http://www.rethinkingschools.org
Quarterly magazine and other publications committed to equity and to the vision that public education is central to the creation of a humane, caring, multiracial democracy

http://www.teachingforchange.org
Provides teachers and parents with the tools to transform schools into centers of justice where students learn to read, write and change the world

http://www.edchange.org
Articles, workshops, and consulting dedicated to equity and justice in schools and society.

http://www.tolerance.org
Founded by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Teaching Tolerance provides educators with free educational materials that promote respect for differences and appreciation of diversity in the classroom and beyond. NOTE: I strongly dislike the word ‘tolerance’ when used to describe an exemplary relationship between differing groups of people. However, Teaching Tolerance offers educational resources with the ‘softest’ approach of the links listed here—which may be where your child’s school is able to start.

Now, if that same family actively maintains ignorance / distance towards the cultures that bring such diverse gifts to their world then that would be hypocritical..

I’m also a fan of first-person accounts - essays, stories, photographs that show the reality on the ground behind many dry-to-the-average-student history “facts.”

I hear you both on the Thanksgiving myth (and that’s what they are, myths). I am going to go off the first time my kid gets a “headdress” assignment, I know. For younger kids this is where the Net can come into play. There are links to lists of Thanksgiving myths out there, and Wampsutta’s speech (that he didn’t get to actually give) to Mayflower descendants in 1970 should really be required reading for middle-school students. [http://www.blackcommentator.com/207/207_day_of_mourning_wampsutta.html]

Fiction books, when done right, were great supplements to my white-washed history. Mildred Taylor’s awesome series of novels and short stories (I just found out about there! WOOT!) set in the Jim Crow south was helpful to me in understanding the Great Depression, Black Codes and Jim Crow, education disparities, interracial relationships pre-Loving V. Virginia, Northern racism, rural farming and land ownership issues, voting rights and judicial system biases, sharecropping and migrant worker conditions, and so on. What was truly helpful is that my US history classes always rushed through the Depression and the decades before in an effort to get to WWII. This helped fill in the gaps.

Wow. I didn’t realize how much I got out of those stories until just now. And I haven’t read the 2 first books in years.

First of all, like the above comments, I appreciate you sharing your family’s story so candidly and with such feeling. From a narrative pov, I think your “story” (I’m a lit prof) was engaging and entertaining and more to the point of the collection/this website it got to the heart of the issues that you wanted to discuss about transracial adoption, difficult conversations about race with your children, and the ongoing conversations about race that evolve as your child grow from elementary school age into adulthood.

Two points of constructive feedback:

*I llike the “coda” if you will about the two sledgehammers–I’m wondering if, perhaps, you could insert it into your piece around where you write about the “difficult” middle-school period of Ashley telling her bi-racial story. It could, perhaps, fit into the fact that Ashley’s understanding of race and of being adopted, transracially, did indeed evolve from the 3rd grade anecdote, including some anger issues that you had previously anticipated. I think that many transracial/adopted parents will understand this all too well (actually any parent will understand the years of teen anger).

*The description of you laughing at Ashley was both understandable but also as an outsider reading in, confusing and a bit harsh. Perhaps fleshing out that scene might help readers to understand your reaction, because certainly there seems like there might indeed be a real justification for Ashley telling you that you don’t understand because you aren’t black. Yes, you can understand because you are her father, because you are an actively anti-racist person living and pracicing what you preach. But whether she said it at 6, 16 or 36, it’d be true–there are things you can’t understand–or perhaps more accurately *FEEL* because you are white. There’s nothing wrong with that–there are things Ashley won’t be able to feel because she doesn’t have access to white privilege.

But that last part hit me a bit, because as a non-white person (I’m Asian American) I am assumed to have honorary-white status by some people but I don’t know waht it’s like to be white and I never pretend to (and the honorary white status goes out the window during any times of crises with an Asian nation–not that I believe it really exists with any true currency). And others say they know what it’s like to be Asian American, but truthfully, no one but another Asian American person could feel the specfic things I feel or understand them in the way that my racial lens has been reflecting my experiences.

That, again, doesn’t negate your own anti-racist work or others, but from a reader’s pov, more fleshing out of that scene and some brief sentence or phrase that does explain that while Ashley’s feelings are valid they also seemed mired, in that point, in teen angst, would help this reader.

But really, let me just finally say congratulations on writing such a wonderful piece. Writing is tough–it’s hard and painful and doing it so well (as you have) is a real achievement.

“Why is anyone adopting a child of colour if they are not already deeply involved in anti-racism work? And being involved in anti-racism work means already having this sort of knowledge. When you are thinking of adopting a child of colour is far too late to get involved in anti-racism work. ”

Good questions, but the fact is, white people ARE adopting children of color. And many people say “love has no color, race doesn’t matter.”

My hope is to move these people from that way of thinking to anti-racist ways of thinking. That’s the point of the list. Whether or not all transracial adopters “should” already know this, the fact is, they don’t. Part of my own work in anti-racism is trying to change that.

I remember seeing Roots as a child - and how it affected me. I cried, I was hurt inside, I hated those mean “white” people, except for the young couple that had a conscious. When it came back on t.v recently, I told my husband that I wanted our children to watch it. He thought it was too violently vivid and they may have nightmares - he felt they were too young - 6 years old.

I, too, have read many books about being “different” and embracing differences and similarities. I am trying to introduce the topic of “slavery” and “injustices”, this is tough because I don’t want to much of my hurt and anger to trickle down to them.

Working in a low income school district seeing the social injustice done to our brown and black babies still make me hurt inside. Thank you for sharing your story. I will have the “when is a good time to watch “Roots” conversation with my husband again .”

The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism by Debra Van Ausdale and Joe R. Feagin

Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption edited by Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Opara and Sun Yung Shin

Beyond Good Intentions by Cheri Register (international adoption focus)

Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White by Frank Wu

I’m also curious if anyone’s read Jaiya John’s Black Baby White Hands?

A few responses…

Rachel- I love what you wrote. Of course Ashley has her own stories and always has. That’s the kind of thing that should seem obvious to me, but didn’t. Interestingly, I’ve asked Ashley twice if she wanted to read the piece and she said “yes” but put it off… Someday I’ll be interested to hear what she has to say.

Duffy- more multi-racial kids than black or white? Where do you live? I’d have to guess Cali or NYC, but either way that’s still amazing.

Casey- The good publisher (Corwin) let everyone who submitted a personal story hold their own copyright.

Michelle- The author is actually including a whole chapter of personal stories from multi-racial adults. As for my language describing Ashley - your point is well taken. I could easily have written a piece just about the perceptions of her beauty. I should edit this some to balance that one trait with others.

Thanks everyone!

Keep up the great work!