I read something today that reminded me of when our first social worker told us that she understood our openness to a child of African descent since we already had one that looked like us.
Unintentionally, adoptive parents who are trying to challenge a hierarchization of children available for adoption sometimes reproduce it, saying things like "Yes, but your children are healthy, white infants as young as possible." "Healthy" "white" and "infant" are combined, and the opposite of that combination is presumably a hypothetical "medical special needs brown toddler/older child," and you can see the implications . . .
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I was thinking over this today. I responded to a comment about this with a semi-sarcastic response basically saying yes I have two healthy white infants so I'm speaking from a place of privilege. I don't see it is privilege, but I also realize my road is 'easier' in some ways because of the color of my skin and my kids skin.
However, we would have rejoiced with a brown toddler with special needs too.
I find it frustrating that people talk about how lucky we were to have white children, the implications on other families who adopt children of color are disgusting, as are the implications for my own children. They are no better or worse than anybody else, and shouldn't be more privileged, yet they will have an easier road to hoe in many ways :(
I think I'm just starting to see race in a new light. I'm not entirely sure what to do with that. I'm not sure where to go next.
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