So Far, So Good

At the Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns Midwinter Gathering last weekend, I got to talk briefly with two friends who are also white parents of black children, though both of them have children much older than mine. One thing we talked about was the reaction of black people in public places to our having black children.

This is something I've heard a lot of stories about, about strange black people saying negative things to white parents. All three of us had heard the stories. But none of us had experienced it.

In my experience, black people either ignore us, or, if they're baby-lovers, admire and chat with Yehva without necessarily saying much to me, maybe tossing a "she's cute!" or "have a good day!" at me as they move on. This is comparable to how white people treat us in public.

Once in a restaurant, two black women took a picture of baby Yehva because they thought their mother would want to see how cute she was.

I've never had a black person comment on how well--or poorly--I've done Yehva's hair.

I got the most direct commentary from black women at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival last year. One woman spent most of a shuttle ride giving me unsolicited advice about how to care for Yehva's hair; I knew most of it already because there are a lot of resources for adoptive parents these days, including my favorite e-book, Her Special Hair, written by a black woman specifically for white parents who might not have experience with black hair at all.

At the same time, I appreciated this woman taking the time to talk to me about hair care, especially since she did it in a very friendly and non-judgmental way. My friend Ahavia was saying that there just weren't the resources available when she first took custody of her daughter, or when she was doing foster care. She didn't even know what "ashy" meant, she said, or how to plait hair! A bus ride with a friendly, informative black woman would probably have been very welcome to her.

This same woman ended our shuttle ride by taking me aside for a big squeezy hug and saying, "Thank you for loving her." Which is a crazy thing to be thanked for. "As if I could help myself," I said back, but I know she didn't just mean love. She meant care for, I think, in all the meanings of that phrase.

She hadn't asked me anything about how Yehva came to us, and didn't know any of the story or the situation of Yehva's birthparents. So I know she wasn't judging our specific situation relative to where Yehva would have been if her birthmother hadn't placed her for adoption. But it also seemed to me that she thought of Yehva as belonging in part to her; this is why she could thank me for my love of Yehva, because her own concern and caring for a little black girl made her grateful to see that girl being loved. She felt she had a stake in Yehva's well-being (and in the condition of her hair).

That hug meant a lot to me. I think that, even if I sometimes get negative reactions from some black people, that hug will help me deal with them more lovingly. Because I think the negative reactions and the hug come from the same place: the concern that black people have for the community's children, and for the well-being of the whole community; the hope that they have for strength, wholeness, happy lives.

If one black person looks at us and says, "Thank God that little girl found her way to a loving mother in a healthy family," and another one looks at us and says, "That is an example of how the black community is weakened by the adoptions of children of color by white families," they're both expressing the same care and concern, for Yehva, for all black children, for black communities.

And, you know, I think they're both right. I am glad Yehva found her way to us, both for her sake and ours. But I would be glad to see the black community in Chicago--where Yehva was born--so strong and functional that every child born there was already in a loving, healthy family.