Interesting Local Blog

I've written a bit about crime in Dekalb County before.

Last year I witnessed a terrible incident of domestic violence and could not get anyone to answer my 911 call. A few years before that, in my old apartment, I was threatened with sexual assault, and the initial police response was frankly pathetic.

The leadership in Atlanta and Dekalb County has been pretty bad in this area. I believe a lot of individual police are trying to do good jobs, but they're not getting enough help. The husband of one of my mother's friends was a policeman for a while, but quit because his working environment was so horrible. He said he was actually losing his sanity.

I just found a fascinating window into the problem: an anonymous blog called "Dekalb Officers Speak".

Here's an example. T-Bo is what they call Terrell Bolton, the scandal-ridden Chief of Police.

MESSAGE FOR BRASS

T-BO OR T-BO MAJORS, DEPUTY CHIEFS, ETC...WE JUST WANT ALL OF YOU TO KNOW THAT NOBODY LIKES YOU. WE PUT ON SOME GREAT SMILES AND CONVERSATIONS BUT WE DON'T LIKE YOU. OK THATS ALL I HAVE.

Damn!

Thoughts and Links on Harold & Kumar

I saw Harold & Kumar this weekend. I really enjoyed it. We laughed like crazy through most of the movie. It had some groaners as well, but the pace was quick enough so that they didn't bog down the movie.

To many Asian-Americans, H&K is not just a really filthy stoner movie. I'm not going to devote a long post to it, but here are some interesting analyses and commentary:

Racialicious: GQ Writer Compares Harold and Kumar to "The Happy Go Lucky Negro" Caricature

Poplicks: HAROLD AND KUMAR: UP IN SMOKE AGAIN

The movies are, yes, extremely sexist, and draw heavily on homophobic humor as well. I'm not going to deny that. I wish they weren't. But it's something I have to deal with in order to see actual, funny, non-racist racial humor.

As a parallel, I really thought about going to see "300". I like violent comic book movies, and I'm the kind of film geek that really appreciates good editing and cinematography. But I ultimately passed, because the movie was so racist. I think I would have been too disturbed. It doesn't matter that the director of the movie is Mexican-American and in many respects seems like a pretty cool, enlightened guy. By all accounts, the movie was racist as hell, and I didn't want to see the inhuman Eastern masses slaughtered by the heroic white dudes.

I don't blame anyone who didn't make my same decision, and went to see "300" and enjoyed it.

After all, I absolutely love "Lord of the Rings," which is also really racist. Again, I don't want to get into a long discussion of it, but Tolkien's world-building is based on the premise that West=civilized=noble=light versus South/East=barbaric=evil=dark. It's global colorism on a transcendental level. Not to mention the class issues. By the way, if you want to read an awesome Tolkien takedown, check out this essay by Michael Moorcock. I love that essay. I also still love Tolkien.

It's a lot easier to draw the line when a statement or movie or figure or essay or comedy (and so on) has no redeeming value and is just purely hateful or stupid.

Another Delay, More Complaints, A Milestone

It looks like Sunny will not be moving here until early June. The paperwork has been delayed so much they want to keep him at his school until the end of the school year.

I'm really sad, but there's nothing we can do. I'm hoping his worker will bring him down for another visit next month.

Five months since match date. It could be worse. I've heard ten months for ICPC. I've even heard TWO YEARS. No one wants it to take this long. There's no good reason for it.

I think his worker is avoiding calling me with updates because I snapped (mildly) the last time we talked. She'd started making soothing noises: "I know the wait is hard, you've just got to be patient." I said, "I'm not sorry for MYSELF. I'm used to waiting. I'm thinking about how Sunny feels." I guess that wasn't 100% true, because I do feel just a little bit sorry for myself. But we're adults; Sunny is a 6-year-old boy and time passes so much more slowly for him.

