There are many things I like…being a Mom among them. Being 44 years old and pregnant? Not so much. I have anemia, gestational diabetes, insomnia, heartburn…and a full time job as well as 2 little boys and one grown-up one that need my attention. I am finding it hard to function at work, at home…in general. It’s been a long while since I posted, and though, overall, I’m doing OK, clearly a break is in order. Son #3 is due mid-January. I may not post again until after that – so Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Joyous Solstice to you all….
For awhile, I am going to post about things I like…
I have had a hard time finding blogs (other than my friends’) where I am at ease. I want to find things to read that challenge and broaden me, or comfort and affirm me – without coddling to my weaknesses. I also want places to read where the commenters aren’t a problem.
Here are a couple of blogs I really like:
The Angry Black Woman
The original ABW, K. Tempest Bradford, and the guest posters share some eye-opening personal feelings, experiences, and thoughts. The commenters at this site tend to be kind and willing to engage. And all one has to do is treat the blog owner and guest posters with a modicum of respect (imagine that 
). Best feature (for me) is that almost all of the people who post here are science fiction fans and science fiction writers. Check out Ms. Bradford’s heart-breaking Elan Vital, written in memory of her mother. This is a story for anyone who has ever lost someone dear to them slowly, epsecially if the resources to care for that person were scarce. No really, go read it.
Another blog I like is Education and Class. . Anyone who knows me doesn’t have to be told why I like this one. Sometimes, it’s just nice not to have to explain where you’re coming from and simply have that understood….
It has taken me awhile to write this. Out in daily life, we get little in the way of strange reactions. And when we do, I don’t assume it’s about us adopting an Asian child – for all I know, folks are wondering if Mr. Coffee has noticed that son #2 doesn’t look much like him (they do sometimes give ME piercing looks, like they are wondering if son#3 – in utero – will look anything like Mr. Coffee ).
On the internet, however, in trying to seek out various international adoptees’ experiences, I have found so many different opinions…which mostly reminds me to keep my mind and heart open and let C lead me in understanding what HE needs.
First I want to make clear that the things I write here are personal to ME. Someone else might have different experiences and come to different conclusions. I am not saying what was right for me and my family is right for everyone. And honestly, before C came home, I thought I knew many things that I am having to revisit as he and I get to know each other. That will probably never end. But of course, that’s the nature of trying to be a good parent –regardless of how a child joins a family.
When we first start taking the steps to adopt C, I spent a lot of time reading a blog with the laudable intent to help parents raise their children to NOT be racists (and to examine our own biases). But I rarely go there now. There was such hostility towards international adoptive parents (IAPs), with so many assumptions built into that hostility. It didn’t seem IAPs could ever speak for ourselves without everything we said interpreted through those assumptions.
It was assumed that all IAPs are over-entitled, rich people who think we should get to “buy” a kid. We shouldn’t be allowed the adoption tax credit. We shouldn’t be allowed to…do many things. Anyone adopting from an Asian country was assumed to think they were adopting a stereotyped “model minority” (because we are all that limited in our life experiences, I guess). People adopting from Ethiopia were accused of wanting a more “caucasian-looking” child (maybe I’m missing something here, but I doubt that ANY Ethiopian in the U.S. would tell you that he or she is perceived as “caucasian looking”).
There was also the built in assumption that anyone who is now middle class could never have been poor or working class – and the assumption that middle class people care more about education than working class folks. It’s not hard to understand why that bugged me.
But what this did do was get me thinking about how things can often be different from how we think they are. One commenter, a foster mother, felt that I was implying that foster parents do NOT protect their kids when I wrote that I didn’t think protecting my family from an at-risk adoption made me a selfish jerk. I can understand why she felt I was saying that and I was very sorry. I assume she did what was right for her family. I think we did what was right for ours.
Both Mr. Coffee (who was adopted) and M would IMPLODE if we bonded with a child who was taken away. Mr. Coffee was devastated when a friend’s domestic adoption was disrupted by the birth parents, and though my first inclination was look at the foster system, Mr. Coffee was very uncomfortable with how this system works in our state.
