Many times, normal signs of grief and shock are mistaken for signs
of autism or some mental illness, leading a family to disrupt the
adoption. Educating prospective adoptive parents about grief and transitions can prepare them and promote healthy family adjustment.
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The Space In-Between: An Adoptive Parent's Perspective on White Privilege |
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The Space In-Between: An Adoptive Parent’s Perspective on White Privilege
by Stephanie Townsend, PhD
We are a family. The bonds between us run deep. Right now my son is three years old. He is adorable, bright, inquisitive, and observant. From the time he came home to us at eight months old I have received positive comments, warm looks, and much support. Unlike adoptive parents who are faced with intrusive, rude or even racist comments and questions, I have only received positive responses from people in our community and when we travel. Our status as a family has been consistently affirmed.
Yet, I know that there is a space in-between us. There is a space where I cannot go, a part of my son’s world that I will observe but never fully enter. That space comes from the fact that my son is Guatemalan/Ladino/Latino/Hispanic and my husband and I are white. No matter how much I read, no matter how many connections of my own I make in our local Hispanic community, no matter how many friends and family we have who are Hispanic, there will still be a space in-between us. There will be an aspect of his life and identity that I can think about but that I will never experience.
Transracial adoption presents unique parenting challenges. One of them is that while we white parents experience certain privileges (often unnoticed by us), those same privileges will not always be extended to our children because of the color of their skin. What do I mean by “privilege”? My thoughts on this were first sparked many years ago when I was in college and read the essay White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh. You can find a link to her essay here: http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html. I encourage you to read it before continuing on with this post as my thoughts will make much more sense if you’ve read her original essay. Also, what follows are my thoughts. If you read the essay it will be easier for you to distinguish between my thoughts and hers. You can also make your own judgments as to whether you think I have adequately represented what she says.
One of the first points that Peggy McIntosh makes is that we white people have been taught “not to recognize white privilege”. She likens it to an “invisible package of unearned assets that [we] can count on cashing in each day, but about which [we were] meant to remain oblivious.” I remember when I first read this essay being struck by the challenge of that. How am I supposed to be aware of something that is invisible to me? Yet once I started realizing all the types of privilege that I have it was impossible to make the knapsack invisible again. I was shocked by the fact that it ever had been invisible. How could I not have seen it? The realization of the privileges I have made me feel uncomfortable, but it also sharpened my ability to see.
What are some of the assets and tools that we carry in our invisible knapsacks? Peggy McIntosh focuses on the daily experiences that she has that are not as readily available to her coworkers, friends, and acquaintances who are people of color. She highlights 50 things in her knapsack. They include things like:
“I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.” What a simple thing, yet I think of how aware I am when I am in the minority, how self-conscious I can become in those times. Even when it is a perfectly friendly setting, I sometimes feel like my actions and words are magnified for all to see. I don’t always feel this way in those situations, but I am certainly always aware when the shift happens and I go from being in the majority (which is my usual situation) to being in the minority. For most of our children, they will always be in the minority. Most of them are the “different” ones in our families. For those who live in suburban areas they will likely be in the minority in their schools.* We need to be aware of this difference between our experiences and theirs. Being aware can help us to pick up on times when our children are feeling uncomfortable, singled out, or isolated. When we are aware we can open up the conversation with our children and let them know that they can talk with us about it. We can acknowledge that it is an important thing to talk about. If we don’t open up that conversation then our children may think that we don’t see what is happening to them.
(* Note: Before you jump too quickly to the conclusion that your child’s school is diverse, look up the numbers. Due to the way we process images and information, people who are in the majority have a tendency to overestimate the minority numbers.)
