by Carmen Van Kerckhove
Addicted to Race is New Demographic’s podcast about America’s obsession with race. Here’s a rundown of what you’ll find in this episode:
How do we raise black children in an all-white community and still maintain a healthy sense of identity? How do we combat Eurocentric standards of beauty? Do internationally adoptive parents go too far with the cultural activities, at the expense of talking to their kids about race? Carmen Van Kerckhove, Tami Winfrey Harris, and Jae Ran Kim discuss.
Addicted to Race is broadcast live every Sunday afternoon at 12 pm Eastern. You can listen live on our BlogTalkRadio page and call in by dialing 347-996-3958.
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WHY would you raise a child, any child, in an all white, all black, all brown, etc. community? I don’t care what color is under discussion, it is a disservice to a child (not to mention the larger society) to raise her/him in a homogeneous community.
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Great podcast! Thanks to Tami, Carmen, and Jae Ran. The discussion about raising black and Asian kids in a white community was interesting, and I really appreciated the different approach from Max that inspired your conversation. So often this conversation is about white parents raising adopted children in homogenous communities, when that’s now always the situation.
One thing I wonder about: I think most (some?) adoptive parents today have learned the lessons (through adult adoptees, through agencies) that adoptive parents didn’t know 30 years ago–that it’s not okay to raise kids of color or international adoptees in white communities without exposure to their birth culture. And some adoptive parents have taken it too far.
But we have a situation where we APs are learning from yesterday’s young adoptees. What will our kids, when they are grown, have to say about this?
It’s important to listen to adult adoptees, absolutely. But I hope we’re not missing some other lessons in the midst here too. (I hope this is making sense. Basically, I feel like we’ve mostly learned yesterday’s lessons, at least in theory. Are they still applicable today? What are the current mistakes we are making?)
A reasonable question to ask, and I haven’t seen it asked quite so directly, is this: Is it ethical to raise children of color in white communities? Put another way, is it ethical for white adoptive parents who live in all white communities to adopt children of color?
@msfour: I struggle with that question often. I am biracial Pinay/Caucasian and was raised in an all-white suburb of Illinois, so I tend toward whiteness despite attempts to fiercely claim and cling to a Pinay identity. My son is also Pinoy/Caucasian and I worry for him – I know that San Diego is way more diverse than Godfrey, but I worry that my own unsettled identity will prove problematic for him. If I can’t even settle comfortably into a Pinay identity, how can I help him come to terms with himself as Pinoy?
But more specific to your question – no, I do not think that it is ethical to intentionally raise children of colour in all-white communities. Kids need positive role models that look like them, share a culture, a language, a cuisine, with them – it isn’t right to deprive them of those connections.
I politely disagree with Christina: to move to a more diverse community because you are an adoptive parent or an ethnic minority in your own community is self-segregation.
It is absolutely ethical to raise children of color in white communities. Just be aware that when you move into a white community, like or not, you will be representative of your race. You will also be exposed to opportunties to handle racism with grace. Give them the tools to do it.
I live in a diverse area because that is what I can afford. However, people still think they know who I am because they’ve made assumptions about my race. That can be just as racist. White people in white areas can at least plead ignorance.
@ msfour & lovepeaceohana:
I am biracial Chinese/white and I was also raised in a very predominantly white town. I still don’t fully understand why my parents made this choice. I understand that they wanted me at a “good” public school, but I would never want to raise my children in a homogeneous setting.
It definitely helped, though, that I was encouraged to read books by Asian American authors, I went to a Chinese school on Saturdays in a different town, I went to cultural events and Chinatown in a nearby city, etc. And I had other Chinese family members who lived nearby, so I wasn’t totally isolated. I can’t imagine how it would have been if I didn’t have all of those things.
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skellyable, can you say more about why you think it’s ethical to raise children of color in all white areas? You wrote, “Just be aware that when you move into a white community, like or not, you will be representative of your race. You will also be exposed to opportunties to handle racism with grace. Give them the tools to do it.”
What about if the parent is white and the child is not. Do you think it’s fair to place the burden of representation on the child? What is the white parent’s role, then in helping the child “handle racism with grace.” What would that look like for a white parent who maybe has never experienced racism firsthand?
I’d be interested in hearing your ideas for how this can happen.
