Below is an introductory essay that I wrote in 2005. A version of it was published in Adoption Today, December/January 2006. It tells how I came to decide that I wanted to adopt an African American child despite many reservations, chief among them, knowing very little about African American culture. Our agency did not provide culture based parenting classes nor did they suggest any resources to prepare us for raising our children to be proud, confident and loving black men and women. At the time I was steeped in a color-blind view of life, one which of course is false.
I wish I had had access to resources and other individuals in similar situations so that we could better address the issues that face families like ours.
I established www.blackchildrenwhiteparents.com (under construction) and http://blackchildrenwhiteparents.blogspot.com/ and the Black Children White Parents Facebook page to help parents help other parents to raise proud, confident and loving black men and women. Because as much as many in America would like to believe in a color-blind society, when they look at our children they see children of color, and when our children grow up, they will be seen as black men and black women.
While we may have taken different paths to becoming parents of African American children we have similiar goals for our families. Please use these forums by commenting freely and regularly as we work together to build a powerful resource for our families.
Warmly, Erich
Brown Eyed Babies
by
Erich P. Ditschman
copyright 2005
It was in freshman band class at the beginning of the school year that I said one of the most hurtful things I would every say. I, like many of my new classmates, arrived at high school with an inflated ego and a sense of pride in my middle school alma mater. In our young minds we thought that most of who we were had been shaped over the last three years. The middle school was what we knew and when threatened its memory was to where we quickly returned. A disparate group of newly minted teenagers under the constant threat of perceived and real humiliation due to unknown customs, rituals, hallways and upperclassman exercising their hard earned familiarity with these, will gel quickly. But before we gel, we feel the need to swing our proverbial plastic swords of middle school pride at one another hoping that when they connect they reverberate among our displaced classmates, echoing back a sense of identity.
It was on a beautiful late summer day while I was sitting on one side of the band room with the other saxophone players, that a drummer from the country middle school standing on the far side of the room rattled his sword in the hopes of establishing a new comfort level by connecting with his old classmates who were scattered across the room. He was very animated as he boasted of his previous school's prowess in sports and music and nearly everything under the sun. Perhaps in fear of losing my own identity, I responded to his challenge by retrieving my own rubber saber from its scabbard and stood in defense of my city middle school's, in retrospect, meaningless reputation. I thrust my sword in parry and out of my mouth came, "sit down you damn porch monkey." After hearing that hateful statement my black combatant sheathed his plastic sword and sat down in his chair. To my dismay, and unknown to me at the time, the few echoes that I heard in response to my actions firmly established that I was on the wrong side of the "color line."
Now in my forties, as I reflect upon this tragic event, I can find no reasonable explanation as to why I chose to attach the color of this young man's skin rather than his boasting. It was cheap, ineffective and cruel. It took reading Sharon E. Rush's book, Living Across the Color Line and her personal enlightenment as a scholar and as a white mother of a black daughter, and my forty years of experiences, to help me begin to see that I have been a benefactor of white privilege all my life. In her analysis, Rush uses Peggy McIntosch's definition of white privilege - "an invisible package on unearned assets which [a white person] can count on cashing in each day, but about which [she[ was meant to remain oblivious," as one of the three concepts important in the struggle for racial equality (Rush, Sharon, E. 2000. Rowman&Littlefield Publishers. p.7). The other two being domination and subordination.
At the time I didn't know the young man's economic status though he was literally wearing it on his tattered sleeve. At that age I thought I understood what a bigot was and didn't think that I was one. I was raised by a single mother with an understanding of tolerance for people who were different than us. In our tiny two bedroom duplex on the south side of town, we never used the "n-word." To emphasize this tolerance I can point to our diverse neighborhood, so to speak. There was one black couple that lived five houses down the road. I would learn their names as I started tenth grade and struggled through Mrs. Crittendon's geometry class. Mr. Crittendon was an administrator at the cross town high school. Of course it never occurred to me then, but I believe they were the only professionals living in the neighborhood. Looking back, perhaps it was a testament to the difficulty of achieving economic parity one hundred years after the concept of economic independence was espoused as the most promising road to racial equality by Booker T. Washington, that this young black couple lived in a predominantly white (a few Hispanic families lived there too) working class neighborhood across the street from a dirty brass foundry (Washington, Booker, T. 1899. The Case of the Negro. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 84, 577-587.
