On the heels of discussing Palin's and McCain's ties to special needs children and international adoption, I wanted to mention a potential positive of Obama's presidency for some adoptive families, as described in a recent post on Anti-Racist Parent, "The Black Family In America: Not Gone The Way Of The Dodo Bird Yet."
"There is one thing that I know for sure Barack Obama can help do that his opponent cannot: 'normalize' the black family in America’s eyes.
Last night, viewers of the Democratic National Convention spotted what is the rarest of things, according to media and statistics: a traditional, loving, black family. Wait…wait…I know that families come in all different varieties, and that families comprised of a single parent, same-sex parents, parents of different races and groups of extended relations, are as loving and valuable as the traditional model we insist on calling 'the all-American family.' It’s just that I rarely see families like mine and the ones my husband and I grew up in on TV and in pop culture. (Clair and Cliff, where did you go?) It has been decided that relations between black men and women are dysfunctional, that all black women are unmarried and unmarriageable, that black children don’t have fathers....
I probably shouldn’t need validation of normalcy from the culture at large, but sometimes that validation makes me feel good in spite of myself. It’s hard being invisible. The Obamas show the world that black families are still here. I am here."
Again, to me, this is a positive that transcends politics. I think anyone invested in racial equality (which would include the myriads of multiracial families made so through international and domestic adoption) would appreciate the value of a loving, successful African-American family being in such a prominent position in the public eye. Like the blogger notes, so many black families exist who defy misguided popular notions (e.g., that all black men abandon their families or are in prison), yet their representation in popular culture remains scant.
"If you watched television before 'Cosby,' you'd think that we talk about being black and poor all day long. What he [Cosby] did was simply present people as black; he didn't have to claim it for them....
The brilliant thing Cosby did was to put race and economic issues on the back burner so we could see a black family dealing with all the things black people deal with the same as all other people. It was the first time most of us as black people have felt a sense of identity with and resemblance to the kind of values we have in common, our relationships with our parents and our siblings."
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