Some Thoughts on the Recent Evan. B. Donaldson Transracial Adoption Report

You're about to read some lazy blogging here. But I'm still mustering up my energy for that other "barriers" post. I've been slammed recently... we're moving into our new house in a few weeks, Sunny's placement date is coming very soon and I'm in the middle of an exciting political volunteering initiative.

- Here's a link to the report: FINDING FAMILIES FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN CHILDREN: THE ROLE OF RACE & LAW IN ADOPTION FROM FOSTER CARE

- Here's the Washington Post article summing up the recommendations:

A key recommendation in the new report calls for amending the law so race could be considered as a factor in selecting parents for children from foster care. The change also would allow race-oriented pre-adoption training,

"We tried to assess what was working and what wasn't, and came to the conclusion that preparing parents who adopt transracially benefits everyone, especially the children," said Adam Pertman, the Donaldson Institute's executive director.

"The view that we can be colorblind is a wonderful, idealistic perspective, but we don't live there," Pertman said. "If we want to do the best for the kids, we have to look at their realities."

Pertman's stance is sound. Counterbalancing him is the idiotic gibbering of this woman:

Professor Elizabeth Bartholet, who directs the Child Advocacy Program at Harvard Law School, believes the concept of striving for color blindness is sound. She foresees problems if race once again becomes a key determinant.

"Giving social workers the chance to do that produced very rigid race matching," she said, referring to pre-1994 policies. "That's one of the reasons to say race can't be used at all... there's no other way to be sure it doesn't become the overwhelming factor."

Current policy allows standardized pre-adoption training, but wisely prohibits specific screening for parents seeking to adopt transracially, Bartholet said.

"What cannot be done is have a pass/fail test that turns on whether you give the politically correct answers," she said. "If social workers are allowed to use training to determine who can adopt, there's lots of experience showing they abuse that power."

She also questioned whether attempts to boost minority recruitment would succeed.

"Black people are significantly poorer than white people and less likely to be in a position to come forward," Bartholet said. "Recruitment efforts bump up against that fact."

ARRGH! I'll tell you why this makes me so mad. First of all, she references the racist myth that black people don't adopt as much as white people (see here for the truth). Second, she uses the buzzword "politically correct", which I despise because it's completely meaningless in any real ethical or political sense. Third, she creates a bogeyman of social workers "abusing their power". This should be hilarious to any foster or adoptive parent with experience in the system. Social workers already abuse their power CONSTANTLY. The only way to fix the problem is to create institutional change so that bad social workers don't keep on clogging up the system while the good ones mostly burn out after a few years.

- I don't believe in any strict form of race-matching. I believe it's foolish and cruel to children, and also fails to account for the existence of interracial couples and multiracial people (like me). However, race and ethnicity need to be factored into placement decisions. In fact, they are already factored into placement decisions. This "color-blind" system that Bartholet refers to is a complete fantasy. It's just common sense to be able to have more consistent training and placement standards when it comes to transracial placements.

For example, let's say a black child is placed with a white family as an emergency short-term placement. They end up staying there for years. The child seems to be doing well. The opportunity comes up to move the child to a black family. Should the child be moved? If race is the only factor, then no, definitely not. Give the white family some extra transracial training, and as long as they're willing to take it, sign off on the placement and move on.

Let's say there's a Latino child and a choice of two placements. One is out in the country with a white family. The other is in the city, in a diverse neighborhood, with a Latino couple, but of a different national ethnicity. However, the child is used to living in the country, loves the outdoors and their greatest wish is to live on a farm. Who knows? That's a tough one... but just because race or ethnicity should be a factor doesn't mean it has to be the determining factor.

- Here are a couple reactions to the report from other foster/adoptive parents:

• Hey Mom, You're White
• Mixed Feelings about MEPA changes

- Here's a comment I left at the Harlow's Monkey blog:

My problem with the situation is that from my experience with foster care adoption, MEPA/IEPA does almost nothing to address the prejudices of social workers. If the social worker really wants to do race-matching, they're going to do race-matching anyway.

I think if there were CONSISTENT standards for training, the situation would be a lot better. Right now, it's just all over the map. I've heard horror stories about social workers who have jumped in, in the middle of a case, and moved a child solely because of race. Or else the opposite... that a child is placed because of favoritism, when there was a much more culturally appropriate home waiting.

I have noticed (often bitterly) how the current situation works against me. I'm not complaining as an adoptive parent as much I'm complaining as an Asian. Who thinks about the needs of Asian kids to be placed in Asian homes? Neither white nor black social workers have much of an understanding of that.

If new standards are going to be truly child-centered, they need to be consistent but also flexible when it comes to the needs of the children. Teenagers looking for a home should be allowed to make their own decisions, of course. Kids are coming from all kinds of backgrounds and some are going to be very secure in their cultural identity, others are terribly fragile.

And in my opinion, demographic standards are even more important than training. Something like "at least one area within a 5-mile radius has a concentration of greater than 10% of child's race/ethnicity". I think a diverse area or school compensates for family background much more than vice versa. It hardly matters what positive message the child is getting at home if they're assaulted and abused every day at school.

I have little interest in placing blame on white adoptive parents. It's just pointless. The problem is a lot more widespread and complicated. If you want prospective parents to behave better, you have to make them better, via the use of carrots and sticks. Otherwise, it's like an Army recruiter complaining about the poor quality of their recruits. You've got to work with what you've got! I do, however, blame "experts" like Bartholet who should know better, but choose to use their platform in order to mystify the public.

Important Foster Care Adoption Links

I'm working up to a longer post about the relationship between international adoption, private adoption and foster care adoption.

In the meantime, here are two important links I came across.

Eos linked to Brenda McCreight's blog. I didn't know she had one, so I'm looking forward to reading through it. McCreight wrote Parenting Your Adopted Older Child, which is one of the books I first read when we started along our road. I recommend it to everyone. It'll scare the bejeezus out of you. It's an incredibly depressing book because it's organized as a series of fictional problems, or issues, and none of them really have clear-cut solutions. One of the most terrifying was a scenario in which a couple adopted a child with no special needs except for ADHD, and they kept saying "but it's only ADHD!" as they slowly lost their sanity and their marriage fell apart.

Reform Foster Care Now, the NACAC blog, links to a major new report from adoptuskids.org: Barriers & Success Factors in Adoption From Foster Care: Perspectives of Families & Staff. I will also be reading through that report and summarizing it here as soon as I can. A while back, I commented on a prior report on the same topic from the Evan B. Donaldson Institute.