And yes, he did want to mitigate risks, as well as any possibility that birth parents would turn up without the CHILD wanting them to. Maybe that seems odd, but he was adopted and I was not. I don’t have to understand his feelings….just accept them. Telling him that these feelings were off base would be as wrong as him telling me what I should feel “as a woman.”
M had all ready lost one anticipated sibling in utero (he took it well enough, but he had been VERY excited). He has had to accept the loss of many people he had come to care about in the past few years – far too many for such a little guy. He has had to adjust to getting a nightly shot. And well, he is who he is – he doesn’t feel anything a little bit (neither do I). Everything is either wonderful or it’s the end of the world. Some of this is age-related, but some of it is just HIM, and I try to respect that as much as possible.
Additionally, yes, there are some realities I want to protect my family from. In my young adult years, I lived in such poverty that I had to sell off my dignity and safety to eat. I feel I can therefore teach my children to count their blessings without using others as “object lessons” (and though I am all for helping others, I do have issues with using others as teaching tools unless they agree to that, without coercion of any kind). And yes, I do want to protect my kids from what I experienced. I am not eager to relive any of it either.
But in reality, it was primarily Mr. Coffee’s feelings about how contact with birth parents SHOULD happen that turned us away from the foster system – he flat out nixed contact by birth parents NOT being the choice of the child (again, he was adopted – how would it be if I fought him on that?) So, I stopped looking at our foster system and began to look elsewhere.
And so…
The friend I mentioned above (with the birth parents who decided they wanted the baby back after 3 months) made us wary of commercial agencies. She was heart-broken of course, but she did not fight it – she did what she thought was right. And there were, if I recall correctly, upwards of $60K in fees that had gone where, exactly? And though things did eventually work out for her with another child, soon after we started our process, the agency she had used (which she told me NOT to use) was closed down by the police. And then another.
And then the folks who ran another agency in our state went to prison. The whole “advertising” aspect of trying to “get picked” by a birth mother always made me uneasy, and now it was looking like our state was a big mess as far private agencies went – coercion of birth parents, lies to hopeful adoptive parents, agencies paying themselves exorbitant fees – this did NOT look like a system for us. People think the US system is “clean.” Me, I am not so sure. Maybe it’s just this state, but I imagine that there will be some nation-wide exposure of some rotten things in the US private system in the next 10 years – BUT I do hope I am wrong.
So – I began contacting charitable agencies. Sometimes assumptions are made about IAPs picking an ethnicity, but I was never even allowed to say WHO I would adopt (healthy baby anyone?). These agencies didn’t care who I was willing to adopt – they didn’t want ME. I was too old, too fertile; all ready had a biological child…
And at that point, I thought “Oh hell, maybe I should look at other countries.”
At first I started with S. America, thinking not being an ethnic minority where we live might make things easier for a child. But these countries either had systems that were too messy, not transparent at all, or had lengthy residency requirements. Residency requirements are what they are and a country has a right to set them as it pleases, but it does exclude most folks in our economic bracket.
I looked at Ethiopia. The kids there are in orphanages, which was an issue for Mr. Coffee, but the kids appeared to be well-loved. However, I also read that the kids remained part of their community. If this was so, would they really be better of with me? The only trip we could manage would be the one to get the child, and I felt that if I was unable to make a trip to SEE this system, then based upon what I read, I could not assume a child would be better off with my family than in an orphanage in which they were loved and were able to remain part of their own community.
Right now, there is a lot of controversy around Ethiopian adoptions. People are finding out that some children they thought were orphans were actually surrendered by living parents due to poverty. My thoughts on that may be a bit different from many folks. My great-grandfather was surrendered to “the poor house” (actually an orphanage) at the age of 3, along with his older brothers. He was apprenticed out on his teens, and by all accounts, this was not a Dickensian existence. AND if someone had offered his family $ so they could “keep” him, I don’t think it would have gone over as well as if someone had offered to raise him as their own.
