BACK UP BLOG

This blog is a backup for American Indian Adoptees blog
There might be some duplicate posts prior to 2020. I am trying to delete them when I find them. Sorry!

SURVEY FOR ALL FIRST NATIONS ADOPTEES

SURVEY FOR ALL FIRST NATIONS ADOPTEES
ADOPTEES - we are doing a COUNT

If you need support

Support Info: If you are a Survivor and need emotional support, a national crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Residential School Survivor Support Line: 1-866-925-4419. Additional Health Support Information: Emotional, cultural, and professional support services are also available to Survivors and their families through the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program. Services can be accessed on an individual, family, or group basis.” These & regional support phone numbers are found at https://nctr.ca/contact/survivors/ . MY EMAIL: tracelara@pm.me

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Blog Week: Returning Stolen Children







Continuing with Blog Week and "What Annoys You about the Adoption Establishment: this story tore me up about India's Adoption corruption and their Stolen Children.



Read this post:






http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2012/02/finding-truth-returning-stolen-children.html







Quote: Note that almost all adoption corruption -- whether coercion of first parents to
relinquish, persuading non-infertile folks to become adoptive parents, or
persuading the general public or anyone in particular of the absolute goodness
of international adoption in spite of facts to the contrary -- involves persuading
people of a strong belief system (whose foundations have been laid for decades
in our popular culture) and then reinforcing that strong belief system. This
belief system is often at odds with other knowledge, emotions, and values and
often requires the suspension of the usual protections of questioning
assumptions, and using research and critical thinking to evaluate truth claims.







About their blog: Why These Fleas Bite


Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling
group of two older girls from India.


Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely
emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their
birthfamily.

For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so
repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.

Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we
found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.

Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency,
and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first
parents. Not for ourselves.

It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.

Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it
bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen
children in our home.

Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears
to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which
licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not
return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.

Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child
trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet
again.

We have been left to ask the questions:

1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or
could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have
allowed/caused it to happen?

2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?

This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It
also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.

Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of
international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one
real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.

If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that
our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured,
these flea bites will not be in vain.

To find out more about Desiree's family's adoption follow the
following link.
NPR's"
Adoption in America Series: An Adoption Gone Wrong, July 24, 2007


Their advice: Tell Bad Stories

http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2007/02/corruption-item-17-tell-bad-stories.html

Blog Week: Returning Stolen Children

Continuing with Blog Week and "What Annoys You about the Adoption Establishment: this story tore me up about India's Adoption corruption and their Stolen Children.

Read this post:

http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2012/02/finding-truth-returning-stolen-children.html

Quote: Note that almost all adoption corruption -- whether coercion of first parents to relinquish, persuading non-infertile folks to become adoptive parents, or persuading the general public or anyone in particular of the absolute goodness of international adoption in spite of facts to the contrary -- involves persuading people of a strong belief system (whose foundations have been laid for decades in our popular culture) and then reinforcing that strong belief system. This belief system is often at odds with other knowledge, emotions, and values and often requires the suspension of the usual protections of questioning assumptions, and using research and critical thinking to evaluate truth claims.

About their blog: Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.
Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.
For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.
Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.
Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.
It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.
Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.
Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.
Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.
We have been left to ask the questions:
1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?
2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?
This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.
Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.
If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.
To find out more about Desiree's family's adoption follow the following link. NPR's" Adoption in America Series: An Adoption Gone Wrong, July 24, 2007
Their advice: Tell Bad Stories
http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2007/02/corruption-item-17-tell-bad-stories.html

Blog Week: Returning Stolen Children

Continuing with Blog Week and "What Annoys You about the Adoption Establishment: this story tore me up about India's Adoption corruption and their Stolen Children.

Read this post:

http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2012/02/finding-truth-returning-stolen-children.html

Quote: Note that almost all adoption corruption -- whether coercion of first parents to relinquish, persuading non-infertile folks to become adoptive parents, or persuading the general public or anyone in particular of the absolute goodness of international adoption in spite of facts to the contrary -- involves persuading people of a strong belief system (whose foundations have been laid for decades in our popular culture) and then reinforcing that strong belief system. This belief system is often at odds with other knowledge, emotions, and values and often requires the suspension of the usual protections of questioning assumptions, and using research and critical thinking to evaluate truth claims.