In other complaint news, we had a training recently and I caught up with several other parents I've met before. One of them told me that she used to have my same caseworker. That same backstabbing, lying incompetent caseworker who scampered off last year without telling anyone. I really didn't know what was wrong until everything fell apart, but this mother had adopted from the system before, so she knew something was rotten. She demanded to the head of the agency that the caseworker be taken off her case. She even threatened to contact the governor! She got a new caseworker and was matched very shortly afterwards. I saw her new kids at the training. It's ridiculous that someone open to adopting teenagers, like she was, had to wait as long as she did.

Another couple told me how they'd been screwed over by the same caseworker. She'd actually told them she'd written their homestudy and was sending it out. She just never wrote it, much less sent it. Absolutely mind-boggling!

On the bright side, we had a neat little milestone with Sunny tonight. Whenever I talk to him on the phone, I always ask him if he's learned any new songs in school. He'll say yes, but can't ever remember the words, so he just tells me what the song is about, like "I learned a song about flying a kite". But tonight, he remembered, and sang the song for us! It was about springtime when birds go chirp chirp chirp.

Uncomfortable Zones

There was a very personal and nakedly honest post up at Racialicious a few days ago. It's really been on my mind recently.

The author was raised by Jamaican-American parents who were very bigoted against African-Americans. She was not allowed to associate with African-Americans or explore any aspects of African-American culture.

As she grew up, her experience was that most other African-Americans, with a few notable exceptions, rejected her. She didn't talk correctly. She was often accused of "acting white". She had so many negative experiences she decided to move to West Africa, where she's been for the last two years, and she wants to raise her children there.

The comments really exploded.

Many people were picking apart her post to say that she needed to shoulder some of the blame because she'd internalized too much of her parents' bigotry against African-Americans, even though she'd said she tried not to. Many American black people of African immigrant or Caribbean descent echoed her feelings and the pain of rejection she'd suffered. Others said that they'd made a much more successful transition into a positive blended African-American identity.

It's a depressing conflict. I think it takes place among all groups of color, but it might be the most painful among black people because of the high standard for racial solidarity (as separate from ethnic solidarity, that is).

Of course, my initial urge was to support the original poster. As Racialicious editor Latoya noted, the poster was like a third-culture kid, even though she didn't have a dual nationality upbringing. I really empathized with a) her alienation from her immediate environment b) the fact that she felt more comfortable being a foreigner in a foreign country than a foreigner in her own country.

Much further down in the comment list, a black transracial adoptee weighed in. Her point was very direct. Don't minimize the experience of being rejected and alienated. Some other commenters were walking down that path. "I was called an oreo, but I got over it." Her comment was more like, "Yes, I got over it, but it hurt like hell."

When I was young, the vast majority of the racist abuse I received was from white people. I wonder if it was simpler to process psychologically. Not easier, just less complicated. I had to place the abuse in context. I couldn't afford to personalize it and avoid all white people. If I did, I'd live an insanely dysfunctional existence.

I did feel more betrayed by the same abuse coming from black kids, but I didn't personalize it either.

I absolutely see the danger in soaking in your suffering so much that you use it as an excuse for your own resentment and pointless negativity. But I also think that across American culture and beyond, there's too much of an effort to normalize it, and normalizing it just perpetuates it.

I'm reminded of a fracas I got into a while back. I was talking about some anti-Asian issues and another woman argued that since she'd been teased for stuttering, none of it was really a big deal. Arghh....

But this is the part where I need to be very honest myself. I'm terrified Sunny might go through some of the same things. In fact, he almost certainly will. We don't have control over much of it.

He doesn't sound African-American. There's no trace of any of the different kinds of black American accents. I don't know if he'll pick one up. I spoke with an accent when I moved to America at the age of 6, and I never lost that accent... even though I tried really hard. On the other hand, I know other children and adults who have changed accents in a seemingly effortless way. I want him to be happy whether he picks up an accent or whether he stays with the one he has.

One of the worst social environments for Sunny would be a polarized one where he felt he had to choose one of two sides. Someone I know from a forum (not a TRA) once explained that her worst time ever was in a highly segregated school in which all the black kids were from the same class and same community. Since her (black) family moved in from outside that community, they rejected her. If she wouldn't "act black" according to a pretty narrow definition, it meant she was "acting white".