The NACAC blog also published this not very encouraging set of numbers.

More Children and Youth Waiting for a Family

The release of the latest AFCARS data shows that even more foster children and youth—129,000 in FY 2006 up from 114,000 in 2005—are waiting for a permanent, loving family. Sadly, the data also shows that more than 26,000 youth aged out of care in FY 2006 without finding a family—higher numbers than we've seen before. Adoptions from foster care remained steady at 51,000, and the overall number of children in care dropped slightly.

Clearly, there is a need for increased federal and state attention to finding and supporting families for foster children who cannot return home. It's time for legislative action that provides federal support of subsidized guardianship, increases access to adoption assistance, and enhances post-adoption support. Changes such as these would all help ensure that every child finds the permanent, loving family he needs and deserves, and that eventually no child leaves care without a legal connection to a family.

Non-Local Nuttiness

My husband sent me a link to this video. At first, I was terrified that this preacher was from Atlanta because he claims to be from "ATLAH". Luckily, he's not. "Atlah" is his special code word for Harlem. So you can't blame this guy on us!

The video is actually jaw-droppingly funny. Just when you think it can't get any more surreal, it does. You would think this preacher would be isolated from any reasonable public discourse, but apparently, he's made numerous appearances on FOX News shows. Oh wait, that doesn't count as reasonable public discourse.

I'm going to lay off the political posts for a while after this, but I couldn't resist posting the link... it's just too bizarre.

Another Depressing Local Story

And this one's getting national attention. What a horrible embarrassment.

Mulligan's selling shirts with 'Curious George' picture
By CHRISTIAN BOONE - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - 05/13/08
Marietta tavern owner Mike Norman says the T-shirts he's peddling, featuring cartoon chimp Curious George peeling a banana, with "Obama in '08" scrolled underneath, are "cute." But to a coalition of critics, the shirts are an insulting exploitation of racial stereotypes from generations past.

Mulligan's in Marietta: Originally uploaded by andisheh

Analysis of a Local Public Disturbance

What makes a viral video?

Here are some qualities I've noticed.

1) They show a human or animal engaged in some unique or extreme activity
2) They exhibit noteworthy artistic skill or cleverness
3) They greatly reinforce prior beliefs
4) They greatly challenge prior beliefs
5) Newsworthy: they show something that connects with our sense of the local and the current, the here and now. We can relate the narrative of our lives to what happens in the video.

These videos also generate mountains of racially-based commentaries wherever they're posted. Actually, it's often more a spittle-flecked monologue than it is a dialogue.

I'll talk about two other viral videos before I show the Soulja Girl one.

I remember a video from last year that showed a high school fight. Two young men take off their shirts and square off. It's a white kid and a smaller, shorter Asian kid. The crowd is yelling their support of the white kid; they're on his side. It begins. Whoever uploaded it has added a soundtrack: Rick Ross' "Everday I'm Hustlin" booms over the fight. The Asian kid moves like greased lightning and after a few punches, the white kid is down. He gets up and walks off. The Asian kid drops him again; this time he can barely stagger away, blood and bits of teeth spraying from his mouth. The video ends.

This video was popular among Asian-Americans, for obvious reasons. A narrative built up around it. The white kid was the bully. The Asian kid was the hero. The narrative had dubious authenticity, but it felt right, it fit with the video and it fit with many of our experiences. I've certainly had the experience, multiple times at school, of being surrounded by a circle of hostile white kids screaming at me. I watched the video several times. It created a strong surge of mixed emotion. I couldn't think straight while watching it. I loved it and hated it at the same time for making me romanticize the violence.

Another example is a popular video I saw last year that's much less violent but seemed to arouse equally strong emotions. A young, pretty, blond white girl sits in front of the camera and talks about her infatuation with Arab men. Nothing is pornographic or poetic; her tone is quite flat and even bland. Arab men are handsome. They're sexy. They're romantic. They know how to treat women well. They're fun to hang out with. She only goes out with Arab men now. Her current boyfriend is Arab. She's learning Arabic. She's converting to Islam. That's it, really.

You can imagine how the typical anti-Arab commenter reacts to this. Her positive stereotyping sends them into a frenzy. What she believes is the exact opposite of what any white, presumably Christian woman is supposed to believe about Arab men. It's a huge challenge to their own beliefs, and they have to deal with it by turning her into a non-representative freak, someone who's not deserving of the title of woman, even.

If it was a more common fetish – for example, a white man giving similarly bland reasons for liking Asian women --- there is no way the video would have gotten the same attention and reaction.

I first saw the Soulja Girl video at the Creative Loafing blog. It's a local Atlanta blog. There are other local sources for the video. It's viral because it's current, it involves something that almost all Atlantans are familiar with (the MARTA train), it shows an extreme of human behavior and it reinforces some prior beliefs for a lot of people. I have to warn viewers, the video is quite depressing and is going to arouse a lot of negative emotions. I'm going to talk much more about those reactions than about the video itself.



Here are some comments from the initial Creative Loafing post. There's a good dialogue in that the stupid comments do not go unchallenged.

Reason #3,129 guns should be kept off MARTA

# Jill Chambers Says:
May 7th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
It's just one more reason why MARTA needs to have their police actually riding on the trains. How sad that someone would so rudely disrespect the elderly woman and that all those other riders did not even try to come to her defense.

# Cricket Says:
May 8th, 2008 at 6:46 am
This is a perfect reason that people with concealed carry permits SHOULD be allowed on MARTA. If I had seen this, and it had escalated to actual physical violence, I would have no problem giving that ghetto wh*re two in the hat.

# Ken Edelstein Says:
May 8th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Cricket, you make the point of gun control advocates everywhere.

# DaleC Says:
May 8th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Cricket it DID escalate to physical violence when the guy finally stood up and stopped the aggressor. No weapons needed.
That poor old woman. I can't believe it took that long for SOMEBODY to stand up to her being assaulted.
Notice how rapidly Soulja Girl's attitude changed when she was confronted by someone who showed force in an appropriate manner.
Bullies fold when someone calls them on their crap. It's a shame it took someone that long to stand up to her.
As an aside, don't you just LOVE the beautiful world of Hard Core Hip Hop culture.

# Roxie Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Dude, Dale, did you just call "superman" Hard Core HipHop?
Please, appropriately hang your head in shame.
The woman in the video was not a life threatening individual. Although, she is severely testing sanity and patience, being horrendously disrespectful, aggressive, and antagonizing..It was NOT dealt with appropriately by the young man, as you can see, it only escalated the situation. There are better ways to deal with something like this that do not involve HITTING.
Of course, armchair quarterbacking is so easy. It took so long for ppl to respond b/c they couldn't believe what was happening and certainly didn't expect it to last as long as it did.