About their blog: Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.
Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.
For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.
Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.
Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.
It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.
Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.
Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.
Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.
We have been left to ask the questions:
1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?
2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?
This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.
Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.
If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.
To find out more about Desiree's family's adoption follow the following link. NPR's" Adoption in America Series: An Adoption Gone Wrong, July 24, 2007
Their advice: Tell Bad Stories
http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2007/02/corruption-item-17-tell-bad-stories.html

Blog Week: Returning Stolen Children

Continuing with Blog Week and "What Annoys You about the Adoption Establishment: this story tore me up about India's Adoption corruption and their Stolen Children.

Read this post:

http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2012/02/finding-truth-returning-stolen-children.html

Quote: Note that almost all adoption corruption -- whether coercion of first parents to relinquish, persuading non-infertile folks to become adoptive parents, or persuading the general public or anyone in particular of the absolute goodness of international adoption in spite of facts to the contrary -- involves persuading people of a strong belief system (whose foundations have been laid for decades in our popular culture) and then reinforcing that strong belief system. This belief system is often at odds with other knowledge, emotions, and values and often requires the suspension of the usual protections of questioning assumptions, and using research and critical thinking to evaluate truth claims.

About their blog: Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.
Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.
For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.
Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.
Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.
It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.
Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.
Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.
Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.
We have been left to ask the questions:
1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?
2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?
This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.
Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.
If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.
To find out more about Desiree's family's adoption follow the following link. NPR's" Adoption in America Series: An Adoption Gone Wrong, July 24, 2007
Their advice: Tell Bad Stories
http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2007/02/corruption-item-17-tell-bad-stories.html

Blog Week: Returning Stolen Children

Continuing with Blog Week and "What Annoys You about the Adoption Establishment: this story tore me up about India's Adoption corruption and their Stolen Children.

Read this post:

http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2012/02/finding-truth-returning-stolen-children.html

Quote: Note that almost all adoption corruption -- whether coercion of first parents to relinquish, persuading non-infertile folks to become adoptive parents, or persuading the general public or anyone in particular of the absolute goodness of international adoption in spite of facts to the contrary -- involves persuading people of a strong belief system (whose foundations have been laid for decades in our popular culture) and then reinforcing that strong belief system. This belief system is often at odds with other knowledge, emotions, and values and often requires the suspension of the usual protections of questioning assumptions, and using research and critical thinking to evaluate truth claims.

About their blog: Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.
Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.
For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.
Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.
Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.
It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.
Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.
Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.
Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.
We have been left to ask the questions:
1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?
2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?
This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.
Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.
If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.
To find out more about Desiree's family's adoption follow the following link. NPR's" Adoption in America Series: An Adoption Gone Wrong, July 24, 2007
Their advice: Tell Bad Stories
http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2007/02/corruption-item-17-tell-bad-stories.html

Blog Week: Returning Stolen Children

Continuing with Blog Week and "What Annoys You about the Adoption Establishment: this story tore me up about India's Adoption corruption and their Stolen Children.

Read this post:

http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2012/02/finding-truth-returning-stolen-children.html

Quote: Note that almost all adoption corruption -- whether coercion of first parents to relinquish, persuading non-infertile folks to become adoptive parents, or persuading the general public or anyone in particular of the absolute goodness of international adoption in spite of facts to the contrary -- involves persuading people of a strong belief system (whose foundations have been laid for decades in our popular culture) and then reinforcing that strong belief system. This belief system is often at odds with other knowledge, emotions, and values and often requires the suspension of the usual protections of questioning assumptions, and using research and critical thinking to evaluate truth claims.

About their blog: Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.
Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.
For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.
Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.
Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.
It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.
Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.
Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.
Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.
We have been left to ask the questions:
1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?
2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?
This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.
Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.
If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.
To find out more about Desiree's family's adoption follow the following link. NPR's" Adoption in America Series: An Adoption Gone Wrong, July 24, 2007
Their advice: Tell Bad Stories
http://fleasbiting.blogspot.com/2007/02/corruption-item-17-tell-bad-stories.html

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Blog Week: Who you need to read!