At least we're in a great location to optimize his environment. I want to put him in a school where there's a diversity of black and African-American identity. So he'll get teased for talking funny and having an Asian mom and a white dad. But then maybe another kid in the same class is from Sierra Leone and talks funny too, and another kid's parents moved from New Jersey, and another kid is a country boy from Mississippi... in an environment like that, the stakes are so much lower. The teasing doesn't have to lead into alienation and corrosion of identity.

It's so disturbing to me that many white transracial adoptive parents don't seem to understand the importance of social environment. They think they can instill a healthy identity in their kids, even in almost entirely white environments. I find that incredibly naive. Parents of color have constant struggles in this area, much less white parents! Realistically speaking, parents don't have that degree of control over their kids' development. I think international adoptive communities often give parents a false sense of empowerment. Read these books by other adoptive parents, put Guatemalan textiles on the wall, eat at the Ethiopian restaurant, tell your Chinese daughter what a rich history China has. I mean, these are all good things, but children don't establish their identity based on things and facts.

Some people get this, but a lot of people still don't.

I left a comment to this effect on the Land of the Not So Calm blog and felt complimented to see it promoted to a post.

It was a huge shock to me, when I first started reading about international adoption a few years ago, that there was this huge wave of Korean adoption in Minnesota. MINNESOTA??? MINNESOTA!!! That was my reaction. Before, I hadn't really thought much about the subject of adoption and social environment, even though I very briefly dated a "KAD". So I don't think what I'm talking about is immediately self-evident. But if you really start thinking about it, it just gets clearer and clearer.

But then, the poster at Racialicious probably had the right environment, but the wrong parents. Wrong because they sabotaged her through their efforts to protect her.

Of course, individual personality plays a huge role as well. Some kids are natural chameleons, at home anywhere they go.

When I was a baby, my father used to hold me out over the edge of balconies in order to cure me of a future fear of heights. There was also a strange reason for this I only found out about much later. Lesson? Not all of our protection strategies work. On the bright side, it didn't mess me up for life, either.

I Keep Telling Myself...

At least it's not Georgia. Deep breath. At least it's not Georgia.

Reiteration of What I'm Here For

I need to remind myself to back off and not get involved in internet negativity.

I had to put someone in an adoption venue on "ignore" because I am tired of all the racist (specifically, borderline mainstream socially acceptable racist) anti-Obama garbage they are spewing. I am not even going to repeat what it is because I'm so sick of it and sick of refuting it.

I hate that kind of bashing. I would never do it to Clinton. I disagree with many of her policies and I don't like her campaign strategy, but I don't feel the need to bash her so viciously.

A reiteration for myself:

My goal in internet communication is to spend the majority of my time 1) being educated by other people's life experiences and ideas 2) educating other people through my life experiences and ideas.

I am not here for backpats. Although support and advice are great, especially supportive advice, and I appreciate it and try to give it back as much as possible, unconditional and uncritical support is something I don't believe in. In some areas of the adoption blogosphere, I've seen it reach incredibly unhealthy levels. The "you can't judge me" syndrome.

I am not here to fix especially regressive and wrong thinking. Ideally, I should not be spending more than 5-10% of my total time on the internet issuing correction slips and getting involved in negative exchanges.

Here are some of the things that tend to trap me in negativity:

1) Race. I spend a lot of my time on racially oriented blogs. Racialicious is my favorite, because it's so well-moderated. It often feels like an oasis of sanity. Nevertheless, discussions of multiracial identity are a hot button there and can really get me upset. I don't believe interracial relationships are better than any other kind of relationship. But it's very personal to me. It's about my parents. It's about my very self.

2) Adoption. I've gone into great detail about the things that are wrong with the adoptoworld. I'm resigned to most of it. I love the metaphor I heard American Family once use, "howling into the abyss". The foster adoption corner is much nicer than the rest of it, but I'm biased that way, of course.