Hilarious.
# nast Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Seeing as how this incident was defused by a simple act of wig pulling, perhaps Gov. Perdue should sign a bill that protects individual rights to pull others' wigs in restaurants, parks, churches and other public places.
"A wig-pulling society is a polite society."

In the next update to the story, the spittle-flecked monologue begins.

MARTA statement regarding videotaped lunacy


# troy c Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Is she an Obama superdelegate?

# LMM66 Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Not one of those losers tried to help an elderly woman. Everyone there was dumb*** you-know-what. As people have mentioned here already, THIS is how stereotypes are formed. And whether folks like it or not, THIS is the norm for "them".

# Weary One Says:
May 10th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
M.A.R.T.A.
Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta

# Roxie Says:
May 11th, 2008 at 1:02 am
Wow. I didn't know so many racists liked CL.

MARTA actually stands for Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (although everyone knows the other five words). It's a contentious intersection of race and politics in Atlanta.

Compared to better-known train systems, such as New York City, the trains are very limited in the ground they cover. The crime rate is low and the trains and stations are extraordinarily clean. Everyday users of the MARTA trains are predominantly working-class/middle-class African-Americans. All other Atlantans take the trains periodically, usually to go the airport or to attend special events held downtown.

Central Atlanta is a diverse mix, with the largest bloc being native (Atlanta-born) African-American. White people who live inside Atlanta are comparatively progressive in their politics, especially because of the huge GLBT community. They're not a choir of enlightened angels, by any means, but one thing is sure: if they were scared of seeing and talking to black people every day, they wouldn't be living where they do.

The suburbs to the east are where many richer, non-Atlanta-born African-Americans have settled. And to the far north, the suburbs trace the arc of white flight. The iron claws of the northern suburbs have had a pretty bad effect on the development of public transportation in Atlanta. Their politics, plus the road-construction lobby's dirty money, ensures that Atlanta's traffic congestion and air quality get worse and worse every year. MARTA's system is funded only by the two counties of metropolitan Atlanta, although people from the surrounding counties frequently use it for park-and-ride. The counties of the northern suburbs refuse to link their own systems to it, for fear of getting too many undesirable people in their neighborhoods. A well known fact: "MARTA is unique in that it is the largest United States transit agency not to receive state operational funding."

The comments to the video illustrate an intense fear and loathing of public transportation. This fear and loathing feeds from racism, then back into racism, in a vicious feedback loop. "If only I could never leave my car," they pray. But parking is limited at their sporting events and their centers of bureaucracy. Every once in a while, they have to bravely step onto a MARTA train. And they're not even allowed to carry their guns on board! They resent that.

Anyone who is passionate about Atlanta and knowledgeable about Atlanta and lives inside it, no matter what their race, knows about this dynamic. We're all hostages to it.

Getting back to a more personal level, what do viewers feel about the woman?

I didn't think that drugs were involved. It definitely wasn't crack. People on crack aren't that fluid and expressive and coordinated in their movements. I think a lot of people on the train had the same visceral reaction I did… the fear and awe of the mad. If you don't look at them, maybe they won't notice you.

In fact, that's what happened. I read it first at local videojournalist A.Man.I's blog: Soulja Girl Turns Herself In. The fuller story was reported here and on local radio stations.

MARTA's 'Soulja Girl' Getting the Help She Needs

She's only 25 years old, but the dark bags under Nafiza Z.'s eyes tell the story of a young life blighted by psychosis, delusions, hallucinations and mania that are the hallmarks of her mental disorder.

Yesterday afternoon, Nafiza, was in the DeKalb County jail receiving the psychiatric treatment she desperately needed. But on April 7th, Nafiza was spiraling out of control on a MARTA train traveling through Atlanta's east side.

The scenes captured on another passenger's cell phone of Nafiza aka "Soulja Girl" terrorizing an elderly passenger - caused a sensation on the Internet and embarrassed MARTA officials who quickly issued a warrant for her arrest.

People with bipolar disorder aren't usually that violent or aggressive even in their manic phase. They are usually more of a danger to themselves than they are to others.

Nafiza's boyfriend Dee, with whom she has a baby son, said it more eloquently when he called into the Ryan Cameron Show on Friday, "If she wasn't bipolar she would be the good a person on earth," said Dee.


"That girl got a good heart. The city don't help her, man! They just kick her back out on the streets. The city don't help [black mentally ill] folks like that. Once you get in that [manic] stage you can't help yourself. It mess with your mind, man. Once your mind gone it's a wrap!"

I don't know exactly what it's like to be in the grip of clinical mania, adrenaline coursing through your body, other strange chemicals surging through your brain. But I know what it feels like to be a witness to something like that. Perhaps the awe and fear of the bystander is partly because of our empathy with mania... as if we're seeing the dial turned up to 10 on an experience we've felt at level 3 or 4.

It reminds me of a bizarre experience I had when I was in college in Miami. I was at a donut shop late at night, studying with some friends. An older white man walked in and set down at the booth next to us. He started talking very loudly to the air in a sharp, agonized tone. It was a monologue about being a Vietnam vet and how he was betrayed and how it was all the fault of the gooks. That sentiment, those words, over and over again.

My friends were shrinking into their seats. They were all foreign students and terrified of getting into trouble and getting deported, especially the one from Iraq. I had the opposite reaction. My skin was on fire, there was a buzzing noise in my ears, my body started shivering and trembling as if someone had plugged me into an electric current, and everytime he said the word "gook" the current spiked. After a couple minutes of this, I couldn't take it anymore. I got up and faced him and started yelling back.

There was chaos after that point. Another older white man came over, said he was also a Vietnam vet and then took my side of the loud, disjointed argument. The staff of the donut shop got involved. There were numerous threats of ass-kicking. The police came. They tried to talk him down but eventually arrested him after he got into his car, because he was obviously in no condition to drive.

My friends, who hadn't moved during the whole time, told me I was crazy. Yes, my actions were pretty irrational, but I didn't feel like I had a choice. I'd waded up to my knees in something that the mentally ill man was drowning in. I suppose I won, but my victory was pretty hollow.

This was the first narrative that I connected to the video I watched today. But after that man went out into the parking lot, I have no idea how his story began or ended.

