So sometimes I am really bad at what I do. I swear, I used to be a more verbally talented sort of person — or I at least used to be a much more self-aggrandizing kind of person — but I am doing a bad job, I feel, of stating clearly what I feel or believe about this race/adoption thing. So I found somebody who did better. Where I work, we refer to parents like this as the ones who “get it.”
The report she’s talking about, since it’s come out, I’ve seen a lot of really astoundingly ignorant commentary on it. My favorite being something on the NPR website, a white dude saying if white parents can’t adopt black kids than I guess Martin Luther King’s dream truly is dead (?!?). But far and away, the biggest ignorant comment concerns the belief that racism no longer exists, is no longer relevant, or is no longer serious. Or, really, that it never was — all we needed was love and muffins, I guess, to overcome an entire system of targeted laws, policies, and sanctioned murders.
I wish all the people who think racism doesn’t exist could have read my inbox or answered the phone here the week this report came out. From the family psychologist who called us stupid for buying into the notion that black parents are capable of parenting black children, to the dozens of reporters who call us for a quote, then go on to print another article that says, “Adoption organization says whites shouldn’t be allowed to adopt!!!!!!!” or “Adoption organization wants black babies to die in foster care!” Judging from all the nasty correspondence we’ve been getting, all you need to do in this country to test the belief that racism is dead is say “I don’t think racism is dead.” Or, to be more specific, to say “I don’t think racism is dead” in white company.
Our executive director put it pretty well: “White people go apeshit when you tell them they can’t have something.”