I think the ethics of the scenario is an interesting question. Of course, each family’s situation is going to be different and it would be very difficult to generalize. That said, I think it would be at the very least unethical for the parents to *not* consider what the ramifications of that choice would be to the entire family, especially the children, and to take active steps towards strategizing how they will live their every day lives in an all white community.
I think it is very unfair and wrong to make the children be the bridge/token/representative for their race/ethnicity/culture when they are the minority in their community.
@skellyable: “to move to a more diverse community because you are an adoptive parent or an ethnic minority in your own community is self-segregation.” HUH?!? To live in a mixed community is pretty much the opposite of segregation (self-imposed or otherwise). I’m white and Native American, raised white. Personally, I’ve never lived in an all-white neighborhood in my life. I cannot fathom why anyone would want to, and frankly I think it would be a disservice to my children (who are of even more mixed heritage) to suddenly plop them down into a neighborhood where no other children look like them. How on earth could that be viewed as ethical, especially now when we are aware of the impact on children who were raised in such circumstances? Why should it be their burden to “represent”? And in my kids’ case, which of their multiple heritages are they supposed to “represent” anyway?
Ignoring the “representing your own race” nonsense, I do think it is important to talk about the ethics of raising children of color in predominantly white/all white communities.
First, Christina, I don’t think it is always so simple for some people to pick up and move to a more diverse area. I’m from Florida, now live in California. It’s not been hard for me to expose my kids to diversity/choose a diverse neighborhood, etc. But we have a big country and some areas are truly devoid of diversity, and parents in these areas who choose to adopt transracially face a serious dilemma, to be sure. But it’s flippant to say “just move” when money/family proximity/job availability/church community and any other number of factors are at play.
Which I guess points back to the other question – is it ethical for such people to adopt transracially? I think the answer lies in another question – is it ethical to let children grow up in orphanages or in group homes rather than placing them with a family in an all-white community?
There is a major shortage of people willing and able to adopt waiting children of color. I think that is an important ethical consideration in this conversation. Obviously, if there were a racially-matched family for every waiting child that would be ideal. But sadly that is not the case.
I think it’s more than just ‘important’ to have your child grow up where she can see herself reflected by society. I think it’s wrong to raise your child in a place where she’ll only see her difference.
I also think that adopted children are held to different standards vs. biological children despite our best efforts. For our own convenience, we sacrifice our children’s identity. I think that the decisions to move/not to move are based on an ignorance of the impact of race and difference, this is usually aimed at white people simply because they ARE the majority, the ones that get to overlook the whole issue. As for the money issue blocking moving, how did you adopt if you didn’t have some money saved up? I don’t know very many ‘poorer’ families that adopt.
What do biracial families say about the race issues? I’d be curious to hear, would you live in a racially-monotonous neighborhood? What did your parents do for your identity?
I can only say that as a minority that grew up in a white neighborhood, my identity was pretty skewed and I only started learning about it at age 18, about racism in my 20s. I thought it was cool to be someone’s “favorite asian”. I resent that.
I never said people should just pick up and move to a more diverse area. My original point was that I don’t think it serves ANY child to grow up in an all-white, all-brown, all-black, etc. community. It’s not glib to say that people should give real thought about where they live. My husband and I have given up career opportunities (even before we had kids) because we were not comfortable with the idea of living in areas that were 96-98% white. If you are always around people who are more or less like you, then everyone else becomes “other”. This is not just an ethnic issue, but a social and class issue as well.
Also, I personally don’t think that “racially-matched” adoptions are ideal. It’s a racist conceit. Many of us are of mixed heritage, so there is no such thing as a “match” in the first place, and such an approach perpetuates the idea that we are somehow separate species and not part of the same human family.
Christina, you made some very good points.
I will say this though…many people do believe that there are different “species” within the human family.
This notion continues today. Furthermore, there are obvious differences in phenotype (physical appearance).
No one in this world is “pure”, no matter what they look like. But a lot of people would still like to believe that their bloodlines are “pure”.
I agree with your statement that racially-matched adoptions aren’t ideal. It IS indeed a racist concept. However, few black children can blend comfortably into a family where no one else looks like them. How can they be expected to fit into an all-white community?
As a biracial person of both black and white ancestry, I’ve experienced both sides of the coin.