After I read a bit more of Nafiza Z.'s story, I feel almost guilty for writing this analysis. I still empathize with the bystanders and the poor elderly lady, but I also empathize with her terrible struggle. I hope these words will go to show how the hatred expressed toward her has more to do with a complicated web of politics, race and resentment than it does with her actual actions. I hope she can transcend the person shown in that video and become the person she wants to be.

Mother's Day

I talked to Sunny today over the webcam. He gives me a kiss by kissing the computer screen. I can't see him doing it, of course, I just see the top of his head approaching the camera. It's still really sweet. Then we all make funny faces at each other, and he laughs.

I usually don't get so sentimental over holidays, but this is my first mother's day as a mother, even if I'm a currently a quasi-mother, or perhaps a virtual telepresent mother.

I wondered whether to send a card to Sunny's biological mom. I decided against it. I don't know if it's my place yet to do so, and I don't know whether she wants to remember this day or not. I did send something to Sunny's foster mom.

Quick Mother's Day Idea

This is a great organization I support. They have been working on many initiatives, including aid to Burma.

This Mother's Day give the mothers in your life a gift with meaning, a Doctors Without Borders e-card. Sending a Mother's Day e-card is fast and simple. You can choose the photo to feature in the card, like the one displayed here, and customize your personal message.

Your Mother's Day gift will help Doctors Without Borders deliver medical aid where it is needed most. Women and children are disproportionately affected by humanitarian crises like armed conflict, displacement, disease and malnutrition. Our teams reach out every day to help them and other vulnerable people in nearly 60 countries. Let them and the mothers in your life know that you care this Mother's Day.

Click here to send an e-card. Together we can save more lives. Thank you!

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international independent medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, and exclusion from health care in nearly 60 countries. New York Office: 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001

Hilarious Political Cartoon

Anyone who's bitter about media coverage of Obama will love this cartoon. I'm still chuckling about it. I love the "transitivity of blackness" definition, the church sign, and the depiction of "throwing his grandmother under the bus".

Pre-Weekend Update

I have an exciting opportunity this weekend. I can't talk about it now, but maybe later I will.

We have a date for Sunny's placement! It's not as soon as we'd like, but at least we have it. I just hope they'll stick with it.

I feel exhausted recently. I need to get back on my vitamins and exercise.

Also, I'm terrible at posting the right things at the right time. But I should mention that May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, as well as National Foster Care Month.

Dealing with Racism in a Foreign Country

(cross-posted at Rachel's Tavern)

At one point in my life, I needed to take my Spanish to fluency level in order to accomplish an important goal. I spent a year working to save money in order to go to a private immersion school in a Latin American country. I picked the capital of Costa Rica, San José. I wanted to stay in a relatively big city, and I was worried the smaller towns famous for language schools in Mexico and Guatemala would have so many other Americans that the immersion wouldn't be as effective.

The school lasted 9 weeks, 8 hours a day. I was placed with a Costa Rican family. My señora was an older woman living with her adult son. They had a beautiful house in the suburbs. My boarding price included a breakfast and dinner. Breakfast was often a fried pork chop accompanied by rice and beans and a vegetable, with a side of fresh tropical fruit, a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice and a steaming thermos of world-famous Costa Rican coffee. The first time she presented me with this spread, it was pretty intimidating. But I ate every delicious bite, thanked the señora and staggered off to school.

Some of my American fellow students drove me crazy. There was a teenager who kept complaining about the breakfasts. She made her señora fix her a special breakfast: Captain Crunch cereal. Then she complained because her señora wasn't fixing it right. The cereal was too soggy. So she made the señora wait to put the cereal into the milk until the exact proper moment.

I didn't want to be an ugly American. I tried to understand the customs of daily life, and did some research before I went. I also knew from living in Miami that people would call me "chinita" or "Chinese girl" without regard for my real ethnicity, but that "chinita" didn't carry the same negative baggage as it would in the U.S. In my own country there's a thin but persistent layer of enmity towards Asians, based on a long history of immigration scares, economic competition, and wars. That history wasn't the same in Costa Rica, obviously. Asians were simply stereotyped as "exotic" and "foreign". It was actually a breath of fresh air. I had to deal with being "foreign", and I had to deal with explaining that yes, I really was an American even though I didn't look like one. Nothing especially difficult or painful.

I didn't think about other racial stereotypes, but I had a rude awakening.

In class, we were doing a unit based on cartoons and jokes. We were shown cartoons and asked to comment on them. It was going well. Then I turned the page of the photocopied course packet for the next cartoon. There was a black boy with exaggerated black features, crying, sitting by the side of the road next to huge watermelon slice. An older man (white/criollo) asks him, "why are you crying, negrito"? The boy says something like, "there's too much watermelon and not enough negrito".

It was horribly offensive. I went to the teacher right away. It was hard for me to articulate myself in Spanish, so I switched to English, which the teacher spoke very well. I told her, "this is a terrible cartoon, it's very offensive to black people. It really needs to be taken out of the course packet."

The teacher smiled and chuckled. She explained several things. In the U.S., we had lots of problems with race relations. Even riots! But things just weren't the same in Costa Rica. In her country, black and white people got along. In fact, she had an in-law who was part black. No black Costa Rican would see anything wrong with that cartoon. How would I know it was offensive, when I myself wasn't black? What's wrong with enjoying watermelon?

She was implying, very politely, that I shouldn't be an ugly American. I was imposing my own ideas about race relations in a realm where I was ignorant.

I'd lost some clarity, but I stayed on track. If I couldn't win the argument on moral grounds, I'd switch to practical.

"I'm sorry I can’t explain why it's so offensive. But if you have a black student from the United States, and they see the cartoon, I promise you they'll be very offended. In fact, they'd probably ask for their money back and say bad things about the school when they got back home."

That did the trick. The teacher promised to remove the cartoon from the next course packet.

I felt bad about going this route and, in essence, threatening their livelihood. The teachers were women with multiple degrees in the humanities, who worked harder, for much less pay, than their U.S. equivalents. Costa Rica has a high standard of living for the region, but America is a much more powerful country and casts a large shadow.

My guilt didn't last long. I found out that everything the teacher told me about black Costa Ricans was wrong. When I went to the black Caribbean coast (which every criollo Costa Rican warned me against doing) and actually met black Costa Ricans, I realized that Costa Rican society was extremely segregated. There was strong institutionalized racism against black people. The tourist dollars were diverted from their beaches; their language (English patois) was disparaged and dying out.

The most graphic illustration I had of this flavor of racism was in another part of Costa Rica, when I was watching television next to a friend of my señora.

