The topic of racism in adoption is actually quite a touchy one and I never would have really thought of it in the ways mentioned in class but I guess it is a sensitive topic. I suppose the reason I never really thought much of it was because, I just realized this in class not too long ago, I am actually part of a transracial adoption family. My brother was adopted from Colombia when he was just four months old so I have always grown up not seeing somebody by their color. Through this I find my life to be quite special because of how little diversity I experienced growing up in tiny town, boondocks Minnesota. In fact, my brother and I belonged to the only family that brought diversity to our town. I admit it was very interesting growing up and being asked all the questions like "He isn't your
real brother, is he?" or "Is
he adopted?" to which I would always answer "Yes, he is my real brother because we have grown up together and we have been there for each other ever since I was born. We may not be blood related but we are of one soul." or "Actually yes, he is adopted... and so am I. I find our lives to be genuine.
This is why I was so shocked when I took the IAT (Initial Autonomic Test) for Black/White preference and it scored me as moderate preference towards Whites. I don't find myself at all as a person that consciously or subconsciously segregates people. I try to make it a point in my life to be the best person I can to everyone and treat everyone as I would like to be treated. This is why I don't believe that this test is very reliable and that I don't really trust technology to judge my own personality when there are so many things that can skew the outcome. I would prefer to be analyzed, in a way, by a professional and in person. A computer can't decipher the true morals and ethics of a persons identity when really I could turn out to be a serial murderer or the next pope if I just chose the right answers the computer agrees with.
Michael
Blog Post #5 Response: Graded Response by Beth
ReplyDeleteHey Michael – Your blog post really resonated with me, because I had never put much thought into the topic of transracial adoption either. Like you, I guess the reason I never thought of it is because two of my cousins are adopted from Latvia. In our class, we discussed that sometimes people from Russia can be ‘passed’ as white people, but in my case, my cousins were adopted late in life and so there was a huge language and culture barrier at first. However, I did not take this to be a bad thing. I took this as a testament of both of their strengths and courageousness overcoming their less-than desirable living environment and accepting a new life with a bunch of different people. I was shocked to hear that some people in your class did not grow up with this same awareness, as their schools did not teach them about race. How maddening! I loved your comment “I find our lives to be genuine” a powerful one, as I found it to speak to your humanity and not your up-bringing. I truly think that this focus on humanity rather than promoting white privilege is the goal of any adoption situation. I find this ‘sub-conscious segregation’ that you mention as well as many of the other authors we explored to be an interesting term. After all, you do not feel that you do this in your daily life. I feel the same way with mine. And if it is at an un-conscious level, what do we do about that? What exactly are we bringing to the surface by ‘naming our racism,’ as ‘Rethinking Racism’ generally points out? Is it the simple fact that we are aware of what the generalizations are? I found that while taking the Implicit Bias test that the answers were difficult for me to answer not because I was truly fighting my “racism” but because I was fighting my knowledge of what the stereotypes are. In the beginning, they tell you what result they are expecting in the paragraph describing the test. I think this pre-disposed me to think about these stereotypes and led me (and obviously others like you) to get a score that was not true to me.
Graded Blog Post #5
ReplyDeleteReading your blog post, I see that we have similar thoughts about the white and black test we did online. I also did this test and it scored me as severely prefer whites over blacks. This is NOT true! How can a 5-10 minute test online prove that? Seeing these results I felt shocked and kind of hurt. I always tried to be nice and accepting to everyone. Not racist! Growing up I moved quite a bit. I went from small towns with no diversity to a large town with a lot of diversity. In the large town, I never had just white friends. My best friend was actually African America. So, I just think that the test online is a poor source to use.
We also have similar experiences with adopted siblings and diversity. My sister and brother were adopted from Russia but my sister looks Asian. When living in a small town in Minnesota (population 947), many people came to me asking why do they look different, “who is their real parents?”, “are they adopted?”, or “Is that really your real sister and brother?”. When I heard the word “real” it really bothered me. Why does having the same genes and blood make you their “real” brother and sister? A family is defined in any way an individual say it is.
Katie L.