This is just my opinion, but I feel that the belief that financial support of the birth parents is the answer comes from a misunderstanding of the nature of poverty. It’s only partially about money. An organization like Heifer International has, I believe, the only workable answer to such an issue.
However, the reality of a child’s situation should never be hidden, and certainly the original family should be allowed to communicate, but it should not be assumed that the neither the birth parents nor the children are hoping for an adoption. Since I didn’t go down this path, I don’t know much about this, but I do hope someone is ASKING these kids and their birth parents what it is they want.
One night, when (as usual) I couldn’t sleep, I was watching “Adoption Stories.” I really don’t care for this show – the narration creeps me out – but I was curious and it was on. It was a show about a couple in our state adopting twin girls from S. Korea. The next day at work, a colleague came back from a business trip to S. Korea, and told me about a baby girl being escorted back on the plane. I am not a metaphysical thinker, but these two things together did lead me to look at S. Korea. The babies were in foster homes and well cared for (foster mother is a career in S. Korea), the system looked transparent, contact with the birth parents (if they choose to leave contact information) was at the discretion of the adopted child. And these kids were highly unlikely to be adopted in-country. That was everything that mattered to me and Mr. Coffee. Up until this time, I was thinking we’d adopt a girl, as we all ready had a son. But when I read that I was over the age limit for a girl and that the rules were less strict for boys because the boys were so hard to adopt out, my heart filled with the certainty that I had a son in S. Korea.
The first thing I did was contact a friend who emigrated to the US from S. Korea when she was 12 to ask if she knew if what I was reading was true. Yes, she said – she knew quite a bit. She had considered adoption, but when her mother went ballistic over the idea, she backed away. She explained that the system was started 50 years ago, after the Korean War, when there were many war-orphans with American fathers. She explained the cultural issues that, while assuring the surrendered babies are well cared for, keeps most of these babies from being adopted in-country. She explained the efforts to make things easier for kids to be adopted in-country, to make things easier for single mothers, and how far she felt there still was to go. And in the meantime, there were babies in foster care who, if not adopted by age 4, would go to live in a group home. She was encouraging and told me about the agency we ended up using. Her willingness to talk about this and her encouragement to take this path were significant.
Mr. Coffee needed a day to think about it, when I told him. I don’t think he realized that many of his feelings would make it hard for us to adopt in-country. But at the end of the day (and maybe after talking to the same friend – who is really his good friend), he said yes.
This process of finding a system that met my requirements for transparency and ethics and Mr. Coffee’s requirements for how the children were cared for and how contact with birth parents was managed took two years. We then endured the numerous background checks and questions about our upbringing. We attended days upon days of parenting classes (because all ready being a parent does not count). The social worker (who we love) came to our home several times. She asked us a lot of questions, including (for the first time) if the ethnicity of the baby mattered to us. No, we told her, it didn’t. She told us that while most of the birth mothers were Korean, some of the birth fathers were not, and that the baby could be, in fact, ANY ethnicity. Okay, we said. And I ended up praying for this, because due to the difficulties with in-country adoptions, these kids can be entered into the international process at birth and such a child would have come to us at a much younger age.
It wasn’t to be – as far as we know, C’s birth parents were both Korean, and it took FOREVER to get through the process (actually 6 months to C being assigned to us and 6 months to get through the process was not that long, but I understand it can be as little as 2 months to bring one’s child home – and it felt like forever). But when people accuse folks adopting from Asian countries of not wanting babies of a certain ethnic background, I want to holler. I am not saying that we what we did is unassailable. But once a person hears our story – that the adult who was adopted rejected the foster system, that the private agencies in our state looked…shifty (not to mention unfriendly to folks in our economic bracket), that the charitable agencies rejected ME out of hand – and that we spent 2 years looking for a reputable way to go about this (and a program would have fertile old me), then, is it still so easy to judge? And as for folks who simply wanted to avoid “at risk” adoptions, and I know several…who had suffered 6+ miscarriages, who had babies who died…is it still so easy to judge?
