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Martin Luther King Day, Adoption, and Brotherhood

A few days ago, I posted this:

I want to expand that thought a little.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the other freedom fighters of the 50’s and 60’s changed America. But it’s even closer to home for me.

Martin Luther King said:

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

“We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”

“I have a dream that… one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

Dr. King’s life and words resonate with our family, because his ideology simply reiterates what Scripture has been telling us for thousands of years.

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,” Revelation 7:9

“So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Acts 10:34-35

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:12-13

The equality of all races is not a politically correct trend. It is a basic human issue. It is a spiritual value.

For our family, transracial adoption is a way we are able to tangibly live Dr. King’s dream of walking the earth as brothers.

Can I be blunt? We have no desire to whitewash our Black kids. We don’t want to save them from Blackness. They do not need to be rescued by a white family. That type of ignorance makes me sick to my stomach.

Instead, we are honored to have our children’s heritage mingled with our own. Our ideals are reshaped as we welcome their culture into our family landscape. They don’t conform to us. We all conform to each other. Isn’t that what true brotherhood is about?

On this Martin Luther King Day, I am grateful for the legacy and sacrifice of Dr. King. I’m grateful for the words he put around an uncompromisable value. I’m grateful that he helped lead the fight for brotherhood in America. And my heart is full with the brotherhood that we can live in our own home.

I don’t believe the fight is over, but I’m glad someone was brave enough to help it begin.

Thank you, Dr. King.

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So We’re a “BIG” Family

I typically try to avoid change. But then it happens, and it’s not so bad. I adjust.

The thought of having two babies made me a bit stressed. But the actual doing of it has been OK. I mean, I just keep making bottles and changing diapers and giving baths and ignoring house work.

And I don’t think about it too much. I rarely remember about how easy it was to leave the house. Or how I used to sleep all night. Or how, a couple of years ago, it was quiet during the day.

Except every once in a while, when something shines a spotlight on our reality.

The other day we were watching Jessie with the kids.

Jessie_castIf you’re wise and have protected your brain from the Disney Channel, I’ll explain: Jessie is the nanny for a multiracial family (you can see what sucked us in!) with a bunch of kids. Their home seems pretty chaotic, with over-the-top antics and ridiculous dilemmas every show.

As we watched, I realized something. To us, their family feels pretty crazy, with kids everywhere. They have four kids.

WE HAVE FOUR KIDS.

I pointed this out to the rest of my four-kid-family and everyone kind of paused in shock for a second. Because we saw them as this huge, chaotic family and we saw us as… OK, it can be pretty crazy around here too.

And I know we’re not the Duggars or anything. In fact, we’re small compared to many families in our adoption community.

But a lot has changed in just over a year. Sometimes it feels like survival is the only goal. But it’s worth it. It’s so, so worth it.

These little people, who have brought all the extra work, have also brought the extra joy. They’ve changed our perspective on life. They’ve pulled new levels of compassion and servanthood out of all of us. Our family wouldn’t be us without them.

The other day, I overheard Isaiah talking to Phoebe. He was “teaching” her to pray:

“First you say, ‘Thank you God.’ Then you ask Jesus to help you. Or you ask Him to help someone else. Or you can just talk about your day. You can talk to Jesus about anything.”

I’ll embrace the chaos for sweet moments like that.

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Hey White People, Let’s Talk About Ferguson

When we adopted our son, who is African American, I began to quietly read blogs, books and news related to his culture. A lot of new ideas opened up to me, many of which I’m only beginning to grasp. It’s humbling to learn how little I may understand the perspective and experiences of my fellow Americans.

In light of this, I’ve been very troubled by some of the responses of white people to the events transpiring in Ferguson, MO.

Our Black fellow-Americans are finding a voice to let the nation know that, to an extent, this is their every day. Every day they are afraid of being guilty until proven innocent. Every day they are afraid of suspicion based on their skin color or hairstyle. Every day they are afraid that they are viewed as less than human. Every day they are afraid someone will shoot first and ask questions later.

They are telling our nation this and saying, “Now do you see?”

Unfortunately, I don’t think we are listening very well.

Instead, we’re talking. We’re making excuses and dismissing their feelings as either paranoia or that they are “doing” something to bring this on themselves. We’re trying to point out the problems in the Black community (which is not our job). We’re trying to explain away what law enforcement’s intentions might have been (again, not our job).

I think we are tempted to diminish their concerns because we’ve never personally felt what Black Americans are describing to us. So we invalidate their experiences in our minds.

I flew on an airplane a month or so after September 11th. It was a scary. There were military personnel with machine guns stationed in the airports and you could be searched at many different points, even as you boarded the plane. Though I knew I’d done nothing wrong, I was nervous every time I came to a security checkpoint, because if I forgot I had a nail clippers in my purse, I might find myself getting strip-searched in a holding cell (at least that’s how my 18-year-old mind played it out).

Friends, this is what Black people are telling us they feel EVERY DAY. We need to listen.

As I see the pictures of the extreme military-style police presence in Ferguson, I keep thinking back to the civil rights movement, and how the police in Birmingham turned fire hoses and dogs on the peaceful protestors. When the images from that day hit the newspapers, it shocked many in our nation into action.

But I wonder how many others read the newspapers and thought, “Well, that’s their problem. They shouldn’t have been marching anyway. If they had just complied with law enforcement, they wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

And yet in the broad scope of history, we look back and think, “Why did people just stand by and let this happen? What was wrong with us?”

This is why we must listen more and speak less. We don’t understand the struggle, because we haven’t lived it. But we can humbly learn from those that are finding their voice, as the nations’ eye is on Missouri. Maybe we won’t know how to help solve the problem today or tomorrow. But if we listen and learn, our hope is that our country’s dark history doesn’t have to repeat itself.

Photo Credit: “Birmingham campaign dogs” by Bill Hudson, of the Associated Press. Licensed under Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of Birmingham campaign via Wikipedia.
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Under Your Skin

In case you missed it, we’re adopting! And our family is open to babies of any ethnicity. So on the way to school the other morning, I asked the kids what they would do if something mean was said about our babies having a different skin color than them.

Leah said indignantly, “I’d just tell them, ‘You be nice to OUR FAMILY.”

Doing a little positive reinforcement, I said, “Does skin color make us different or are we all the same on the inside?”

Isaiah piped up and said, “No. We’re different. Because of behavior.”

Inside, I started to freak out a little, thinking he had absorbed some wrong concept about certain races having certain behaviors. But before I pulled the car over for an emergency intervention, I asked him to clarify what he meant.

He explained that some people were naughty or mean on the inside and others were kind and nice. And that was what made us different. We are different on the inside.

Somehow, he turned a conversation about ethnicity into a conversation about people.

It made my original question feel childish. Like:

“Are we really talking about what people look like on the outside? That’s so last year.”

His answer seemed 100% bigger and truer than what I had asked. He completely bypassed “do looks matter” and went after what makes us… us. Our hearts.

And Isaiah is right. Who cares how your outsides look? What is your heart like?

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