Reflections On 3 Misconceptions From The Red Table
A reflection from my time on the Red Table Talk Facebook Watch episode.
“To talk about transracial adoption honestly, is to hurt someone.”
Transracial adoption is complex. It is not the convenient answer to a simple problem that we may wish. Due to this, the adoptee’s voice is often left out of opportunities to share our complex truths. Media outlets tend to focus on stories about dramatic rescues by adoptive parents from terrible circumstances. I am grateful that the Red Table Talk broke this trend and instead offered me an opportunity to expand the conversation about transracial adoption. However, since adoptees haven’t traditionally been afforded such platforms, I felt the weight of the hundreds of adoptees who have confided in me. I carried with me the stories of the adoptees who have wanted to search for their biological parents, but have decided to wait until their adoptive parents pass away, so as not to hurt their adoptive parents’ feelings. The story of a 12-year old adoptee who frets about how to handle the inevitable and cheery “happy birthdays!” she receives every year on her birthday - because for her, she is reminded that her birthmother died during delivery. I carried Gus’ story, who told me he sometimes “questions his right to exist” as a result of having so many holes in his adoption story. I felt the weight of the American Academy of Pediatrics study who found that 1 out of 4 adoptees who seek therapy attempts suicide.
It was difficult to squish an emotionally charged topic in to the 20-minute television segment, so I’d like to offer additional context for some of the key points that have been misinterpreted…
“Why don’t you counsel yourself!?” - Gammy
Gammy suggested that I “counsel myself” in an effort to regain some of the culture that I’d lost due to being raised outside of black culture. Her response reinforced what many transracial adoptees have experienced. Being asked to assimilate back in to our culture of origin as adults after having been acculturated into whiteness without any choice in the matter, is not something that we can do alone.
This is why it is imperative that adoptive parents include their child’s black culture into their daily lives. Growing up, my parents took me to cultural events which taught me to embrace my natural hair and full lips and they exposed me to literature which helped me understand the institutional racism embedded within the child-welfare system.
Susan Harris O’Connor, a transracial adoptee, developed the Harris Identity Model after a 6 month introspective journey where she evaluated her own racial identity as a transracially adopted person. She details a “feeling racial identity” and how for transracial adoptees this feeling racial identity is not always in sync with the genetic, cognitive, imposed, or visual identities. And that this "lack of synchronicity" is what can often cause emotional or psychological distress or confusion. This does not mean that we are confused about our genetic racial makeup, but rather that our identities feel out of sync with societal expectations.
“Not growing up with Black culture, and feeling fear when I met my birth mother and my whole birth family...”
My use of the word “fear” was misinterpreted by many people. I do not fear black people in the manner that is on full display in America through the criminilization and violence against black bodies. It is regrettable that this conflation was made.
A more accurate statement is that as a result of several experiences being rejected by black culture, there have been times when I felt an illegitimacy. Earlier this year, I wrote about an experience in which, after hearing my keynote speech, a prominent black social worker told me that as a transracial adoptee, I was “not a true black person.”
Meeting my birth family eight years ago provided the key to my ability to reintegrate into black culture. Attending AfroPunk Fest in Atlanta with my biological sister in 2017 is one of the highlights of my adult life because I couldn’t wait to celebrate my blackness in the company of black folks. This is not a festival I would’ve felt comfortable attending as a child or a teenager.
[By the way, we are hoping to see each other at EssenceFest2020!]
“When my husband and I choose to become foster parents, it makes sense for me to foster a white child, because that’s what I’m familiar with.”
Any time a child is separated from their family it’s a tragedy. My understandably provocative statement was alluding to the importance of knowing the culture for which an adopted or fostered child will be raised. I implore white adoptive parents to move out of homogeneity if they’re choosing to bring a black child into their family, because it is not safe for a black transracially adopted child to attend schools that are predominantly white. Even though white privilege would allow a white child to exist with greater ease than a black child in a white school, I wouldn’t raise a white child in non-white racial homogeneity either.
Years ago, my husband and I fostered a young black girl whom we love and has since been adopted after being unable to reunify with her family. Being able to be a black female role model for this girl was an experience that filled me with joy. It was exciting for me to recognize that my experience of having to learn about my black identity and seek out my birth-culture could be viewed as a strength and a source of inspiration to a child who has also experienced rejection and loss.
The responses and outcry following the Red Table Talk episode has shed light on how essential it is that transracial adoptees become integrated into conversations of diversity, equity and inclusion. It is only through becoming more mainstream that our genuine personal truths may begin to be accepted and believed. It is only through the strength of our collective and varied voices that transracial adoptions will begin to decrease in frequency and children will have the opportunity to remain within their cultures. And, it is only through the sharing of our truths that adoptees may reconsider taking their own lives at such alarming rates.
This movement of elevating adoptee voices is one that I’m honored to be a part of, and I cannot help but remind myself of Fredrick Douglass’ words