When we open our hearts and our lives to this process, regardless of which path we take, it is a strange road indeed. And we all try to do best by the people we love, which includes the new addition…for some people that will mean the foster system, for some, it will mean other paths. This is only ours. I hope and pray that all of us will do our damndest to do right by our kids.
All that said, I think the process could be more rigorous in many ways, and I think we could have been better prepared for C’s completely understandable freak-out when Mr. Coffee brought him home.
I will be careful to let C lead me in what he wants and needs, but I will also continuing listening to adult adoptees to keep me thinking. M and I are trying to learn to speak and read Korean, and to help C retain/learn some as well, and we’re doing OK. Some adult adoptees say being able to speak the language when they go back to their birth country is the thing they need most. Some say this effort is pointless, as they’ll never be fluent (though that argument could be made against trying to learn any language, and as a bi-lingual person, I feel that competency in another language is well worth shooting for).
We have other children in our life who were adopted from S. Korea, as well as adult role models who are willing to answer C’s tough questions about culture when they come (I am willing to try too, but since we have friends who have volunteered to do this, I think it may be best coming from a person who has lived this culture). We intend to take all of boys to Seoul when we can afford it and they are old enough to remember it – hopefully 3 times before adulthood.
C’s foster mother is not a young woman and I want him to meet her. If his birth mother left contact information and he is willing, I want him to meet her too. (Mr. Coffee simply wanted to take C back to the town of his birth, but it is a very small town and without knowing if his birth mother would like to be contacted, that makes me uneasy – as we don’t know if that would be an unkindness to this woman).
I have all ready made mistakes. I always knew C’s birth story was his to tell and yet I blurted it out to a few people once we knew it. Some of this was excitement, some of this was relief that his birth mother’s story would likely have led to adoption regardless of where she lived, and some may have been that, before he was in my arms and home, none of this was quite real enough to me. Now, I wouldn’t dare share his story – it is his and not mine, and I am embarrassed that I did so. But I am also sure it won’t be the last time I screw up either.
As we move forward, I am sure I will make more mistakes, but I will do my best to do right by ALL of my boys – M and C, as well as TBD. They will have some similar and some different needs, and I will work to respect each of them in the ways that matter to them the most. And I hope that they will trust me enough to tell me when they feel that I could do better by them….
If you come across this post, and feel so inclined, you are welcome to point out problems with what I have said here, but I do ask that you attempt to be kind in doing so…truly think about what I have shared here and trust that I am striving to be the best mother I can be to all of my boys….
This will be my last post specifically on this subject. While I don’t think this horse will ever be dead, he sure is tired.
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I recently read an interview with a woman who had won an age 40+ model search. “It just goes to show that you can do anything you put your mind to!” she said. Huh.
Now, at 45, I am sure she has to work out like crazy and really watch what she eats to stay in shape. But I also got the impression that she was a stay-at-home mom whose kids were all OLDER and at school or out on their own a lot of the time. Being a stay-at-home parent is a lot of work (as Mr. Coffee often reminds me) but if her kids were all 14+, as implied, I don’t think she was being run ragged by kids all day. She might be running them AROUND a lot, but she didn’t seem to have that on her plate either. As a matter of fact, I also got the impression that she had a lot economic resources to spend on training, food, and quite possibly hired help. As for the rest – did she put her mind to being tall? White? Conventionally pretty?
This is where it breaks down – she was giving herself 100% of the credit when some of these things she didn’t MAKE happen. Some, she might be able to call blessings, some were simple chances of birth, but she did not MAKE all of these things happen. And I have issues with people taking credit for things like that…
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Before I let the horse rest, a few thoughts about MY experiences with this:
1) Several years back, my life began to unravel as the result of a head-injury that I got when hit by a drunk driver. I am okay now, but for awhile, things were in pretty rough shape.