They were showing a Richard Pryor movie on TV. She quickly changed the channel and said, in a normal conversational tone, "I don't like black people. I don't know why, I just don't. My mother was the same way!"

I maintained a stunned silence. I didn't say anything, because the woman was much older than me, and I felt physically incapable of confronting her. I just sat there, confused, frustrated, depressed, inadequate and culpable.

So my attempts at dealing with anti-black racism in Costa Rica were definitely a mixed bag: one partial success, one abject failure.

It's very difficult determining where to intervene or how to stand when it comes to unfamiliar forms of racism. People defending American racism (or denying that it exists) often point to other countries and say, triumphantly, "well, they're just as racist!" When done from an unquestioning perspective, condemning the practices of other countries has little effect other than asserting American moral superiority.

I still believe it has to be tried.

I learned a lot about racism in my own country from traveling and living in Latin America. In parallel, the most insightful accounts of racism in Korea and Japan have been the ones I've read from African-Americans. Different forms of racism are often not as separate and distinct as they first seem, and comparing them shows the weak spots where they can be challenged.

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.

Oe Victorious!

I have had a huge amount of respect for Mr. Oe ever since I read his masterpiece, "A Personal Matter". His body of work on modern Japanese identity is incredible and thought-provoking. He's an uncompromising gadfly and it's nice to see him come out on top.

Suit Against Writer in Japan Dismissed

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

Published: March 29, 2008

TOKYO — A Japanese court has rejected a defamation lawsuit against Kenzaburo Oe, the 1994 Nobel Prize Laureate for literature, agreeing with his assertion that the Japanese military was deeply involved in the mass suicides of civilians in Okinawa at the end of World War II.

In a closely watched ruling, the Osaka District Court threw out a $200,000 damage suit on Friday that was filed by a 91-year-old war veteran and another veteran’s surviving relatives, who said there was no evidence of the military’s involvement in the suicides. The plaintiffs had also sought to block further printing of Oe’s 1970 book of essays, “Okinawa Notes,” in which he wrote of how Japanese soldiers told Okinawans they would be raped, tortured and murdered by the advancing American troops and coerced them into killing themselves instead of surrendering.

“The military was deeply involved in the mass suicides,” Judge Toshimasa Fukami said in his ruling on Friday. Judge Fukami cited the testimony of survivors that soldiers handed out grenades to civilians to commit suicide with, and the fact that mass suicides occurred only in villages where Japanese troops were stationed.

The defamation lawsuit, filed in 2005, was seized upon by right-wing scholars and politicians in Japan who want to delete references to the military’s coercion of civilians in the mass suicides from the country’s high school history textbooks. Last April, during the administration of the former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, the Ministry of Education announced that references to the military’s role would be deleted from textbooks.

Some 110,000 people rallied in protest last September, in the biggest demonstration in the prefecture since the early 1970s. The protests, as well as Mr. Abe’s resignation and his replacement by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, a moderate, led the Ministry of Education to reinstate most of the references in December.

The about-face was an embarrassment for the Japanese government, which has always denied accusations by China and South Korea that it engaged in historical whitewashing, and has asserted that its school textbooks are free of political bias.

“The judge accurately read my writing,” Mr. Oe, 73, said at a news conference.

Timeline Changes

We're all very down about how long the placement is taking. Originally, it was supposed to have happened by now. It looks like it might take up to another month.

I'm not panicking. It's just paperwork. The wait is not out of the ordinary. But I feel terrible, my husband feels terrible and it must not be easy for Sunny either. When kids are this young, they should really have a faster transition. His foster mom is also not happy, because she thinks a great school transition opportunity was missed with spring break.

I've decided we're going to go up and visit for another weekend. I'm not sure how much of the cost will get reimbursed, maybe none, but what the heck. I found a good deal on a ticket and it's pretty much cleared with all the necessary parties.

This time I'm going to make sure to get a cheap hotel with a kitchenette. We're kind of food snobby. Sunny is not located in a region that has any tradition of what I define as decent cooking. We politely suffered from this during our first visit. But if I can't cook meals, we're going to be stuck eating at Crac*ker Barrel at least twice a day. That's how bleak the food choices are. At least the Barrel has 1) a low-carb menu 2) some flavor to their food.

I'm so happy I finally know when we'll be seeing Sunny again.

The Lesson of Hiroshima for the U.S. Presidential Election

(cross-posted at APA for Progress)

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of hearing a presentation by a Hiroshima survivor. Here's his story as I remember it.

Mr. Teramoto was ten years old when the atom bomb hit Hiroshima. One second he was leaning over a desk to write a postcard to a friend; the next second he was on his back amid the rubble of his former house. An aunt pulled him out. His face was covered in blood. He begged her to stop and rescue his mother too, but she was too focused on getting him to safety. She slung him across her back and ran away.

That was the last he ever saw his mother. He found out later that she had dragged herself out and made it to the bank of the river. She died within days and her body was cremated where it lay, next to so many others.

Sheltering by another bank, Mr. Teramoto remembers seeing the river filled with corpses. They floated up and down with the tide, the same ones over and over again. He showed us photos and also drawings representing these scenes.

Art by KIHARA Toshiko, Hiroshima survivor

Due to his position when the bomb hit, and the fact that he managed to escape exposure to contaminated water, Mr. Teramoto is still a vigorous and healthy man. He draws on this energy to educate people about what happened in Hiroshima. He's been giving talks like this for decades. I imagine that survivor's guilt is something he struggles and negotiates with constantly. He's chosen to relive those events over and over again so that others can grow to understand the lesson of Hiroshima.

The basic lesson is simple. This must never happen again. Whether the bombing was "justified" is of secondary relevance. Here in the U.S. discussions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can get bogged down in that debate. As a Japanese-American, I feel the issue very deeply. Many Japanese-Americans fought bravely against Japan's government, a military dictatorship that poisoned other countries and their own people as well. But I also believe racism was an integral part of the decision to drop not one but two atomic bombs on Japanese soil.

But the primary matter of importance is what the past of Hiroshima symbolizes for our common global future. This is the idea that Mr. Teramoto wants to spread all over the world.

The events of Hiroshima are receding. The cold war era is over. In my lifetime, there will eventually be no more survivors traveling the world and giving presentations. But there will still be insane numbers of nuclear weapons and the potential for a future conflagration.

Mr. Teramoto's colleague, the head of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, put forth a terrifying scenario. Further destabilization in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Increased anti-American activity in the mountainous border region. Militaristic American government. The solution? Perhaps just one targeted atomic bomb. Maybe some villages will be caught in the way...

