Heather asked a good question
So this happened before the time when Madison overheard the mom talking about slippery feet in dance class, right? Do you think it factored into the strong reaction she had in the dance class?
from Heather
Yup, that did happen after. The Incident happened at the beginning of February and then dance class was in April. Madison had already been talking a lot about wanting her skin to match ours months before February and for me one of the sad ironies of this whole thing is that the family in question was one of our social examples of families who don’t match and how that’s ok. I grieve the loss of the friendship with the wife in part because early in our relationship she was part of my support system around this stuff. (Didn’t I tell you that this was ironic?) Not that we agreed on everything about race or adoption but we agreed on enough that the differences were details.
Anyway. Yes, this may have played a part in her strong reaction at dance class. Then again, she had been talking a lot about race and differences and not matching so while The Incident surely didn’t help, she was already struggling. And that’s one reason I just felt so unglued about it all — the wife in question had been witness and support during those particular struggles and so to have her husband be so hurtful and at their home where my daughter had always felt safe — well, it just made it that much MORE. Again, I don’t hold the wife responsible for his behavior and she didn’t witness the event. I just want to make it clear that there’s a whole lot going on here and the password protected stuff is about my friendship with her but I feel pretty darn comfortable publicly condemning him.
I also wonder — and this is pure conjecture — if some surrounding circumstances of that class made Madison feel extra-sensitive going in. Because that class was bookended with socializing with various families including the family in question (without the husband/perpetrator of said deed). Given that she has expressed concern for the kids, I kinda wonder if seeing them might not have pushed The Incident to the forefront of her mind just before heading into ballet. But I don’t know. And I guess truly it doesn’t matter because all that matters now is coping with the fall out.
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Tags: Adoption, adoptive-parenting, friendship, friendships, Race, racism
Is he racist or just mean?
Regarding the post below. Like I said, I’ve been thinking about writing this for AntiRacist Parent.
I think he’s a bully and I think he goes for what he perceives as weak points. I think he confuses sarcasm with being clever or witty.
Now I love me some sarcasm, don’t get me wrong, but in this case he’s using sarcasm as a weapon. He’s using “but it was a joke” as a cover for being hateful. Does he really hate black children? Well, as far as I can tell, only as much as he seems to hate everyone. But to tell a black 3-year old that he doesn’t like black children — he’s a white man. There’s no way to take that out of the context of his race.
The example I used in the comments to my entry was this:
If my husband — who is not Jewish but is married to a Jew — said snidely to a Jewish child, “We don’t like Jews in this house” I would think he had some serious antisemitism going on and I doubt people would argue with me. But I think white people like me are so nervous about the R word (racism) that we try to make excuses to avoid it.
The fact that this guy has immediate family members who are black is another reason some people said, “But he couldn’t have meant it that way!” You know, that racist way. But I see racism in some of his behavior (statements) to his black family members as well.
There’s a power differential in what he said to Madison that cements this for me. He is a white adult. She is a black child. “In this house, we don’t like brown skinned babies.” From an adult to a brown skinned child.
Is he just ignorant? Unable to understand that a preschooler isn’t the same as an adult? It’s an argument I’ve heard from people who care about him and I used to believe it but his actions seem deliberate to me. When he’s insulted me in the past, his actions seem deliberate. I’ve seen him chuckle over how funny it is to say things that make people angry or hurt their feelings. He takes pride in speaking outside of norms and in upsetting people. He uses cruelty to boost his self-esteem and he does it without considering the consequences to his victims.
(I’ve since talked to people who have confronted him and they say he rolls right over when someone calls him on his shit, which I think is another sign that he’s a bully — hitting people who can’t hit back.)
So yes, I think he’s racist. And sexist. And all sorts of other -ists because I think he’s a bully and he uses those -isms to assert his power over other people. In other words, an equal opportunity abuser and in this case, racism was his means to lash out at a preschooler.