I was targeted by someone, not incidentally a cult member, who earned my trust over 6 months, and then began systemically picking me to pieces. I believed I created reality, so I thought everything he did was my fault. I lost my job, and my rent was raised to a level that I couldn’t pay, and I ended up with no home – and I thought that was my fault too. And this man, this cult member, proceeded to play an awful game with me, until there was almost no “me” left.
“Friends” asked why I was “letting this person hurt me.” Rather than pointing out that he was being a jerk, it was MY fault he was a jerk. Sound familiar? A woman is responsible for how a man behaves. Hardly “new thought.”
And yes, I think this philosophy is particularly damaging to women – so many of us hold ourselves accountable for other people’s actions. And guess what? So does society (in general) too! So – here is a great way to uphold the status quo, while tearing people to pieces, and be all self-congratulatory about one’s progressive positive thinking at the same time!
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2) A little while back, my employer GENEROUSLY put me in a “Leadership Development” Program. To be clear, I think my employer is great – I think the teachers of this program have serious unexamined entitlement issues.
We were encouraged to do self-reflective work and I had recently realized that I had never mourned the end of my career as a concert French horn player and that I needed to do that. I had first heard the horn in 3rd grade and thought it was the most beautiful sound in the universe. In 6th grade, I had the chance to play the horn and from that moment on, I spent every possible minute practicing – soon spending 5 to 7 hours a day in practice.
Right before I was to start music school (college), I was in a car accident that cut up the left side of my face and shattered several teeth. I have lost count of the oral surgeries I have had in the intervening 20 years, many of which involved peeling my gums away from my teeth and drilling holes in my jaw. I have several permanent caps. They don’t feel at all like real teeth, but they look fine. Externally, the only thing you can SEE as a result of this accident is a crooked smile.
For a long time, I tried to tell myself that it was for the best, but in reality, I have NO WAY of knowing if life would have been better or worse for me if that accident had never happened. All I could know was that it was probably different. And yes, it was time to mourn – 20 years late.
The brilliant responses from our instructors? “You must not have wanted it bad enough.” “You must not have been that good.” AND “Why didn’t you just change instruments?”
The arrogance and ignorance combined in those statements is stunning.
Not wanting it bad enough? A conservative estimate of how many hours I spent practicing before the accident is 38,000. These are business leadership folks who stress that 10,000 hours makes you an expert. What was I then?
Not good enough? Well, folks who heard me play might say otherwise. Plus there was that playing in college ensembles when in the 10th grade thing. And hearing from damn near every brass musician in the city symphony after the accident. If I wasn’t very good, why did all of these professional musicians 10 – 30 years my senior know who I was and care enough to call?
As for changing instruments, that’s like saying “Gee honey, I am sorry your fiancé died on the way to the wedding, but there were a lot of other nice men around – why didn’t you just marry one of them?” Because this sort of thing is THAT kind of commitment.
But you can’t SEE my injuries, so they must not be real, I guess. I wonder if they would have said the same thing to a minor league pitcher who, on his rise to the majors, lost his arms in an accident? See, because having my mouth muscles and teeth destroyed was the same sort of career-ending injury. And I wasn’t looking for sympathy; I was just trying to deal with a loss I’d spent too long denying. But these folks were too arrogant in their beliefs to realize that they were talking about something they knew nothing about…
This is the kind of callousness and arrogance that results from the philosophy in question.
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I can’t say I’ll never talk about this again, but I am going to tie up the horse and get him some water and oats now….
I am very tired. I try to think right, do right – respect all people. But like anyone, I have my failings. I believe in honest self-examination but it can be hard, one can learn hard things about one’s self, and right now I am facing something I need to work on that I am downright embarassed by – so no, I don’t think I’ll go into details, but suffice it to say, the next time you see me (if you know me in real life), you might find I listen more and talk a WHOLE lot less.