The current idiotic regime has substantially withdrawn from nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament agreements, citing, of course, the increased security risks of a "post 9/11 world". John McCain is even more likely to use nuclear weapons, judging by his strong tendency towards loathsome paranoid jingoism. Either Clinton or Obama would be a massive improvement and would likely get us back on the path to honoring our nuclear treaties.

Personally, I'm an Obama supporter, and I believe he will be better on this issue. While it's difficult to detangle candidate's position statements to find an unequivocal answer to a relatively simple question, several factors convinced me. During one debate, Wolf Blitzer asked the candidates whether U.S. security concerns trumped humanitarian concerns. Clinton responded that yes, they did. Obama gave what I considered the correct answer; the two concerns cannot be separated. Also, Clinton's vote in favor of the Iraq War showed me that in a crisis, she might go by current popular opinion instead of the long-term best interests of the world. Obama has specifically stated that he will not consider using a nuclear weapon to destroy a terrorist training camp. Clinton's answers on nuclear nonproliferation have also been much more equivocal and vague than Obama's answers.

Anyone who is concerned by this issue (and I think "anyone" should really mean "everyone in the world") should do their own research and act on it. Here's a relatively neutral link to start off with.

I was profoundly affected by Mr. Teramoto's talk. I hope I've been able to pass on to readers even a small portion of the urgency and gravity of his mission. This must never happen again.

Viiiiiiiine City (Tornado Cleanup)

I've been in a photo mood recently.





There were local volunteer groups plus other groups from all over the country. The debris is getting cleaned up pretty quickly with so many people on the job now.

Yardwork

My husband and I signed up with a volunteer group and did some tornado clean-up this morning. Then we did some yardwork at home. I'm going to install rain barrels tomorrow.

Here are some pictures from my garden. I need to work harder this year and concentrate heavily on natives and drought-resistant plants.

Uncertainty and Preparation

I wish I knew when Sunny's final placement was going to be. We're really hoping for within a month.

The great thing about having visited Sunny is that we know he's in a nice home with great foster parents. We don't have to worry about him!

We're calling him every two or three days and talking to him for a minute or so. Mainly "what did you do today" conversations. Today, I told him I bought him a piggy bank (he'd asked me for one at his last visit). He yelled at his foster mom, "GUESS WHAT! MOM GOT ME A PIGGYBANK!" He was so excited. A simple thing, but it really made me happy.

We're in the middle of school choice issues right now. Our first choice doesn't look as certain as it did before. We'll need backups, and backups to the backups. There are a lot of options and we're starting to narrow them down bit by bit. Some factors are: academics, student-teacher ratio, classroom style conducive to a kid with short attention span, close to us so he can make friends with kids who don't live too far away, public (charter/magnet) versus private, cost, diversity.

Diversity is not our number one concern since a) Sunny is black b) we live close to the center of a majority-black city. We're looking at a range of schools from 40-100% black. In this context, I think of diversity as a balance that goes beyond black/white to include Asian and Latino kids, and with a mix of several different cultures and languages. I think this kind of diversity will be more important as he gets older, but right now it's not on the top of my list of priorities. The one thing I'm a little concerned about is his cute Midwest accent picked up from Polish/Irish-Americans. How much will it make him stand out? In first grade, I don't think it matters that much yet.

Sunny is extroverted, talkative and confident. His ADHD diagnosis doesn't hamper him much in social skills. If he's not getting attention, he does get frustrated very quickly. But he likes to share. I'm guessing that he'll be happy in a wide variety of social situations with other kids.

A Few Reactions to Obama's Speech

I really identified with this part of Obama's speech:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

I love America, dammit! Now I'm getting teary-eyed.

I also just read a post over at Poplicks by Junichi that takes a very insightful perspective on the speech.

It's not often you see multiple news channels broadcasting lengthy speeches by major presidential candidates on white privilege and systematic racism. And by "not often," I really mean "never."

The speech further contributes to the fascinating study of how Obama deals -- and doesn't deal -- with issues of race. As a political maneuver, Obama brilliantly crafted a text that simultaneously connects and disconnects himself with the civil rights movement and black leaders today. He carefully criticized the black community in exchange for being able to criticize the white community, all the while maintaining a positive and hopeful stance.

And I definitely agree with Junichi on his last and more critical point. I'm an Obama supporter, but I really wish Obama would adopt a more balanced approach to Palestinian-Israeli relations. On the other hand, that would probably be political suicide. I can only hope that when he's elected and the pressure lets off a little, he can afford to distinguish himself by promoting more even-handed solutions to peace in the Middle East.

I hate to open a can of worms here, but it seems obvious to me that the United States will never help to achieve peace in the Middle East until it is willing to acknowledge the moral and legal wrongs of both Palestinians and Israelis, the wrongs of the U.S., other western occupiers, and cultural imperialists, as well as the fundamentalist, violent nutjobs who undeniably perpetuate the endless cycle of violence.

In my book, any politician who focuses on the 1,033 Israelis who have been unconscionably killed since September 29, 2000 -- while ignoring the 4,494 Palestinians who were unconscionably killed by Israeli security forces -- is not bringing the change needed to our foreign policy. (Source for stats: Israeli Information Center for Human Rights.)

Obama's opposition to the war on Iraq only goes so far in extending a hand to the other countries and people we should be reaching out to in the hopes of becoming stalwart allies.

Given that Obama is constantly forced to deal with ignorant whispers that he is secretly Muslim, I understand his need to firmly renounce the "hateful ideologies of radical Islam" and to reach out to the Jewish community. Anti-Semitism is a real, ugly, and major problem here and abroad. But so is anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry, and I wish Obama were willing to take those on, as well.

Tornado Photo

Here's a photo of Friday's tornado. Terrifying!

Whoa... tornado!

I'm watching the news. Downtown Atlanta has been totally trashed by a tornado! No one has died (keeping my fingers crossed). I'm farther to the east of downtown, and we experienced a bad hailstorm that terrified my dog, but nothing close to tornado strength.

P.S. Sometimes I find it so hard to understand the priorities of the sports-oriented. On the news, people keep talking about how worried they are about some Georgia vs. Kentucky game that got interrupted due to large chunks of the Georgia Dome falling off, and our terrible state of existential insecurity because we don't know when the Georgia Kentucky game is going to be held again. This is just astounding to me. What about power and water for residents? I will have to check in tomorrow for that news.

The De-Asianification of "21"

This post by Jenn from Reappropriate has already been cross-posted all over, but I thought I'd give it an extra plug here.