“I can be pretty sure that my neighbors...will be neutral or pleasant to me.” This is connected to the minority/majority issue. If we live in a neighborhood where most of the people are “like us” (which is true for most neighborhoods in the US – we still tend to be very segregated either by choice, economics, or social pressures) then we can expect to be accepted in our neighborhoods. But this isn’t true for our children. Imagine that you have just moved to a new neighborhood. Your neighbors have not yet seen you, but they see your teenage, Hispanic son riding his bike on the street. What might some of them think? Hopefully most of them will react with, “It looks like the new neighbors have moved in; I should stop by this evening with some cookies to welcome them.” But some of them will be less likely to stop by because they will assume that they don’t have much in common with a Hispanic family. There is also the chance that there will be a neighbor or two who think things like: “I see a Mexican family moved in.” “What is that boy doing here?” “They probably don’t speak English well.” “I wonder if they’re legal.” Once they know that you are white and your son is adopted these thoughts will dissolve – our white privilege will be conferred on to our children. But we need to remember that as our children grow older they will spend less and less time with us. They will simply be another one of “those Hispanic boys” riding their bicycles in the street or walking through the mall. Hopefully most people will be neutral or pleasant toward them, but they cannot assume that in the same way that we white parents can.
“I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the ‘person in charge’, I will be facing a person of my own race.” This is not true for our children. For most of our children, most of their teachers and principals, police officers and doctors, employers and managers, CEOs and accountants will be white. Not all of them, but most of them.
“Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.” I was reminded of this once when I went shopping with my sister-in-law who is Mexican American. I commented on how she always looked so nice when we went out shopping and that I felt a bit slovenly in comparison. She said that she had to dress that way because it sent the message that she “belonged” there. Too often she had been followed in the stores by sales clerks, closely watched by security guards, and had clerks wait on white customers first even though she had been waiting at the counter before them. Our children, too, will face this. We need to be aware of it so that we do not dismiss them as “imagining things” when they complain that they have been treated differently in stores. They are not imagining things – they are experiencing things that we as white adults are not subject to.
Some of the items on Peggy McIntosh’s list highlight in a different way the privileges that we have and that our children do not. She includes a number of items specifically about raising children that do not apply to those of us with Guatemalan children other children of color. That they do not apply to us, but do apply to other white parents, highlights the fact that our children do not share in our privilege. For example:
“I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.” The fact is that we must educate our children about racism. My parents never talked about racism with me. They didn’t need to protect me from it because they and I are white. But I must talk about it with my son. He must be prepared for the fact that there will be people who will call him a “wetback”. There will be people who will tell him to “go back where you came from”. There will be potential employers who will think differently of him when they see “naturalized citizen” checked on his I-9 form. There will be teachers who will expect less of him academically because they will assume he has limits on his academic potential. I must talk about these things with him so that he knows he can talk about them with me when they happen.
This different treatment is not always hateful or discriminatory. Sometimes it comes in the guise of trying to help. I once taught an undergraduate course in Adolescent Development. Throughout the course we talked about how experiences differ based on cultural background, economic status and family stability. In order to show them how, armed with information like that, it is easy to fall into stereotypes, I gave them a case to discuss. Because many of the students were going to be teachers I made it relevant to education – Imagine that you are a fifth-grade teacher. You have been told that a new student will be joining your class. At this time all that you know is: he was born in Guatemala, his parents brought him to the US when he was almost 1 years old, he has spent some time in foster care (but not recently), he speaks both Spanish and English (one better than the other), and his parents are not bilingual.
Not surprisingly, my students talked about ways to overcome language barriers, finding him a buddy who was also Hispanic, maybe needing a translator available to communicate with his parents, being attentive to things his parents may need to have explained to them about the educational system in the US, needing to make sure that he had the necessary school supplies, possibly needing to arrange for tutoring, and because he had been in foster care they needed to keep a closer watch for signs of neglect or abuse. My students’ intentions were good. They were trying to be supportive of this child. They truly had the best interests of the child in mind. — And they were chagrined when I told them that, other than the child’s age, the case I gave to them was my son: a child whose parents both have PhDs and are university professors, a child whose mother speaks some Spanish (but is not bilingual) and has taught her son basic conversation, a child who was born healthy and has been well cared for every day of his life. My students were full of good intentions – and also full of assumptions based on stereotypes. It is not only my son who needs to have skills at dealing with misguided good intentions, I need them, too. My students gave me a glimpse at what our future may hold. The surprised looks when I walk in the door of his classroom will not be a surprise to me.