Growing up I was told not to use the Lord's name in vein and not to refer to black people with the "n-word." Of course I now know the mere defining of people by the color of their skin, "black people," firmly established the concepts of domination and subordination unknowingly in my young developing mind. Unfortunately not using the "n-word" was consistently being negatively reinforced by my grandpa and his brothers and sister who growing up in the lily white rural poor farmlands of Michigan's thumb were raised only on the Lord's name in vein axiom. My grandma who is first generation Italian and who arrived in the Midwest via New Jersey was similarly raised. Of course she did not take the Lord's name in vain, but as a "good" catholic she would not let any "polack, "kike," "spic," or "nigger" get in the way of her attending Sunday Mass, not even if he had just been hit by the bus on which she was riding and lay broken and bleeding in the street like Christ on the Cross. In such an instance she would probably rise from her seat in the front and demand that the driver call for another bus so that she would not be late.
This lily white bubble of their youth followed my relatives as they migrated to the city as adults. They found not need to associate with people who didn't look like them unless it was absolutely necessary, which it never was. They could easily choose to acquire all the goods and services they needed within their created environment. When my mother and I moved back to Michigan from the East coast when I was seven years old, it was within this "protected" environment that I would continue to mature. To me it was obvious, whether from the Midwest or the East Coast, my relatives never had meaningful relationships with people of color. Because of this, there just were no black people in my life. It was in the loving arms of my family that I figured that as long as I didn't use the "n-word," in spite of my elder's proclivity for it, then I was not a racist.
During middle school football I met Richard, a large black kid who played beside me on the line as right tackle. At 12-years old, with Richard, I had my first relationship with a person of African American Heritage. Through this relationship I unknowingly embraced the philosophy of a color blind society. To me, Richard was a football player just like me. He was my teammate and his blackness didn't matter. Unfortunately, mu relationship with Richard and other black teammates did nothing to keep me from landing on the wrong side of the color line in that band room a short two years later. I still had much to learn about racial equality.
Twenty-six years after that fateful day, I am only now slowly and painfully coming to grips with what it must of felt like for that young man who was full of excitement at finally becoming a high school student. He was so excited that he was nearly dancing as he shouted out the only words he knew to express his pride - that being the accomplishments of his alma mater. Perhaps he was so excited that it probably didn't occur to him that the blackness of his ski9n would be the first thing to be noticed by the sea of white faces who were now his classmates. His blackness and enthusiasm would evoke the most notorious of black stereotypes, the black faced minstrel. That is what I saw. This vision was sharp enough to cleave through my colorblindness and expose my true racist self. My knee jerk reaction came from a place so foreign to me, yet so reflexively and naturally,. I didn't scream out the only racial epitaph that I knew, rather I chose the one that came to mind first.
The summer before my freshman year two of my close friends and I had discovered the soundtrack to the Broadway production of "Hair." We played that eight-track over and over until the tape was distorted to the point that the music was unrecognizable, but not until we savored each new word it added to our naively limited vocabulary. These were juicy, spicy words that were considered taboo to us. Words like opium, hashish, fellatio, cunnilingus, jigaboo, porch monkey, and little black sambo. Because the play was a theatrical mirror reflecting the state of society at a certain time, I don't hold the producers responsible for my irresponsible use of any of the words. As my friends and I were carefully memorizing each lyric as if we would be auditioning for the regional production the next day, little did I realize how accurately I wa sbeing portrayed in this reflection.
It is only now as the father of two African American children that I can begin to imagine the pain I caused that day. Not only did I cause the young man pain, but pain must have been felt by every black kid in the room and by those in the room who understood the needs of racial equality, and most likely felt by those in the school who soon after would hear of the event. It didn't matter that the young man had most probably been called "porch monkey" in the past. It didn't matter whether he heard the epitaph once or a thousand times before - each time he heard it, the word must have sliced like a knife cutting out pieces of his hard earned self-esteem and serving them on a platter to be gleefully devoured by the racists who attack with such abhorrent language. I don't know how I will respond to my beautitful black son when he first comes home asking me, "what is a "porch monkey" and why did my friend call me one?" I don't know what I will say when my beautiful black daughter tells me that she was called the "n-word" while she played with friends on the swings at school. Not until my tears join those of my beloved children's faces upon their realization of how cruel people can be, will I begin to scratch the surface of what that young man must have felt when he sat down on that fall day that had started for him with so much promise. I will have only scratched the surface of what he must have felt every time his young soul was sliced with a derogatory word; what he must continue to feel as he hears these words today as a forty-year old father; or must feel when these words are directed as his eight beautiful black daughters; and finally, what he must feel just knowing that these words are still being used daily in an attempt to erode the self-esteem of anyone who is black.
