Ok, how about some controversy for this fine Monday morning??

If you haven’t read it yet, the “buzz” in the world of transracial adoption is this article titled "A Mother Adopts and Discovers her Own Racism” by Lisa Lerner, the adoptive mother of a baby girl from India.

The article provokes discussion and heated ones at that (just check out all of the comments after the article for proof of that).

On one hand, Lisa is an adoptive mom who wrote a very open and honest article about her feelings during her transracial adoption. I believe that she admitted things that most people would not have admitted to close friends... more

Along with the blogs that they provide on a variety of topics, Adoption.com also provides a long list of message board adoption forums designated for the discussion of different types of adoption and different adoption related issues.

As the blogger for the Transracial adoption blog, I often check out the transracial adoption forum to see what people are talking about. Lately a discussion has come up that I thought was important enough to address on this blog.

The question was asked (I am summarizing), “Is it ever ok to be selective... more

Here is a great short film titled “A Girl Like Me” which is a youth documentary directed by Kiri Davis, a young black girl in America. The film is one of twelve on the “Media that Matters” website. Davis created an anthology of stories which she felt reflected the experience of being a black girl in the United States, for her high school literature class. For the project she conducted numerous interviews with other black teenaged girls, and she noted several repeating... more

In this recent post, I talked about a BBC photo article that told the heart breaking story of street children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The only comment I got on the post said, “I don't understand how anybody can be "against" international adoption when this is the reality of the world.” That comment really hit the proverbial nail on the head for me. The question deserves repeating.

How can people be against transracial or international adoption, when the realities of this world have children living alone in sewer drains? How can people be against transracial adoption when the realities of... more

The Washington Post had an article last week titled “The Young Apprentice” that highlights an African American couple who are raising their son in the United States. In the article the parents share their fears and their concerns about their son growing up to be a black man in the United States, and the ways that they were striving to prepare him for the realities that were inevitable as he grew older.

The parents talk about how life was for them as children and then as they grew up, and when and how they first felt racism in their lives. They talk about what they want their son to know... more

So, how much do you think you know about race? Do you consider yourself a pretty educated individual? Would you say that you are pretty knowledgeable on racial issues? Well, put what you think you know about race to the test, and you might be surprised to find out that you know a whole lot less than you thought you did. Seriously, take this quiz called the Race Literacy Quiz, and find out just how much you do not know when it comes to race.

Here is some basic info on the Race Literacy Quiz from the website,... more

Tonight I had a good discussion with my 11 year-old black daughter about race and racism. Like many conversations about adoption, race, birth parents, and other “deep” and important conversations that parents and children have, it was not planned by me, but brought up by her. While we do have conversations on these topics that I start, I have found that our best talks come when the kids have something on their mind and are in the mood to talk about it. I try to keep an “always open” attitude with them, so that they always know that they can talk to me about anything. Sometimes it is friends, sometimes it is birth families, sometimes it is Yu Gi Oh cards or Bratz dolls, and sometimes it is... more

It is a bit exciting to me to see so much about racial issues in the media spotlight this week. Earlier this week I posted about a survey that was a headline on Yahoo News about the different experiences white and minority students were having in regards to their educations in the United States. (if you missed these posts you can read them here and here).

Today, MSNBC has a front page story on what it is like to be... more

Ok, so in my last post I summed up the “Reality Check” survey by Public Agenda which showed some troubling differences in the ways that white students and minority students in the U.S. described their school experiences.

I thought that the survey was interesting, and or course upsetting that there would be such a difference. I do think that it would have been more enlightening if white students and minority students in the same schools had been interviewed for the survey however, because I don’t think that it is a surprise to anyone that issues like dropout rates, drugs, fighting,... more

A recent “Reality Check” survey by Public Agenda, a group that describes itself as “a nonpartisan opinion research and civic engagement organization helping Americans explore and understand critical issues since 1975,” found what it describes as “troubling differences in the way minority teens describe their school experiences compared to white pupils.” This was a headline story on Yahoo news this morning and the survey results can be read in full here. Students, parents, teachers and administrators nationwide were surveyed and asked if they felt that issues such as high dropout rates,... more