I was quite irritated when I saw the trailer for this movie. "21" is a great, true-life story about a group of MIT students who started a card-counting operation and won millions from casinos. These were Asian-Americans whose Asian-ness was pretty central to their initial success at card-counting. Wow, what a great opportunity to show Asian-American men engaged in an exciting activity that's not kung fu! But of course the movie was de-Asianified in favor of white leads. This has been going on for so long, and it has GOT to stop. I won't be seeing this movie.

A Moving Article about Barack Obama's Mother

The article is here: "Free-spirited wanderer set Obama's path. 'What is best in me I owe to her,' candidate has said of his idealistic mother".

One of the reasons I jumped on the Obama bandwagon fairly late is that I felt such a strong identification with him. I really didn't want that to influence my political judgement, so I stayed neutral for a long time. Here are some reasons why I identify with him. The article raised several more reasons.

- both third-culture kids
- growing up in environments as the racial outsider
- being multiracial, with a white mother, but identifying primarily as single-race
- lack of strong ties to father's home country (although my own father was much more present throughout my life than his father)
- single, hard-working, unconventional, fearless, idealistic, generous, strong-willed, competent, independent mother
- close relationship with maternal grandparents
- very close relationship with mother

When I was 15, I went off to boarding school. By the age of 16, I'd left that school, our finances had changed drastically, and I was working as a waitress and mostly supporting myself. I was ready to leave home at 15; I was always very independent. But that didn't mean I had conflicts with my mother. It was something we both agreed on. We've always been very close, even when we lived far apart. We live close now, and we have dinner with her almost every other night. When I hear about people who have bad or distant relationships with their mothers I just sigh and say "I'm sorry". I do my best to empathize, I really am sorry, it's just hard to put myself in their shoes.

This was the part that really got to me... I teared up a little.

"I think sometimes that had I known she would not survive her illness, I might have written a different book — less a meditation on the absent parent, more a celebration of the one who was the single constant in my life," he wrote in the preface to his memoir, "Dreams From My Father." He added, "I know that she was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known, and that what is best in me I owe to her."

I rarely talk about my mother. She's so close to me, it's hard to even see her. But if she ever went away, I don't know what I'd do.

Really Quick Message

I miss Sunny :-(

Quick Message About Anonymity

So far I know of two blog readers who found out they're connected to me in real life.

This is a little disturbing, since I try to stay as anonymous as possible here, with no pictures and no work/educational/organizational discussion.

Both these readers strike me as extremely nice and thoughtful people, so I'm not worried about them, I'm just worried that more and more people may start to connect my real-life and internet identities. I'm not a supersocial person, or any kind of public figure, but I am kind of conspicuous.

I think I'm going to establish a back-up password-protected mirror blog. I do promise I won't "go dark" entirely, but if I start feeling really conspicuous, I may need to turn down the lights a little bit and remove some of the more personal information.

Second Impressions

We had our second visit with Sunny.

The next time he comes here, it should be forever. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly when yet, but we're hoping within a month.

We're getting to know him better. Here are some more of his qualities. He's extremely observant and always remarking on his environment, keeping up a constant stream of "that's cool!" and "that's funny!" and "Mom! Dad! Look at that!" He's a little timid sometimes, but his curiosity usually wins out. For example, he said he was scared of the whirlpool bath, but then he couldn't resist turning the button on after he was in the tub, and now he can't wait to take another whirlpool bath.

He's very open about what he feels, and what he wants, and what he doesn't want. The main behavior problem we had with him was quite predictable and mundane: vegetableophobia! I've had some success by promising him a stick of sugarless gum after dinner if he eats all his veggies.

Other than vegetables, he likes almost everything. He likes to go on errands, he likes to go shopping, he likes to put the dishes away, he likes to hug, he likes to help me dig holes in the garden.

He pops out of bed in the morning and does a little dance. He hardly gets tired and doesn't need naps.

He needs a lot of attention. He can't really play by himself for more than a few minutes. He also has a tendency to run from activity to activity. We're gently trying to keep him focused on doing one thing at a time for longer periods of time (like 10-15 minutes).

He's great with the dog. In fact, I wish he would play with the dog a little bit more, but our dog just isn't stimulating enough. Our dog loves playing fetch in short bursts, but that's about all he can do; his favorite hobby is sleeping in the sun.

Sunny does pretty well with structure and was following bedtimes and morning times with very little argument. He dawdles in his routine a bit when he gets distracted, but I don't think we're going to have difficulty when school starts and our routine gets stricter. I've promised to get him a wristwatch to help him keep track of time, and he's excited about that.

He asked me one or two times every day, "Am I being a good boy?" I told him that he was the best boy in the whole world. The question makes me sad. He must wonder what would happen to him if he wasn't good. Would he be taken away and given yet another mother and father? After placement he's probably going to test us to see what happens if he's not "a good boy".

His foster mother had told him, "it's your job now to love your new mom and dad". She told him that she already had so many kids who loved her, but we didn't have any kids, so he was given the important job of being our new son.

I don't know how I feel about that. On one hand, putting this kind of obligation on him is worrisome. It's a lot of pressure. On the other hand, every time anyone gives him a little job to do, he positively glows. "I can help!" or "I can do it!" Having a job can mean a lot of different things. For Sunny, where he is right now, I think "job" means being important and being in control and being part of things, and all of that makes him happy. If I tell him "such and such is not your job" it would represent the removal of a degree of control.

I'm going to neither deny nor reinforce his foster mom's narrative. We'll just wait and see how he feels after placement and what his therapist says. I might be more worried that he'd stifle his feelings... if he wasn't such a naturally expressive child.

At one point he said, "I miss Mommy (firstname)" which is what he calls his bio mom. I copied a picture from his lifebook of the two of them together, framed it and gave it to him to put in his room. He said "thank you!" and hugged me.

The two of them look great in the photo, but there are some things in the background that are kind of depressing once you know the whole story. I cropped it out as much as possible.

I did write "the letter" and sent it off. I kept it very simple. I told Sunny's biomom that we'll stay in contact and send updated photos; that she can write him as much as possible, and although it's likely we won't show the letters to Sunny until he is more secure in his new home, we will carefully save everything for him. I said that when he gets older we'll support his decisions about contact. I closed by wishing her well, and saying that we'll always respect the bond they have, and the fact that they love each other.

Sunny's worker has told her that Sunny's adoption is like a second chance for her to eventually form a healthy relationship with him. Maybe this will have a really positive result for her as well as for Sunny.

When it comes to Sunny's bio father, things are very hazy. I found his picture on the internet. I haven't decided at all what to do on that end. We need to wait for some more information.