Seven year ago, Andria and I sat down with what felt like the one hundredth form to be filled out from the adoption agency. Unlike the ninety-nine proceeding forms this was the one which would memorialize our moment of truth. Up until this form, we had passed the rigorous home study which held us to be economically, socially, physically, and psychologically ready to parent. By this time we had as best as we could reconciled that we would never have biological children reflecting what we felt were out Teutonic good looks of blue eyes, pale skin, freckles and in my case straight blond hair and in Andria's, curly dark hair. We told the agency that we were through grieving our failed in vitro fertilization, numerous ineffective inseminations, and many miscarriages. We didn't tell them that we were still healing from the failure of being able to control our world as we felt we once did when we naively thought we could neatly sandwich the birth of our first child between my wife's second and third years of law school. Before we had received this form our white social worker explained that adopting a Caucasian baby at birth could take a long time and that if we were willing to adopt a baby of color we could be parents much more quickly. It was this discussion that started us on the idea of parenting a on-white baby. We had expected our first child when Andria became pregnant ten years earlier and were more than ready to adopt our baby.
The form had questions querying numerous adoption possibilities such as what type of medical conditions and what type of ethnicity we would be willing to accept. Among them, was the question,
"Are you willing to adopt a black child?"
There it was in black and white, if you will, a question that may as well asked, "are you a racist?" PErhaps some might argue that it merely asked, "are you a realist?" The question certainly evoked many feelings, the foremost being - in my thirty-two years of life what skills did I have to be a father let alone the father of a person who would one day be a black man? The answer to this question had been debated for decades by those with much more knowledge on the subject than me. Black social workers had been adamant for years that the best family arrangement for a black child is with black parents. White social worker responded that of course that would be ideal but what do we do with all the black parents when there is a dearth of black people willing to parent them? Eventually the adoption of black babies by white parents became fairly routine and that is why we had a choice. together we stared at the form, each wondering silently as to whether we could parent a black child. When we reached the question concerning an Asian child we both quickly agreed that of course we could. When we reached the question concerning a Hispanic child we both quickly agreed that of course we could. But when asked about parenting a black child we hesitated. Our hesitation made no sense. Why did a shade of darker pigmentation cause us to baulk? We were shown pictures and profiles of parents who adopted children with an ethnic heritage other than their own and the families appeared very happy regardless of the color of their children. But each time I saw black skin juxtaposed on white fingers it made me questions whether it would be fair to raise a black child in our mostly white environment.Our hesitation wasn't due to an inability to have meaningful relationships with people of African American Heritage. Following that regrettable day in the high school band room, I developed a few heartfelt bonded relationships with people of African American heritage, though, up until recently those few would be the only ones. Of these, the most significant one was with that young man to whom I had been so hurtful. Perhaps subconsciously I realized that I had made a grave mistake. Or, maybe we connected due to our shared love of music. For reasons I can't now recall, we became fast friends in the ensuing weeks. For this I remain forever grateful to Kevin for forgiving me. A few years after high school Andria and I would become the godparents of Kevin's beautiful daughter, Kourtney. A year later, he would be by my side when I married my high school sweetheart, Andria. The weeding procession we led by his eldest daughter, three year old Kristy, who was our flower girl.
I believe some of our hesitation was trivially selfish. For example, we would have to learn how to care for a hair type very different than our own. We also felt a sense of entitlement. Since we could not have a biological child, which we would have accepted regardless of birth defects or medical issues, we felt that with this form we regained a small amount of control. We could now choose what type of ethnicity weht which we would be most comfortable. For numerous reasons, which now as a father of black children are irrelevant, we decided that we would not accept a full African American baby, but would readily adopt an inter-racial baby.
We were present at our son's birth due to the graciousness of his birth mother. After saying, "hello" to her son she gently handed him to Andria. Together we looked at our baby with full head of soft black hair and his beautiful peanut butter colored skin and instantly fell in love. The day of his birth I realized that it is love that cements the bonds of family and necessarily biology. It is a simple concept but one that is often difficult to understand because it pales in comparison to the importance placed in our society on biological family ties. This mainstream of thought on biological ties was reinforced for me when it was pointed out by my grandmother that I was the last person in our family with the surname, Ditschman. What a burden to a twelve year old. If I did not procreate at some point in the future, the Ditschman bloodline would come to an end. Of course to get to this point, considering the many siblings my grandfather had, a number of Ditschman's hadn't held up their end of the deal. Regardless as to whether or not I go the short end of the stick, I was not going to let my grandmother down and hell or high water I'd make sure our perceived noble bloodline would continue on into the future. Andria and I did hit hell and high water in our struggle to procreate. Through this struggle I found that sometimes the ideals on subscribes to have to be completely deconstructed in order to replace them with new ones. It was through this journey that I came to see the simple concept that love cements the bonds of family.
