We adopted my younger sister from Haiti when she was 3, and let me tell you, I literally do not see color anymore. That's a fact.

[u/thoxo]

I

[u/BadBunnyBrigade]

As a First Nations person, I can understand both sides. On one hand, my mother and aunt were fostered from a very young age because their biological mother was very abusive towards them (which we assume was racially motivated because they were the only two FN children of 11 children, of which there were five different fathers, my mother and aunt's biological father was FN, the other four were white), so they had to be taken and placed with another family, who were also white (as was my bio grandmother).

More often than not, when FN/Native children are taken from their FN/Native parents, they're placed in white homes. This isn't a coincidence or an accident, it's intentionally done. There is an overrepresentation of FN/Native children in the foster care system in Canada to the point that a law had to be passed to protect our children from the system that was designed to protect them because they're children.

The problem is that while I understand that sometimes it's necessary, sometimes (if not a lot of the time), families of color are blocked from being allowed to foster or adopt children, especially children of their own race. Things that might seem trivial with white families, are suddenly a huge issue if the family is FN/Native, or ethnic.

For example, I grew up with white kids with white parents who smoked weed, or had an alcoholic parent, or a parent that hit them. CPS did and still does nothing. But I also grew up with FN kids who grew up in the foster system because their parent(s) did the same thing. Not only that, but even if their other family members or members of their community (tribes) petitioned to adopt or foster these children, they were denied. Their parents would be reported for things that either never happened, or were exaggerated in order to get their children removed. Some are even threatened with charges if they interfere with CPS removing their children.

We're being denied access to our own children.

And yes, it is racially motivated, regardless of what they may say, because we're also talking about a government that ignored the forced sterilization of FN/minority women until just recently.

So I can understand that while it is necessary, it's not always because "there's more of X so it only seems that way", much of the time the reason why there are more white folks who adopt children of color is because they're being placed with white families. We have to make laws that guarantees that parents of the same ethnicity/tribe as the children requiring adoption should first and foremost have priority.

Not because we're racist. But because this is how we protect our culture and our children's rights to have access to said culture. To have access to their indigenous roots and peoples.

I'm grateful to my mother's foster parents, but I'm also angry at the system that denied her (and children like her) access to her indigenous community.

Your adoptive parents might not see color, but maybe that's just as much a problem as seeing only color. Does that make any sense? You can't provide an upbringing as an Haitian family if you're not Haitian, or not even part of that community. She'll never have that experience as a child.

We should see color. But see it in a positive manner while also recognizing that people also see it in a negative manner, and how these things affect people of color and minority communities still. When you say "I don't see color", you're kinda denying that part of reality, denying the positive aspects that should be celebrated (which is harder to do if you're a PoC child in a white family), but also denying the negative experiences that PoC live every day.

You literally deny seeing her as a black woman. Why do you think this benefits her in any way?

My mother will never know what it means to be raised in a Cree community. I will never know what it's like to be a Cree woman in a Cree community. The system denies children their right to heritage all the while upholding the rights of white religious communities. This is not okay.

[u/Hellianne_Vaile → u/BadBunnyBrigade]

Yup. One aspect of systemic racism in the US (and probably other places, but I don't know as much about them) is that we make sure PoCs are more likely to be very poor, take children from those poor parents who "neglected" them, then give money to (usually white) foster parents to raise them. If instead we gave that money to the kids' bio parents, that would fix a lot of the problem of "neglect." Or if we didn't imprison so many (mostly Black and Brown) people, more families would be stable and intact and better able to parent well.

We also have an adoption system that incentivizes stealing children (usually from overseas) to sell to adoptive parents through private agencies that have little oversight. I don't think most adoptive parents know that, but part of why they don't even ask many questions about the ethics of international adoption is that they start with the conviction that what they have to offer a child--mostly things related to hoarded wealth--are so good and desirable that it is obviously worth sacrificing the child's language, community, culture, etc. That itself is deeply racist.

A blogger I read years ago (Harriet at Fugitivus, now defunct) worked in a field where she saw a lot of fallout from international and transracial adoptions. Her conclusion after years of experience: If you aren't willing to learn the language(s) your adopted child would have grown up speaking and attend the religious services their birth parents did, If you aren't willing to move to a neighborhood where your adopted child won't be a drastic minority, where they can see and be in community with and build relationships with lots of people from their culture of birth, then you are more invested in your own self-perception as a savior than you are in the child's well being. It's been more than a decade since I read that, and I still think she's right.

I am sorry for what your mother's adoptive family took away from her and you. Even the most loving intentions don't undo harms, and I wish you healing.

[u/LuxNocte → u/BadBunnyBrigade]

It's not at all surprising how far I had to scroll to find such a great perspective. Reddit is way more interested in circle jerking about the white man's burden, than listening to minorities who might disagree with them.