Why I flew all the way to Toledo Part 2

   Facebook creates an interesting phenomenon… suddenly you can have friends numbered in the hundreds, stretched across the world.  Through the miracle of this new communication age we can reach out and connect with other who uniquely share our experiences despite GREAT geographical distances.  My need to connect with other transracial adoptive parents (I’m coining the acronym TRAP)  produces vast amounts of new friends who like me have adopted children that look nothing like Mommy and Daddy.  It’s a unique opportunity, a neo-sense of community, and wonderful new tool that’s inherently flawed… We are humans needing live human connection and attempting to establish that via a computer we’ll always fall short… So finally getting to meet friends in person I’d only known online not only was a treat, it is a practice I hope will become a regular occurrence!

     Getting a chance to meet in the flesh and learn from transracial adoptive (TRA) authors Rhonda Roorda, Kevin Hoffman and Ola Zuri was an opportunity I was not going to pass up.   Rhonda, I now know, has a larger  life personality, and a laugh even larger than that.  She speaks with your entire body, waves her hands around as she leaps to the edge of her chair to make a point.  He face is expressive, and always smiling.  You can’t help but instantly love her.

     Ola describes herself as an introvert… but her friend claimed she was anything but.  Friendly, easy to laugh, you can tell she loves talking with families and sharing her experiences.  I spent a great deal of time with Ola after the panel at dinner then on a crazy trip into unknown areas of rural Michigan trying to return her to her friends house hoping desperately the Garmen knew where it was going, ‘cause the Floridian and the Canadian didn’t have a clue.  We were never at a loss for conversation, had kids the same age, and a love for natural hair.

       

 Kevin, who I’d say I conversed with the most prior to my trip, was quieter than I expected, but he had Ola and Rhonda to contend with.  Like the others, he brought a great deal of humor to discussion. His father and mother, who also attended the event had the opportunity to answer a few question themselves.

         Despite having read their books, Rhonda, Kevin and Ola  had yet A LOT to teach me during their panel, and I’m SO eager to share it with you!!  I have every intention of elaborating on some of these in coming days, and would love to dialogue more on them… for now I offer you a shorter version. As requested by several TRAP friends these are my notes from the panel if you will.

1.  It is vital to make connections with others in our child’s community.  My child is black, I therefore need to build bridges between my family and the people in the black community, invite them into our home and make them a part of our daily lives.  The consequences of neglecting this is our children will be left to make assumption about  people in the black community based on stereotypes provided by the media, and schoolyard politics.   Providing this community for our child “gives them a place to exhale.”   They need to be able to know how to navigate our society with dark skin.  I, a white woman, cannot teach a child how to be black.  We need the black communities help.

 

2.      When asked if middle class status trumps race in the adult adoptees lives all agreed that race plays a greater role in how they interact with others.  Race still dictates racism and racism still exists.    The adoptees who are black and grow up in white households get to experience by proxy a sense of “white privilege”  and it’s easy to forget  that race does matter.  But when they function as teens and young adults out on their own it’s their race that’s seen first when interacting with the community… sidenote: Rhonda admitted that she frequently would try and play the, “I was adopted by a white family card” when she felt like she was being unfairly treated based on her skin color.. thus far she said it doesn’t work.

3.  Rhonda said, ‘If you don’t know who you are, there will be a line of people who will tell you who you are!”  We need to prepare our children to navigate in our society WITH their color of skin, nurture pride in who they are as a black person, as an adoptee, as a human being.

4. Transracial adoption is a gift because it transforms the entire family in beautiful ways.  We support each of our child’s special needs… but we also cross-educate.  It becomes a collaborative dialogue that would have never occurred had the transracial adoption never took place.  All our children are therefore more well-rounded.

5.  How do we talk to our kids about racism?  We make it a process, NOT a single conversation.  It the same with the subject of adoption.  It’s an ongoing conversation, be sure your children know that “you get it” that racism exists and if they feel mistreated based on race they can come to you and be listened to.  “Leave a fertile garden, ready for conversations.”

6. How do we navigate the cute black baby to “black-boy-that-could-cause-trouble”  shift in perception from society that occurs around the age of 10?  Be certain that they have positive black adult males in their lives. Around the age of 9 begin to talk about it and work out strategies how to prevent and manage such perceptions.

7. As siblings of adoptees grow it’s important to know that they have an obligation to correct others when a misperception about their adoptee sibling’s culture is expressed.  Likewise the adoptee’s role is to defend misperceptions of their siblings’ race when it is expressed.  It wouldn’t be appropriate to have friends who frequently express racist opinions.

8. Is our child’s culture and race being expressed in our homes?  Is there art, books, and music that expresses our child’s culture and heritage?  There should be.

9. In the case of African adoption it is important that we prepare our child to be black, because that’s what our society will see them as, but we must also honor the African culture they came from in order to provide a linkage to where they came from.  “You’re going to be busy..” said Rhonda.

10. Finally the goal of a parent to a transracial adoptee is not to produce a carbon copy of a black child who grew up in a black family, because that’s just not going to happen.  The goal is to make them feel good in their own skin..

 I am So grateful that Kevin,  Ola and Rhonda took the time and put forth the resources to make this panel happen.  I can honestly say I learned a great deal from them and the other transracial families in the room with me.  If you ever get a chance to go see ANY of these wonderful authors speak.  I promise it will be more than worth your time.  You’ll walk away having learned quite a lot!