“I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.” While curricular materials have gotten better at being “multi-cultural”, it is at times a token inclusion or the inclusion is done in a way that sets non-white groups off as “other”. “Hispanic Heritage Month”, while well-intended as a strategy of inclusion and celebration, also sends the message that Hispanic peoples are not an integral part of the history and fabric of our country.
“I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.” The very fact that on forums for adoptive parents we share recommendations of children’s books that are set in Guatemala, Central or South America indicates that this is not so easy for us and for our children. Similarly, I see periodic posts online asking about where to buy Guatemalan dolls, excitement over Dora the Explorer and Diego because they are “positive images” for our children, etc. The popularity of Dora and Diego is great – but should our children really be limited to two characters and a blue, Spanish-speaking monster on Sesame Street?
As Peggy McIntosh notes, “But not all of the privileges on my list are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society.” But the point is that it is not yet the norm in our society. It will only become the norm when we who have the unearned privilege and power use them to bring about change. It is not enough to disagree with racism. We must work to change the often unseen systems that give some people power and privilege while denying that same power and privilege to others. “Disapproving of the systems won’t be enough change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitude. But a ‘white’ skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can palliate but cannot end these problems.”
The problems that need to be addressed extend beyond race and include other experiences of privilege such as gender, economic status, physical ability, religion, and sexual orientation. But as a white parent of a Guatemalan child it is race that plays a unique role in my family. It is race that distinguishes me from my child. It is the difference in race that people will see upon meeting us. If I blindly think that “love is enough” or that “being a family is all that matters” then race will also be what separates me from my son. The more he goes out into the world on his own – starts school, goes places by himself, gets a job – the more times he will be seen by others simply as a Hispanic male. Just as I work to instill pride in his Guatemalan heritage, I also need to empower him to navigate a world where there are hierarchies of privilege based on race and where he will not be granted the same privileges as I am granted. In many people’s eyes he will have to “prove” himself in a way that I do not. I must give him the strength to do that – and I must work to change those systems so that in the future no child has to prove themself in that way.
Addendum:
I shared this essay on a few on-line discussion forums of adoptive parents, adoptees, and first/birth parents. I appreciated the reactions, comments and feedback. It was interesting to see that most of the responses were either “Great! These issues are so important to think about!” OR “This is so outdated. My community is very diverse and my children have the same privileges I have.” To this I reply: It is not just about demographics and percentages. It is about institutional power and perceptions. That is far more than a question of who your neighbors are, who works in local businesses, or the demographics of the school your child attends. As a white person the institutions (government, corporations, news media, etc.) and history are stacked in my favor. My presence in the United States and my behaviors have never been questioned because of my race. However, people of color in this society frequently have their presence and behaviors questioned because of their race.
Right now my son is three years old and adorable. But what happens when he is 16 and wearing the latest teenage fashions (I shudder to think what they will be!)? What happens when he goes home to meet the parents of his date for the prom and they suddenly realize that the teenage boy they have heard so much about is Hispanic? In a country where only 2% of people identify themselves to census takers as being of more than one race, where do my family and my son fit in?
I do not know what will happen in the future, but I do know that because I am thinking about the possibilities now I am less likely to be blindsided. My son is less likely to think, “I can’t talk with mom about this or it will upset her. I can’t tell dad about this because he will never understand.” My goal is for him to know that we are aware. Our eyes and ears are open. We realize that there is a space in-between our experiences. Because we realize it, together we can build a bridge to span that space.
The author is a community psychologist who teaches and consults with non-profit organizations and education programs.
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© 2010 Informed Adoption Advocates
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