My Take...

Hopefully you took a minute to read the article and blog posting from my Wednesday post.  Obviously, my view of being adopted comes mainly from an international perspective because that's my reality, but I've grown up around and know many domestically adopted children/adults.  There's definitely a commonality there...we're each adopted, but there are definitely some different perspectives or things to think about between international and domestic adoptions.  Although culture is a big difference, it actually isn't as rare for an African American child to be adopted by an all-white family now as it used to be.  We saw that on the big screen recently in The Blind Side with Sandra Bullock.  But, there are also the realities of closed and open adoptions and being able to perhaps more easily look for and find one's birth parents.  It's a complicated and different process for every adoptee.  I could go off on several tangents here, but will stick to the article and blog posting I posted on Wednesday.  

The article gave a very insightful and real look at life growing up as an African American little boy with two white parents.  We all know that racism has and to some degree still exists in our society today.  It takes education, not ignorance; compassion, not selfishness; and respect, not narrow mindedness to overcome racism and prejudice.  We've come a long way, but it does still exist.  What I thought most profound in the article was when he said that the white people calling him names, slurs and such looked like his parents, so it was ironic that the same race that opened their hearts and home to him was also the race that was trying to degrade him.  I can relate to a degree on that.  Not that I've had many Asians yelling out slurs to me because in general that's not their nature, but their judgment, distance and avoidance has spoken volumes over the years.

So, it's really not just an adoption issue of accepting people for who they are...that's a societal issue that we all face everyday.  Adoption just throws a little kink in the discussion.  It's really about acceptance of one another.  Acceptance and respect of our fellow man.  If we all had a little more of that and lived that every day of our lives we might just make a change in the world...one person at a time.  BE the change!!

Enjoy watching the Super Bowl (those in the U.S.) and have a very blessed week ahead!!!