Right now I am exhausted – C is still adjusting and SURPRISE I am also pregnant with son #3. He’ll be born right before my 45th birthday. I am thrilled that this appears to be a healthy pregnancy and terrified of trying to parent 3 sons. Freaked out that I will have 3 sons in elementary school when I turn 50. And so tired…
There is only one more after this; then I will probably post a few “My Stories.” Of course, most posts are “my stories” but the story posts in question are all about my issues with a currently popular “philosphy.” I am putting these 2 together because they are the stories that kept me stalling. I am just going to try to keep it brief…
Okay – now when you read these, imagine this is you or someone you love. Then how would you feel to hear “Everyone creates their own reality,” “Everything happens for a reason,” or similar sentiments?
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Part 3) In the past 5 years, over 7 people to whom I had an emotional attachment have died. Few of these people were elderly, some were children, and most died from terminal illnesses, most notably cancer. I miss them.
I don’t like to say people “battled” with cancer, because it suggests that survivors “beat” cancer and those who didn’t survive, well, that cancer “beat” them. And I don’t like to think of it this way. People do the best they can with these things, and sometimes they survive. Sometimes they don’t. That’s it.
I read an essay years ago by a woman who had been a member of the “science of the mind” movement until she was diagnosed with a rare and incurable form of cancer. She had to make a break with the movement because her friends were implying that she must have given herself the cancer with “negative thinking” and that if she got her “thinking right,” she’d get well.
What the hell kind of community of faith is that?????? I realize that people love to latch onto things that give them some sense that they can control things that, in fact, they can’t control. But damn…that’s ugly.
Personally, I believe in miracles. I’ve witnessed a few. But hoping and praying for a miracle is not the same as expecting people to PERFORM miracles. No, it’s not.
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Part 4) Through my role in a community to which I belong, I have become close to a handful of young women who, along with some adults, immigrated to the US from the Sudan. Do you know what can happen to girls in the Sudan (trigger warning)?
Though I am only aquainted with him, there is also a man who was a “Lost Boy” who is part of this community.
I don’t think I need to say anything more about this…
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But I’ll say THIS again – imagine this is you or someone you love. How would you feel to hear “Everyone creates their own reality,” “Everything happens for a reason,” or similar sentiments? Really?
I am about to finally re-commence with my “Other People’s Stories” posts, but before I do, I want to make clear that I am not saying that we are helpless to change the world, our situations, or that we are pawns without any autonomy or will.
Quite the contrary – my MAIN concern is that many people invoke the “we create reality” philosophy as a way to shrug off injustice, as a way to absolve themselves of caring about others. The status quo is upheld, poor people are blamed for poverty, and people who face bigotry are blamed for the hurt that causes. None of this is OK.
Yes, a “good attitude” can go a long way in my life and that of many of my peers, but there are things that can’t be changed by a “good” attitude and there are times when expecting a good attitude out of someone facing injustice (subtle or violent) is inhumane.
Another concern is I have, and I have this one from first hand experience, is that if a person buys into this philosophy, then faces cruelty *or even random but painful events* beyond her control, the result can be devastating. One is left wondering how she MADE thus and such happen, when in fact, only the perpetrator is to blame, or in the case of some things, events without a perpetrator, NO ONE is to blame.
I believe, deep down, someone who really NEEDS to read that will, one day, wander across what I have written here and think, “Wait, if X didn’t make Y happen, maybe I can stop blaming myself for this awful thing that I endured.”
What I am NOT saying is that we have no self-will, or that we are powerless to effect change in the world. What I am saying is that we are not gods – we can only do so much, and we should not expect our fellow humans to be gods either.
I have also SO very often seen this philosophy used against people, usually women, to the tune of “Why are you letting this person hurt you?” when the real words should be “This person is an ass for hurting you.” Somehow the person in the power seat is never held responsible (“She made an enemy of me” is one phrase I have heard from a man who supposedly buys the philosophy. Hmmm…so she created HER reality and YOURS?????)