3) Feminism. I consider myself a feminist and I like reading feminist blogs. But there are these constant battles going on that just confuse me to death. I feel like I'm always supposed to take a side along fault lines I don't want to take a side on.

4) Buddhism. I was spending some time on a Buddhist forum, but I felt like I needed to withdraw because it was so white-dominated. I have no problem with the fact that some white people speak Japanese and know Japanese culture better than I do. No problem at all. I was happy to shut up and just listen to them. But when OTHER white people who THINK they know Japanese culture but really DON'T then presume to lecture me on it, it's the most obnoxious thing in the world.

5) Personal Finance and Investing. Sometimes I get tired of the female-dominated communities and their tendency towards cliquishness. Then I remember that male-dominated communities are even worse. I learn a lot of things in this arena that don't make it to my blog, but I hate having to see all the sexism and homophobia. I'm sure there are a lot of women involved in these communities, but most of them keep their femininity anonymous so that they can be communicated to like a human being.

6) In a category by itself... Asian-American issues. I had to drastically scale back my involvement last year, but I'm cautiously getting back in. I want to concentrate on useful, positive posts through APAforProgress.com.

7) In another category by itself... Autism. I've been irregularly reading blogs of autistic people. By the way, I don't believe in vaccine causation. I find the blogs very interesting. And since I have no personal connection to autism, the conflict there doesn't suck me into negativity.

Ah, it felt good getting that off my chest. Now I just need to get back to saying more nembutsu. I've really fallen off lately. Once we move, I'll have a great place to set up, but for now, it's hard to establish the right place and time.

Update and some Housing Thoughts

Still no news on when placement is going to be. We are hoping by the end of the month.

Right now we're in the middle of a really important decision: moving. We want to move to a larger house within a couple miles of our current house.

One of our top locations is just a bit to the south and east. The problem is that the school district is terrible. Well, they're terrible all over Georgia, but this one is especially bad. Many other homeowning parents manage by relying on charter/magnet schools and private schools.

There's a lot of really complicated issues about crime, education, class and race involved here. I try to make decisions based on pragmatism, and it's amazing how much irrational weirdness and fear is involved in neighborhood choice.

Listen to this quote from a forum on local neighborhoods:

If you are going to visit ___ I would suggest you do it in the day only and even then you could be robbed or jacked at any red light. Be sure to get gas before you go there.

I called my husband over and we read that and both laughed like crazy. It's referring to a neighborhood he goes to almost every day for work. My mother lives nearby.

I used to live next to a really bad neighborhood in Miami. I've also stayed in a squat house in the lower East Side in the early 1990s. I know what bad neighborhoods are like. There is no way I would walk more than 100 feet from my house in Miami alone after dark. To me, a bad neighborhood means gunshots, dealers on corners, broken crack vials, burglar bars on every window, cages on A/C units so crackheads don't steal them for the copper, mean pit bulls behind chainlink fences, robberies and murders.

It doesn't mean subdivisions with well-maintained brick ranch homes on quiet streets where the only sounds are birds singing and children playing.

The neighborhood that quote is talking about is a middle-class, predominantly African-American suburb. There are also a fair number of older retired white people there who resisted the initial white flight, a few younger ones who were attracted by the lower property prices, plus some newer immigrant arrivals.

Third Visit

We're back from our third visit.

I felt very sad today. I'm tired from traveling and I'm tired of not knowing when Sunny is going to be moved.

The visit was great. We went to several parks and amusements. We burned off a lot of his energy by running around and flying kites and playing soccer. If he doesn't get a lot of physical activity during the day, his foster mom says he doesn't sleep well. But whenever we're around, he always sleeps well!

A cute thing happened at one of the parks we visited. Sunny met another little boy his age and accidentally kicked him in the head! That's not as bad as it sounds... Sunny loves to imitate the gymnastics that his older sisters practice, and his best move is one where he grabs hold of something about waist level, then kicks up and spins both feet in the air above his head. He showed off the move to his new friend at the playground, and there was a little bit of sneaker-to-head contact.

