After
our discussion in class on Tuesday, it's interesting to hear people's
perspectives on racism. One observation I made during class on Tuesday is
the number of people who put the church as a source for positive messages. I found that to be surprising because church
would be at the bottom of my list or the least reliable. I say this because when we think of the
images when it comes to Jesus and the people in the Bible, the images are all
of white people when they were really Middle Eastern. I understand the church says we need to love
our neighbor, etc., but when I went to church in pasty white Sartell, all I saw
was judgment whenever one African American person walked in the church. I would look at the people, and they would be
staring with wide eyes. Sad thing, we
would never see the new people again.
How is this a positive message?
Another
thought that came to me from Tuesday’s discussion is how I never thought of the
challenges that transracial adoption people face. I like to think that we would love each other
no matter what. However, even a person
who is adopted from an African country or Asian country and grows up in the
United States faces a lot of challenges.
This scares me in a way. I want
to adopt some day, and I want a baby from an Asian country or an African
country. Will things be better when I
want to adopt or will our still need a lot of help with racial issues? I want my child to have a fulfilling and
positive life. Plus, the fact that my
child is going to have to deal with having two dads instead of a mother and father
is going to be hectic too. It’s sad that
racism still exists a lot, even though I believe each and every one is racism
to some degree. I hope our society can
continue to get to know each other more and more and embrace culture.
-Mickey N.
Graded Reply #5
ReplyDeleteMickey I think this is a great post! I really appreciated you sharing what you observed at the church you attended and how it was not always a positive message. I am in the other section of the class and my class also believed the church was generally one of the strongest supporters of positive messages. I think that typically people of faith like to think that there are no flaws in their religion, but unfortunately that is not always the case. I like to believe that my church at home is very accepting because there is a lot of diversity and interaction of all the parishioners, however-I unfortunately have seen what you are talking about while attending mass at my cabin. I think that as a society we need to change our stereotypes so we can all be equal.
I hope that by the time you adopt these racial issues will be eliminated. However, I think it would be important to be as honest with your child as possible. One thing I mentioned in my blog post was a statement Wright made. Wright claimed, “My wish is that instead she (Wright’s adoptive mother) had given me the simple acknowledgement that our home was colorblind but the outside sometimes wasn’t” (Wright 28). I found this to be a good take home message about educating adoptive children about the prejudice and discrimination the outside world may sometimes exemplify.
Kathryn M.
Graded Reply #4
ReplyDeleteI was also a bit shock when people put church as a source for positive messages regarding race. I think that church is the default reaction when one thinks of a source providing positive messages. After all, the church is supposed to be respectful and welcoming to all people. However, some churches fail to fulfill this mission. Similar to you, I grew up in a small town with little diversity. VERY RARLEY did people of color attend mass. But when they did, it was obvious that it was a shock to the congregation. This shows that the church does not treat all equally. My religion classes also failed to mention racial issues.
Like you, I never really gave transracial adoption much consideration before this class. Transracial adoption is twofold. The adoptee is faced with problems concerning race AND adoption. The readings we read for class show how this combination places identity issues on the adoptee. For my book review, I’m reading a book from the perspective of an adoptive mom from Minnesota who adopted two children from South Korea. She is somewhat critical of transracial adoption, but she points out that family life is better than abandonment. Yes, a transracial adoptee will probably receive racism remarks, but I think it is still better to be loved than to be alone or moved around in foster homes.
Graded Reply
ReplyDeleteMickey, first of all, I really liked your post. Secondly, although I see where you are coming from with your comments about the church in my experience it was different. I great up in Iowa, in not a very large town, so there is not a lot of diversity there either but through my church we have some parishioners that are from various countries around the world and we invited many, many speakers to come that were also from around the world. In my small group we discussed that for other things such as sexuality or things like that we would not rate the church as a reliable source but, at least in the churches that each of us attended, it was a reliable, or decently reliable, source of positive messages about race. I also went to a Catholic High School and issues of race and racism were discussed and addressed in class, both in theology classes as well as other classes. So for me, as far as race and racism goes, the church surprisingly was a good source of positive messages.
As for the transracial adoption, I would agree with what Kathryn posted above with the quote. I think that parents need to be prepared to deal with the racism but they also have a responsibility to teach their child that although they love them unconditionally and do not see color as an issue that unfortunately that won't necessarily be the case everywhere. It is a sad fact that they have to deal with that but I still think that being adopted transracially is a much better alternative to being stuck in the foster care system and being bounced around from place to place all the time.
Merideth E
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ReplyDeleteGraded Reply #4
ReplyDeleteMickey,
I really appreciate how you were able to connect your life to this blog post. It is always interesting to me to hear other people's stories and reactions. I like the observation you made about the church and the images you see. I too only ever see icons and images in churches of white people, with an occasional image or two with darker skin. I guess I never really thought about it much until I traveled and spent a month in Africa. Going over, I expected that the images in their churches would have darker skinned people, because I figured it was probably just a location thing. However, much to my surprise, the vast majority of icons and images were of white skinned people. I am not sure if that was due to the fact that the images were donated or painted by volunteers, but it definitely caught me by surprise.
I also mentioned in my blog post that I am really interested in adopting a child from Africa some day. However, reading about all of the struggles that the adoptees may face really makes me think. It definitely could be a huge challenge. But, like we talked about during our debate on Thursday, I think as long as the adoptive parents do their research and prepare themselves for different situations that may arise, there is nothing more they can do. With that, I also do believe that racism will continue to die down as our society continues to recognize it and try to eliminate it.
~ Katie