I do have some wonderful friends who live by the “you create reality” philosophy in other ways, not as stated above:
One woman VERY bravely left a loveless marriage, a great-paying job she hated, and sold her nice house to pursue her dreams. She now lets a room and lives very differently, AND she is very happily supporting herself doing what she loves. However, I don’t think she would deny that the financial net created by some of the things she was able to “let go of” helped.
Now, I believe she probably would have tried anyway, with or without that net. She may well have succeeded regardless. And she was incredibly brave to make the choices she did. But to my mind, this is not so much “creating reality” as taking control of one’s course in life, going after a dream, and going after happiness, even while knowing she’d be giving up things many things some people would think she couldn’t live without. That to me is RECOGNIZING one’s reality and making the risky changes, and accepting the new life-style sometimes required to achieve happiness. I realize that THIS is what some folks mean by “create your own reality” but it, all too easily, morphs into something else, something ugly…
Another friend tries to create reality by creating goodness as her part of the collective consciousness. This is a beautiful thought to me, but is also, to my mind, way too much responsibility. Not as much as believing one is a little god, running reality, but still too much. If my thoughts have that kind of power, that kind of realness, then I am in seriously deep shit. And honestly, I need to be free, at times, to have unkind thoughts without feeling guilty about them.
What about you?
This is a great song. This very talented young man is singing in a video from Jack’s Big Music Show. I also enjoy watching M study the dance moves…
By the way, the singer is Leon Thomas III. I couldn’t find anything about him a year ago, but he appears to be all of the ‘net now. Here’s wishing him good luck and good health.
I recently heard from one of my favorite “lost” friends from highschool. He has a blog *about banding birds* that I would personally describe as soothing. Check it out.
Last week was International Blog Against Racism week. Between the kids, the critters, the job, and Mr. Coffee, I ended up saying nothing. I was just too busy. But of course, there are folks out there whose non-fiction is much more passionate and elegant than my own when it comes to this subject. Still….
There were a few things I thought about writing about.
As I poke about, looking into the possibility of tribal registration*, I thought about writing about how, technically, I am non-white. Yet 95% of the time, I am perceived as such. I think of that 5% of the time that I am NOT perceived as white as a blessing. Nothing will open your eyes to your own privilege like having it ripped away from time to time. So, this makes me more compassionate – something I think is worth being.
Still, having elderly Puerto Rican men chew me out for not speaking Spanish isn’t particularly painful, since I am not Puerto Rican. Getting spit on for being Turkish while in Austria was unpleasant, but again, not painful; I am not Turkish. An experience that was painful was when, years ago, a co-worker spent a LOT of time telling my boss that I was lazy and came to work drunk. Neither statement was true, but he felt he knew the truth by LOOKING at me.
Can you imagine dealing with something like that every day? I can’t. But it happens to plenty of people – all the time. This is part of the point of my “Other People’s Stories” series (which I will get back to this week – promise). That is, that the whole “anyone can do anything”; “we create reality” philosophy tends to support the status quo and dismiss the reality of injustice in the world. It seems especially easy for some folks to dismiss the subtle injustices that wear a soul down.
I also thought about writing about the attacks on Dr. Regina Benjamin’s weight – something I believe to be fueled by sexism, racism, and classism. The classism hits me the hardest – it seems like it’s OK to have working class roots as long as you don’t LOOK like you do, and hell, she’s built just like my MOM (and me in 10 years). Mom is STURDY but not fat. And of course, we women are so often judged by our looks. I don’t feel qualified to discuss the racial aspect of this, but I feel like it’s there.
So, did anyone who visits me write anything for Blog Against Racism week? If so, let me know and I’ll link back to you, providing it’s appropriate.
I hope you are all having a lovely week this week. I need to practice writing, and my skills need to be honed, so I will be back soon.
* If ANYONE out there has had good luck tracing their MATRILINEAL ancestry, I am open to advice on how to track down information.