"OW!"

Sunny made a shocked face and his mouth turned into a perfect "O".

"I didn't mean that! Sorry! Let me rub your head and make it better!"

Then he rubbed the other boy's head and made sure everything was OK. A few seconds later, head kick forgotten, they teamed up and proceeded to attack a large rock with pretend light sabers. I think the rock won.

When we left at the end of our visit, Sunny was sitting in the yard, playing with a twig. His foster mom told him to watch in the sky for an airplane, because we'd be on it, waving goodbye to him.

If we don't get placement within a month, I guess both or one of us will go up again for another visit. We can't really afford it, but it's just such a long time.

Being with Sunny doesn't make me extraordinarily happy or anything like that. It just feels natural and normal. Now that we're not together again, I don't feel quite like myself.

Revealing Resemblance

I've been debating with myself for almost a month whether to blog about this or not. It means giving out a piece of personal information that's going to make it much easier for people to identify me in real life. On the other hand, I don't see how I'm going to avoid mentioning it at some point as I keep blogging.

Sunny and I have a fairly strong resemblance. Maybe it'll fade as he gets older. But right now, he looks like the baby I had with Tiger Woods. I didn't notice it as first, but then as people of several different races kept pointing it out, I accepted it.

My feelings were very complex. We look alike, but he doesn't look like my husband. What does this resemblance signify? It's like a triangle that should be equilateral but isn't. My husband doesn't love him any less... Should I be happy about it? Or simply neutral? If I'm happy should I be guilty for feeling happy?

A lot of people are going to assume that he's my biological child by a previous marriage. This will eventually mean that we'll get 50% less awkward questions about adoption and race. So that's a strong positive.

I hate awkward questions about race, but I've been getting them my whole life, so I've built up quite an immunity. But it's a good thing he'll be spared some of them. So in the larger scheme of things, I should look at this as a positive.

I'm definitely planning on getting some genetic analysis done for him. I'm hoping to do it for myself as well. Just like Sunny, my paternal family tree is shrouded by adoption. I've contacted a few companies already, but they seem to concentrate on Europe and Africa, and none of them had Ainu-specific detail. I imagine it will become available in the near future, however.

I'm excited that these tools are available nowadays. Sunny can use the information as part of a toolkit to build up a story for himself, a story that connects with the larger story of America. Where did he get his Asian eye shape? Perhaps from the Chinese laborers that built the railroads in the 19th century and then merged into the black population. Watching the first African-American Lives show, I think several participants had a family history of Native American descent that actually turned out to be East Asian after testing.

I just got into a slightly testy conversation over here about genetic testing and racial background (by the way I think it's wonderful that Yondalla has such a strong grasp on these issues). The more I get involved in these types of discussions, the harder it is to separate multiracial and transracial identity issues.

It's, well, interesting being the multiracial daughter of an intraracial adoptee, from an interracial relationship, in an interracial marriage and about to transracially adopt a multiracial son from an interracial relationship. The great thing is that past a certain point, I don't see how it can get any more complicated!

When we started on our adoption path, I gave up on the mental image of having a child that would look like me. But I couldn't get rid of the expectations that others had on me in that regard... and this is hard to explain, although I've touched on it several times. I'll try again.

When we made our match with Sunny, there was one other child in the picture, although the picture was hazier and the match was much less certain. All we knew was that the caseworker was interested in our family. We had a picture and paragraph description of a little girl. A beautiful little girl who was listed as "Hispanic" and had light skin and facial features that were more Asian or Asian/Indigenous than Caucasian.

Isn't it suspicious that the only two matches we had in a year, after making hundreds of inquiries, were of children who had some physical resemblance to me? And isn't it odd that it's a resemblance totally based on race, although the children were of different races? And that it seemed like we never had a chance for any of the Asian children I tried for?

I'm not being paranoid; I'm just being realistic.