As we contemplated the adoption process I realized that my baby doesn't have to look like me or Andria fro me to fall deeply in love with him. I already had a wonderful example of falling in love with somebody that didn't look anything like me and didn't act much like me either - Andria. My love with Andria is unconditional, enduring, and has provided me with the strongest family bond that I have. It is this love that flooded our eyes with tears as we held our new baby boy, Jacob. From that day forward I came to see Caucasian babies as looking a little sickly because o f their light almost translucent skin color. I soon learned that if made difference how light Jacob's skin color was, because in the U.S., it doesn't matter what percentage of African American heritage one poses, it one's skin is any shade of brown then one is considered to be black. I also came to see that Jacob's brown fingers looked very good against my white freckled hands and that they would look good there whether they were cappuccino tan or mahogany black. The difficult part wouldn't be how I saw our intertwined fingers but how the world saw them.
Early on Andria and I learned that if we wanted out little man to be ready for this sometimes cruel world that we would need to celebrate his blackness rather than adopt the flawed color blind philosophy. When I look at my son I see a beautiful black young man with brown eyes that see right into my heart and a smile that turns the worst of days into the best of days. Unfortunately not everyone sees him as I do. When Andria and Jacob when to a northern Michigan beach when he was two-years old, the eyes on all the white faces saw a white woman with a black baby and they were not sparkling with approval. Similarly, when Andria with Jacob in her arms was questioned about a return at our local supermarket, the clerk saw a white woman with a black baby and made negative assumptions. While Jacob was unaware of these incidents, Andria was very aware and uncomfortable. She was beginning to feel the direct impact of racial prejudice and was saddened by the future pain it would cause her son.
Four year after Jacob's birth we came upon the same form as we once again worked our way through the adoption maze. This time there was no hesitation as we answered, "yes" to the question, "Are you willing to adopt a black child?" Six months after submitting the form we met our daughter eight hours after she was born. We looked at our baby with her full head of soft black hair and her cinnamon toast colored skin and our eyes once again flooded with tears as we held our new baby girl, Antonia. Now, when I look at Antonia, I see a beautiful black little girl with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, glorious black kinky hair, and a special smile that is reserved only for me. I know too well that the rest of the world will also see a black little girl and because of that we celebrate he blackness.
What we do to help our children to be proud of who they are will probably never be enough. Because my wife and I are white, we can help our kids to look through the window of black heritage but we will never be able to unlock the door. We can't provide grandparents who can tell our children what it was like to march on Selma or to participate in a bus boycott or to have to use a "blacks only" drinking water fountain. We can and do have a lithograph of Martin Luther King, Jr. hanging in our dinning room but we can't convey how important his words were to the black pysche during tumultuous civil rights movement. We can talk about our poster of Nelson Mendela in our play room and who we protested at the South African Consulate in Chicago in the 1980s but we can't describe what it feels like to be segregated and kept on the lowest rung of the economic latter. I can take Jacob to Barber Love's, an African American owned barbershop in town, but I can't speak the language and I don't want to pretend to, however, there Jacob's hair is always treated right. We can go to African American inspired festivals like Juneteenth and the African American Parade where we are only visitors rather than full participants. And when we are there, we sometimes see the same stares that Andria received in northern Michigan, only here they are coming from black faces disapproving of our raising black children in a white man's world.
I'm reminded daily that it is a white man's world. When Jacob and I waited at his bus stop to board the bus for the first day of school as a first grader, he was the only person of color at the stop. After he climbed on the bus and took a seat, he was till the only person of color. He is one of three people of color in his class and one five out of the three first grade classes at his school. These circumstances present difficult choices. Do we keep him in our neighborhood school district which ranks highly out of all the neighboring districts, or do we take him to a school of choice where he is not the minority but where overall school performance on standardized tests is not as good? Similarly, do we move from our university community with our many white neighbors of what Sharon Rush describes as of "good will" to a more diverse community that may not have some of the attributes that we think are important, such as being walkable, having a vibrant downtown, having highly educated neighbors, being close to the university and the spirit of youth that it provides, having significant community involvement, and having many older parents like us? These questions are again placed directly in front of me when later that same day I drop off Antonia at the People's Church Pre-school. When I open the door to the toddler's room, I am greeted by four blond, blue-eyed two-year old boys in high chairs and two blond, blue-eyed girls toddling around. We chose the pre-school for Jacob and later for Antonia because it excels in everything but unfortunately, not in diversity. Throughout our children's lives we will continue to struggle through these choices striving to make the ones that will enable them to weather their own "band room" experiences with their self-esteem in tact just like my friend Kevin did on that beautiful late summer day in 1979. And, just like Kevin's family did, I hope we make the choices that will enable Jacob to become a confident, proud and loving black man and Antonia to become a confident, proud and loving black woman.
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