Racism and Biological Family
Well, we have a timeline. I'll probably make a post about that later. Things are moving quickly. My only worry right now is that my worker has been very slow in getting back to me. I'm in contact with Sunny's caseworker and with his foster mother. His foster mother seems like a really nice, competent and down-to-earth woman.
Sunny's caseworker says that his biological mother would like to talk to me. I've already agreed to exchange letters through the agency. Apparently, it's not a good idea to have identifying information. She's not dangerous, but I think she's still an addict. The caseworker could put both of us on a conference call, so we wouldn't need to give out a phone number.
I said that I'd rather wait. We can always do it at a later time. I really want to exchange some letters first. That way I'll know more about her and she'll know more about me. Also, I'm more articulate in written form than I am verbally. I'm especially not good at talking to adults in emotional pain; my words dry up. She's written me a letter already and left it at the agency, and we'll get it when we travel there on the first visit.
The message that comes to mind is that 1) we will be dedicated to taking care of Sunny 2) we will be honest, but not put her down, and tell Sunny that she faced problems that preventing her from taking care of Sunny as she wanted to 3) we are pulling for her to achieve a good life for herself 4) we can keep up written correspondence, and at some point when Sunny is stable in his new home and feels ready, telephone correspondence.
I feel a lot of sympathy for her. It's a terrible thing to lose your child. Terminal of Parental Rights has already been done, and she knows there is no possibility, ever, of getting him back. The caseworker says "she is very remorseful". She dropped out of contact for quite a while, but got back in touch with the agency when she found out Sunny was being adopted. We'll need to be prepared for the fact that contact will likely be erratic.
Learning more bits and pieces of the story, I was surprised by how much sympathy I felt for her... and how much negativity I felt towards her mother. All I know about the maternal grandmother is that their family is "very dysfunctional" and that the caseworker thinks she didn't support Sunny and his mother well, or try very hard to keep him from entering the foster care system, because Sunny's father is black. That really strikes a nerve for me.
When I was in my twenties, and after my grandparents had both passed, my mother felt able to be more frank with me about the tensions around my birth. Her parents told her she was ruining her life by having a baby with a Japanese man. And ruining my life, too. Before being born, my life was already pre-ruined!
After I was born, there was no talk of ruination and they instantly became the loving grandparents I remember. I was extremely close to my grandfather. My grandmother was not warm and fuzzy -- sharp and angular is more like it -- but I also remember her as loving me very much.
When my mother told me all this, it wasn't much of a surprise or a shock. If she'd told me when I was 12, it would have hurt me immeasurably. But by my twenties I was mature enough to understand it in context. Given the time and the place, my grandparents' reaction was predictable. It didn't make me think any less of them.
There are varying degrees of infection by racism, and I feel quite unforgiving towards those who have it so bad they can't even reach out and help a little baby.
>>You hate traditional America and everything it was built upon, (including the evil white men who made it) and you want to build a new foreign political system more in line with your more modern, socialistic and globalist viewpoints.
including the evil white men who made the blacks and Chinese make it
I'm proudly, NOT part of the sheep pen!
Wes, haven't you got it yet? *We can't go back*. There's no way to return us to the conditions of the 19th century, however much you wish it. The attempt is destroying us: that is Iraq, that is Homeland "Security". That's the whole story here; the big one which underlies fascism everywhere. *We can't go back*. All we can do is try to coerce the present into your image of the past, with ever increasing violence, until finally there is only horror and failure. Why not go forward instead? I can't promise you your dreams, but at least there's something there.
I don't get? Sorry...........I didn't know there was anything left to get besides the Constitution. You know, limited government, the bill of rights, keep the government out of my business and pocketbook. That "stuff". I know from reading your posts that it's not important to you people. Do what you like. I wonder though, did you ever take any basic history class in school covering the basics of American Government, not written by an ebonics instructor?
Foster Care System Perspectives
Two issues here:
Is critiquing dominant culture, as a white person, really the same as a white person’s self-critique of white culture? In my opinion they overlap but are really not the same at all. Critiques of dominant culture can include non-white cultural hegemony and imperialism.
In my mind, self-critique is a broad spectrum that includes positive analysis of strength at one end, neutral analysis in the middle and self-hating at the far other end. From what I’ve read of Chomsky he’s not self-hating at all.
I think true self-hating white people (who hate their whiteness) are rare, but they are extremely unbalanced and possibly dangerous to themselves and others. They’re like Wapanese to the nth degree… people who hate whiteness so much they want to erase themselves and be some other race, and of course they can’t. The healthier way is to be critical of whiteness but not denigrate yourself over it, and have a positive identity overall.
I think there are a fair amount of white people who take this healthy approach and talk about it and communicate it. But like my example of Tim Wise, I wish they would get a lot more mainstream mass media attention than they currently do.