DeacMan
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2011
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I think it is hard to be disgusted by people who I don't think really realized how dumb they were being in the moment. In their rush to mock their political rival they made a few really big blunders. And given some fo the things I've heard over the last dozen years, I view it in a broader context given the fact I have adopted two kids from another country and hear people say things from time to time that really miss the mark.
The lines of thought I hear go on three points - all of which are off base IMO.
1 - General attacks on adoption. That isn't happening here. And it rarely does. Bitter people will be bitter on a range of topics.
2 - People who make statements about mixed race families. Almost never is it someone making a blatantly racist attack on the parent or the kids - who would want to adopt a kid like that or how can you stand having white parents type of comments. I can't recall anyone every directly saying that to me or my kids. Rather these statements tend to be cultural types statements pontificating that black kids would be better off in black families, white kids in white families, latino kids in latino families. Whatever. That misses the mark on so many levels. First, it really should not matter one bit. My kids are Colombian. And we're a family who cares about each other and loves each other. Second, given the number of children who are institutionalized and the proven negative impacts that has on their lives it is far better to work really hard to get as many kids as possible into stable homes with loving parents than to get hung up all these notions about whether situation a is better than situation b - especially given the fact you can't prove on the front end what would be better in any particular situation. A white kid could end up crappy white parents. IMO the Hague Convention has done kids around the world few favors by setting in motion big time brakes on transnational adoptions. So this is institutionalized thinking to a large degree. That type of thinking wasn't drummed out on the show. But it was a really dumb segment from the standpoint of calling out the fact the child is black and Romney is white. If you really believe in 'diversity' and all the things MSNBC pretends to stand up for, then you don't say anything. It's just a photo of a family. God made man in his image. Isn't that what we're taught? Well, man comes in lots of diferent colors so God must encompass all of them.
3 - People who make statements about how noble adoption is. I find this quite problematic on a number of levels. First, it objectifies the child. And that is a horrible thing to do. The child isn't something to be pitied or to told it is lucky. Normalize the situation to the greatest degree possible. Second, it assigns bizarre motives to the parents. I'm sure there are adoptive parents who are narcisitic twats who adopted in part because they wanted a social gold star. Most I know had no other avenue to create a family and just wanted to be parents. What they did they didn't do because it was noble. They did it because they wanted to care for a child. Here's a thought from the woman who founded the orphanage in Bogota from which our kids were adopted. She passed away several years ago. She created her own family out of adoption - adopting one child from Canada and another from Colombia. And then she founded the orphanage from which our kids were adopted - as were about 15,000 other kids over the last several decades. Every parent chooses to adopt their children and every child deserves a loving home. So whether you gave birth to your kids or adopted them, you have to choose to care for them and to love them. That was her way of saying don't shine a light on adoption as something distinctly being noble. Shine a light on it as a statement of wanting to love someone.
