Category: Race and Diversity Page 1 of 2

On Transracial Adoption

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On January 16, 2023

In Adoption, Parenting, Race and Diversity, Re-Entry to America

There was a lot I didn’t know when I adopted my children.

Since then, I’ve wondered a hundred times if we did right by our children when we adopted them. Adoption heals a wound, but I underestimated the depth of the wound and overestimated the ease of healing it. 

Several months ago, I was asked to do a webinar on my advice for raising adopted children overseas. I turned it down. I can’t give advice on this because I’m still raising my children. Ask me again in ten years, and I’ll see if I have advice. Maybe only once I’ve heard what my adult children have to say about it.

For the bulk of their childhoods, Haven of Peace Academy shielded my children from the pain. They were different by being raised by white parents, but lots of children at HOPAC were different for lots of other reasons. Most were born in one country and raised in another, many were biracial, almost all knew what it felt like to navigate various cultures. My children were stuck between worlds, but so were all their classmates. 

I ripped my children from Tanzania and dropped them into America in the spring of 2020, when the world had shattered into uncertainty, and racial anger that had festered for decades was exploding to the surface. We lived like hobos that spring with no place to call home, and the night in June that we arrived at my in-law’s house, there was a curfew over all of greater Los Angeles because of George Floyd rioting.

I wondered what world I had brought my Black children into. 

Imagine telling your children about the things that people who look like you have done to people who look like them in the country you brought them to live in.

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Mothering African Hair

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On September 8, 2021

In Adoption, Parenting, Race and Diversity, Third Culture Kids

Of all the things a new mother stresses about, her kids’ hair is usually not one of them. But for me, it was.

I felt an invisible weight upon me that if I was to be a good mom to my girls, I must get their hair right. This was not a completely imagined pressure. I learned early on that in both African and African-American cultures, well-maintained hair is important. I already knew my competence as a white mother to two black daughters would be questioned in many ways. So I was determined to prove myself capable of at least caring for their hair.

I read Black hair blogs. I watched YouTube videos. I even bought and read a book on the subject. I tried a ridiculous number of hair products. Yet still, I was anxious. It was harder than I thought, and despite my best efforts, I could not turn myself into a Black hair artist. 

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Why Did It Take War to End Slavery, and Not Revival?

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On January 18, 2021

In Race and Diversity

Why did it take a war to end slavery in America, and not revival?

Are you familiar with the two Great Awakenings? In the 18th and 19th centuries, hundreds of thousands of Americans were turning to Christ. It wasn’t just lip service; society was transformed by Christianity. The Industrial Revolution, the modern missions movement, and even our unique political system are all credited to these revivals.

Yet slavery carried on, unchallenged. Human beings, made in the image of God, were bought and sold because of the color of their skin. Children were torn away from their parents, strong men were forced to work themselves to death, young women were beaten at the slightest whim. Even while Christianity was sweeping the nation.

Since the Great Awakenings brought about such stirring influence in politics, business, and individual character, why wasn’t there nationwide repentance over slavery?

Sure, many slaves were part of these revivals. And some abolitionist movements were awakened. But it wasn’t enough. Because it didn’t take revival to end slavery in America, it took war.

Yet even the war didn’t change hearts. Not long after the Civil War, Christians all over America enacted laws and policies that kept black people dehumanized, brutalized, terrorized for another one hundred years. While millions of Americans sang hymns and pledged allegiance to the Christian flag and sent missionaries to foreign lands, black Americans were being lynched in front of immense cheering crowds of men, women, and their children.

This shakes me to my core.

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Ideas Are Always More Important Than Battles

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On October 22, 2020

In How Americans Think, Living Like a Missionary, Race and Diversity

In 1865, soon after Lincoln’s assasination, anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner wrote, “Ideas are always more important than battles.” The context was Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, which is now known as one of the most famous speeches of all time. 

Sumner said this:
“That speech, uttered at the field of Gettysburg…and now sanctified by the martyrdom of its author, is a monumental act. In the modesty of his nature he said ‘the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.’ He was mistaken. The world at once noted what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech. Ideas are always more important than battles.”

This election feels like a battle. Both sides seek to kill and destroy. Friendships broken, people leaving churches, harsh words posted online that would never be spoken in person. 

I keep hearing the cry of, “But lives are at stake!” Ironically, both sides say this. Unfortunately neither side’s platform encompasses all the lives Christians should care about. Unborn lives. Black lives. Refugee lives. There’s also the environment, which Christians are commanded to steward well. Or the issue of poverty, where each side sees a different strategy (wealth redistribution or creation?). I see Christians drawing the line in the sand, hurling vicious accusations against the other, both sides decrying the other for being immoral, unChristian, uncaring. We are being forced to take a side, and in doing so, fracturing our values and our souls. 

We are faced with impossible choices in this election. No matter who wins, Christians lose something that should be important to them. No matter who wins, we will still have work to do. 

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My Problem Goes Much Deeper Than Racism

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On October 16, 2020

In Race and Diversity

I’m white, educated, and American. Some say I therefore must be racist.

I say my problem is much worse. 

I might give a good impression on the outside, but you can’t see the number of times I’ve truly believed that I am better than you. Sometimes that might be because you are a different race or ethnicity than me, and I think my race or culture is more effective than yours. Or maybe you’re white too, and I still think I’m better because you made a life choice that makes me feel more moral than you. Maybe I assume I have a better perspective than yours.

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