Participating in the unofficial "What Annoys you about the Adoption Establishment" Week - here are links to blogs who will be posting:
adoptionechoes.com/2012/02/27/why-the-adoption-establishment-annoys-me/

Now is the time to share these posts with your friends AND sign up and subscribe to these blogs (via email) - and the greatest thing you can do is retweet, share on Facebook and comment - every blogger LOVES that!
I love my readers very much - and you adoptees teach me every day and I appreciate you all! ...Trace

" QUOTE"
“My problem is secrecy. I believe that perpetually secret adoptions assure un-accountability and lack of transparency. And secret adoptions are only the tip of the iceberg. The secrecy permeates the process: secret identities, secret parents, secret records, secret foster care providers, secret social workers, secret judges and lawyers (all their identities are sealed, typically), secret physicians, secret statistics and, in the case of some adoption-oriented organizations, secret budgets and secret boards of directors. In any social practice, when people in positions of power hide behind masks, one can be pretty sure that they have something to hide.”
             -Albert S. Wei, Special Advisor to the Bastard Nation Executive Committee

Blog Week: Who you need to read!




Participating in the unofficial "What Annoys you about the Adoption Establishment" Week - here are links to blogs who will be posting:



adoptionechoes.com/2012/02/27/why-the-adoption-establishment-annoys-me/









Now is the time to share these posts with your friends AND sign up and subscribe to these blogs (via email) - and the greatest thing you can do is retweet, share on Facebook and comment - every blogger LOVES that!


I love my readers very much - and you adoptees teach me every day and I appreciate you all! ...Trace





"

QUOTE"


“My problem is secrecy. I believe that
perpetually secret adoptions assure un-accountability and lack of transparency.
And secret adoptions are only the tip of the iceberg. The secrecy permeates the
process: secret identities, secret parents, secret records, secret foster care
providers, secret social workers, secret judges and lawyers (all their
identities are sealed, typically), secret physicians, secret statistics and, in
the case of some adoption-oriented organizations, secret budgets and secret
boards of directors. In any social practice, when people in positions of power
hide behind masks, one can be pretty sure that they have something to hide.”




             -Albert S. Wei, Special Advisor to the Bastard
Nation Executive Committee



Blog Week: Who you need to read!

Participating in the unofficial "What Annoys you about the Adoption Establishment" Week - here are links to blogs who will be posting:
adoptionechoes.com/2012/02/27/why-the-adoption-establishment-annoys-me/

Now is the time to share these posts with your friends AND sign up and subscribe to these blogs (via email) - and the greatest thing you can do is retweet, share on Facebook and comment - every blogger LOVES that!
I love my readers very much - and you adoptees teach me every day and I appreciate you all! ...Trace

" QUOTE"
“My problem is secrecy. I believe that perpetually secret adoptions assure un-accountability and lack of transparency. And secret adoptions are only the tip of the iceberg. The secrecy permeates the process: secret identities, secret parents, secret records, secret foster care providers, secret social workers, secret judges and lawyers (all their identities are sealed, typically), secret physicians, secret statistics and, in the case of some adoption-oriented organizations, secret budgets and secret boards of directors. In any social practice, when people in positions of power hide behind masks, one can be pretty sure that they have something to hide.”
             -Albert S. Wei, Special Advisor to the Bastard Nation Executive Committee

Blog Week: Who you need to read!

Participating in the unofficial "What Annoys you about the Adoption Establishment" Week - here are links to blogs who will be posting:
adoptionechoes.com/2012/02/27/why-the-adoption-establishment-annoys-me/

Now is the time to share these posts with your friends AND sign up and subscribe to these blogs (via email) - and the greatest thing you can do is retweet, share on Facebook and comment - every blogger LOVES that!
I love my readers very much - and you adoptees teach me every day and I appreciate you all! ...Trace

" QUOTE"
“My problem is secrecy. I believe that perpetually secret adoptions assure un-accountability and lack of transparency. And secret adoptions are only the tip of the iceberg. The secrecy permeates the process: secret identities, secret parents, secret records, secret foster care providers, secret social workers, secret judges and lawyers (all their identities are sealed, typically), secret physicians, secret statistics and, in the case of some adoption-oriented organizations, secret budgets and secret boards of directors. In any social practice, when people in positions of power hide behind masks, one can be pretty sure that they have something to hide.”
             -Albert S. Wei, Special Advisor to the Bastard Nation Executive Committee

Blog Week: Who you need to read!