I think Sunny is going to have a lot of challenges because of a rough start in life, but he has so many strengths as well. Also, he has less of a background of abuse, neglect and instability than most kids his age who have gone through TPR... his worker said she believes that in his case, the system really worked, due to an original caseworker who was on the ball. Sunny trusts that the people in his life are good and loving, and that the world might be a little scary around the edges, but it's ultimately a safe place. If he's nervous, he has someone's hand to hold; if he can't work something out, someone will come and help him. I'm so glad we don't have to teach him all those things.

Our main challenges are going to be maintaining patience and evenness and steering him away from too much television and video games. Like I said, he needs a lot of attention, and it can get a bit tiring. The easiest times with Sunny are taking him around with us and seeing new things. It's going to be a lot of fun traveling with him. When we have to spend many hours at home, it takes much more energy to keep him occupied.

His medication is not as much of an issue as I thought it would be. We're just going to maintain it for the first several months after placement, and then revisit the issue to see if we can taper down. His medication doesn't have any effect on his energy level or personality. These hourlong tantrums we were warned about almost seem mythical. I guess we shouldn't get too complacent though...

At a few points in the visit I felt euphoric, at other points a little panicky. "Wow... there's a small human being in my house who's relying on me!" Most of the time it just felt natural.

He's such a happy and exuberant little kid.

How do Social Workers Rank Families?

I just read an interesting post at Busy Intersection. The blogger summarizes a Minnesota study on how social workers tend to determine the desirability of families. The findings probably won't surprise anyone who has been involved in the matching process. A few excerpts from the excerpts:

Relatively "easy" Caucasian children who are five or younger usually are placed with younger heterosexual couples who appear to be part of the mainstream in terms of qualities such as personality, personal appearance, style of home, and type of religion practiced.

Finally, race appears to play a part in preferences. A home study workers said, "By law, we can look at cultural competence, but by law we can’t look at racial things." In other words, social workers cannot consider race when placing children but they do. A conventional, heterosexual African-American couple is likely to be preferred for a younger African-American or mixed race child over any other potential placement.

I wrote about some of this last year in a post on The Transracial Adoption of Children with Special Needs.

I think there are social workers out there who don't let their own biases get in the way... but the practice as a whole is definitely very biased. Although factors like race and sexual orientation get all the press, it looks like religion and "conventionality of lifestyle" are incredibly important too.

I'm not saying any of these factors shouldn't be used in matching, but on their own, they don't encompass who a family is or whether they're the best family for the child.

Parents play into this as well. High-demand couples (young, Caucasian, Christian, heterosexual, conventional, good-looking, able-bodied) soon realize they can ask for more high-demand children (infants or toddlers, female, Caucasian, fewer special needs). And social workers let low-demand singles or gay couples know they have to broaden their parameters if they want to get matched. It's heavily market-based, even though the parents aren't spending any money.

It's a subsystem that faithfully reflects the larger system: our messed-up world.

Call-ins for Obama

I helped out tonight at a Texas call-in party for Obama. It was a lot of fun. I hate talking on the phone, so I was just going to do support-type stuff for the callers. However, I got roped into a couple unexpected Spanish-language calls. The people I talked to said they couldn't vote themselves, so I inquired about citizen relatives and just asked them to tell their relatives to vote for Obama in both the primary and caucus. They seemed receptive.

Openness in Foster Care Adoptions?

Does anyone know of any resources about openness in foster care adoptions with cases of involuntary TPR?

I've read a fair amount about private open adoptions, but honestly, so much of it doesn't seem applicable in terms of logistics.

We want to maintain contact for when Sunny is older. The key word here is healthy contact. We definitely plan on following the advice of the caseworker, who says that we should keep communication anonymous and through her office. I'd like to start off by writing a letter soon.

It's difficult to work out exactly how we're going to maintain this, given Sunny's maturity level and the problems that afflict his maternal family of origin. Difficult, but not impossible. The best-case scenario is that she turns her life around, but who knows when that could happen?

Sunny has positive but vague memories. He seems to mentally picture a first mom and grandmother in the far-away past, a second mom in the present and a third mom in his future.

I think I'm just going to take it very slowly and postpone most of these issues until Sunny settles in with us. Then we'll have input from therapists, too.

Recent Horrible Heinous Bills Introduced by Georgia Legislators

I had a great day today. We had a barbecue and a shower! I'll talk about it later. Thanks so much to everyone who left me congratulations on the last post.

Right now I'm upset about a newsletter I just received that listed some horrible, horrible bills.

English; Official Language of the State of Georgia; Declare (HR 413) - was adopted by the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee by a vote of 10-4. The resolution calls for a statewide referendum on whether the state Constitution should be amended to declare English as the official language.

Completely pointless anti-immigrant crap.

Confiscating vehicles of illegal immigrants (HB 978) - would allow police who catch a person violating a traffic law to impound the vehicle if the driver is an illegal immigrant.

I'm sure this will stop illegal immigration.

Feticide; Drug Ingestion; Create Offense (HB 1204) - would create a new crime, "feticide by drug ingestion," defined as when a person willfully and without legal justification solely causes the death of a viable fetus by the ingestion of drugs, and would be punishable by life in prison.

RU486 = life in prison. Thankfully, this one doesn't have a chance of getting anywhere.

Georgia-North Carolina and Georgia-Tennessee Boundary Line Commission (HR 1206, SR 822) - The House and Senate adopted similar legislation which asserts that a flawed 1818 survey mistakenly placed Georgia's northern line just short of the Tennessee River. The bills call for the governor to establish a commission to further investigate the matter.

This is a particularly stupid one. Our response to drought should be to encourage conservation, long-term planning and smart growth. Instead, these legislators have decided to spend lots of valuable time trying to ANNEX THE FREAKING TENNESSEE RIVER. This is a serious attempt and a lot of legislators are behind it. Guess what, this isn't 1818 anymore, we can't just gather up a militia and invade Tennessee... but maybe they're stupid enough to try.

State Agencies; Designate English as Official Language; Prohibit Requiring Employees to Speak/Learn any other Languages for employment (SB 335) - would designate English as the official language and prohibit a state agency or political subdivision of this state from requiring an employee to speak or learn any language other than the official language of the state in order to be employed, maintain employment, or to be eligible for a promotion.

More anti-immigrant crap attempting to officially mandate a standard of permanent ignorance in government service. They might as well just fire anyone who can speak a second language. Luckily, our public education system is so terrible that most Georgia natives would keep their jobs.