A recent Chicago Tribune article, titled “Interracial twins bring a new dimension to the American Family” talks about families who through adoption, end up with “virtual twins”, or children of the same age, who happen to be of different races.

The article focuses on the Goering family, whose first two children are Jenna and Sam. From the article: “Seven years ago, they entered their parents' lives on the same day. And yet, Jenna and Sam aren't twins. He was born in the U.S., the biological son of computer consultants Jody and Addison Goering. She was abandoned six months earlier in rural China, and first introduced... more

Last night I watched the Anderson Cooper 360 special for World Refugee Day on CNN with Angelina Jolie titled “Angelina Jolie, Her Mission and her Motherhood”. The interview special with Jolie was just a part of the coverage of World Refugee Day by CNN. You can check out this link for full information.

On his blog, Anderson wrote about Jolie after the interview, “A lot of celebrities have causes and show up to talk about them when cameras are around, but the truth is that Angelina Jolie knows what she is talking... 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

On Friday my “un-photographable” post was on an orphan boy that we met in the park in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Well, this morning the BBC has a photo article titled “Underground Children” that tells the plight of homeless children in Ethiopia.

These children are surviving by living underground in horrible conditions. They spend their days looking for scraps of food, working odd jobs to earn small bits of money, running from police officers, trying to avoid those in the world... 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