moonsigns
Post Number: 1456
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 06:28 pm: |
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Kola has always known she wanted a child who has skin like her own, and this woman didn't realize how important that was to her until she was actually put in the situation. So, with the exception of the timing of discovering such feelings, there is no difference.
And as the piece continues, it is more than obvious that she has come to terms with her longing to have a child who "looks like her", and she has the common sense and willingness to work through any issues that could come up in the future......because --if she were a true racist --she would have sent the baby back to India to die spiritually and physically --but she didn't. That speaks volumes.
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Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 1339
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 07:39 pm: |
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If she wanted a child that looked like her, she was hardly going to find one in India. Perhaps she should have tried the Ukraine? |
Tropical_storm
First Time Poster
Username: Tropical_storm
Post Number: 8
Registered: 10-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 04:40 pm: |
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Very interesting and honest article.
I never knew that skin color was THAT serious. I know that it's the things that people associate with skin color that is problematic but I just can't relate to this mother freaking out over the color alone.
I also agree with Renata that if dark skin was such an issue then India was definitely the wrong place to look. She would have had a greater chance of finding a lighter colored baby in Southern Africa!
All in all it is always refreshing to read and hear honest accounts from parents of adopted children. |
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