Madison has none of this context; she just has a memory of someone who basically said he didn’t like her because she was black. And Madison was shaken, too, because she knows his black family members and she sees them as vulnerable, (which they are). (Ok, damn — he’s got black kids, ok? More identifying info than I meant to give but it’s important to the discussion.) That scares her — that he said that to her and he has his own brown-skinned children. So the adults (some of them) said, “But he couldn’t mean it because he has black kids” and Madison more clearly sees that the fact that he has black kids makes it that much more hurtful and wrong that he said it to her.
I really do feel better since writing this — my mood is much lighter than it was before I wrote it — but writing about it makes me cry.
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Tags: antisemitism, context, ignorant, Race, racism, racist, sarcasm
If you don’t see it, maybe you’re missing it
Apr 26, 2008 Adoption, Race, Uncategorized
Obviously I’ve been thinking about Madison’s ballet class a whole lot. It looks like we’d need to sign her up for a private class unless we wait until fall because spring session is over and there isn’t much going on (that I’ve found so far) for summer. But I think we’ll head to the other rec centers to find her some summer activities. Sign ups aren’t going on yet but there are two close by rec centers that look like they might have some options and then Kristen is saying the one by Pennie might be good. Frankly private dance classes are outside our budget at the moment.
We live in a neighborhood that is somewhat racially mixed. Not on the level of my sister’s, which is probably half African-American and half white & Hispanic. But it’s not black enough. I don’t want Madison to be “the other black kid” in the class. My mom was saying (after this incident) that maybe Madison needs to go to school then but not this school district. Going in and seeing the classes made me realize that. The numbers on paper look a lot more encouraging than they are. I’m kicking myself for not moving to Erica’s neighborhood only we wanted Noah to be able to ride his bike to the library and swimming pool, etc. and he couldn’t have done that there. I know it was the right decision for Noah but maybe it wasn’t the right decision for Madison. Although it looks like the middle school has more black kids than the elementary school. (The middle school is also in this quadrant and when we go to the library we sometimes see the gym classes in the field nearby.)
But I’m willing to drive and heck, even gas prices hit five dollars a gallon, Erica’s neighborhood is an easy bike ride away. Ok, except for the one hill but that’s because I’m terribly out of shape these days. (sigh) It’s not impossible. And maybe we will move one of these days. Who can tell? Just because the housing market is tanked now and just because we’re too broke to think about taking on moving expenses doesn’t mean it’ll be that way forever, right?
Madison is feeling better now, I think, because she’s putting her feelings on the class and not on herself. I was talking to Brett about what I’ve found in the way of classes for her and Noah was sitting at the kitchen table and asked what was going on and I filled him in (he was at a friend’s house after class and missed the discussion). Madison, wandering by on her way to the bathroom, said, “Oh yeah, it’s all white kids there, Noah.” And she shook her head, meaningfully.
It’s important to me that she hears us talking about this and problem-solving and she hears her brother offering his support and understanding and that she hears us talking to her directly AND indirectly, you know? That she knows that we as a family are taking this on and that it matters to all of us that she feel comfortable and supported.
Every now and then I hear from other transracially adopting parents that their kids don’t have any problems. I heard this from a parent whose raising a black daughter in this community. Or just from plain old adoptive parents. They say, “Oh my kid never thinks about his/her adoption; s/he is totally fine with it.”
I just don’t buy it. But the other thing about it is this idea that to be “totally fine” means to be totally not talking about it or not thinking about it. To my mind it’s “totally fine” to be struggling. It’s “totally fine” to wonder and ask questions and to not always feel “totally fine”.
Madison skinned her knee the other day and she wailed the wail of boo-boo ridden preschoolers everywhere when she said, “But why do scrape have to hurt?” And I told her that the pain is there to tell us to pay attention. I said, “If your scrapes didn’t hurt we wouldn’t know that we needed to wash it out and get a band-aid. I’m glad that boo-boos hurt; that means they’re doing their job! But it’s still no fun to have one.”
Same goes with the rest of life’s boo-boos, right?
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Tags: Adoption, adoptive-parenting, Erica, Madison, my mom, Noah, preschool, Race, transracial adoption