Participating in the unofficial "What Annoys you about the Adoption Establishment" Week - here are links to blogs who will be posting:
adoptionechoes.com/2012/02/27/why-the-adoption-establishment-annoys-me/

Now is the time to share these posts with your friends AND sign up and subscribe to these blogs (via email) - and the greatest thing you can do is retweet, share on Facebook and comment - every blogger LOVES that!
I love my readers very much - and you adoptees teach me every day and I appreciate you all! ...Trace

" QUOTE"
“My problem is secrecy. I believe that perpetually secret adoptions assure un-accountability and lack of transparency. And secret adoptions are only the tip of the iceberg. The secrecy permeates the process: secret identities, secret parents, secret records, secret foster care providers, secret social workers, secret judges and lawyers (all their identities are sealed, typically), secret physicians, secret statistics and, in the case of some adoption-oriented organizations, secret budgets and secret boards of directors. In any social practice, when people in positions of power hide behind masks, one can be pretty sure that they have something to hide.”
             -Albert S. Wei, Special Advisor to the Bastard Nation Executive Committee

Blog Week: Who you need to read!

Participating in the unofficial "What Annoys you about the Adoption Establishment" Week - here are links to blogs who will be posting:
adoptionechoes.com/2012/02/27/why-the-adoption-establishment-annoys-me/

Now is the time to share these posts with your friends AND sign up and subscribe to these blogs (via email) - and the greatest thing you can do is retweet, share on Facebook and comment - every blogger LOVES that!
I love my readers very much - and you adoptees teach me every day and I appreciate you all! ...Trace

" QUOTE"
“My problem is secrecy. I believe that perpetually secret adoptions assure un-accountability and lack of transparency. And secret adoptions are only the tip of the iceberg. The secrecy permeates the process: secret identities, secret parents, secret records, secret foster care providers, secret social workers, secret judges and lawyers (all their identities are sealed, typically), secret physicians, secret statistics and, in the case of some adoption-oriented organizations, secret budgets and secret boards of directors. In any social practice, when people in positions of power hide behind masks, one can be pretty sure that they have something to hide.”
             -Albert S. Wei, Special Advisor to the Bastard Nation Executive Committee

Blog Week: Who you need to read!

Participating in the unofficial "What Annoys you about the Adoption Establishment" Week - here are links to blogs who will be posting:
adoptionechoes.com/2012/02/27/why-the-adoption-establishment-annoys-me/

Now is the time to share these posts with your friends AND sign up and subscribe to these blogs (via email) - and the greatest thing you can do is retweet, share on Facebook and comment - every blogger LOVES that!
I love my readers very much - and you adoptees teach me every day and I appreciate you all! ...Trace

" QUOTE"
“My problem is secrecy. I believe that perpetually secret adoptions assure un-accountability and lack of transparency. And secret adoptions are only the tip of the iceberg. The secrecy permeates the process: secret identities, secret parents, secret records, secret foster care providers, secret social workers, secret judges and lawyers (all their identities are sealed, typically), secret physicians, secret statistics and, in the case of some adoption-oriented organizations, secret budgets and secret boards of directors. In any social practice, when people in positions of power hide behind masks, one can be pretty sure that they have something to hide.”
             -Albert S. Wei, Special Advisor to the Bastard Nation Executive Committee

Monday, February 27, 2012

Blog Week: What bugs me about the Adoption Establishment








SHOTGUN ADOPTION
http://www.thenation.com/article/shotgun-adoption?page=0,0
This article is from 2009 but offers an interesting insider view of the Adoption Agencies agenda and their role in coercion of young women to relinquish their babies, instead of supporting them so they can keep their child.

Excerpt:
Carol Jordan, a 32-year-old pharmacy technician, was living in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1999 when she became pregnant. She'd already decided against abortion, but she was struggling financially and her boyfriend was unsupportive. Looking through the Yellow Pages for help, she spotted an ad under "crisis pregnancies" for Bethany Christian Services.

Within hours of calling, Jordan (who asked to be identified with a pseudonym) was invited to Bethany's local office to discuss free housing and medical care. Bethany, it turned out, did not simply specialize in counseling pregnant women. It is the nation's largest adoption agency, with more than eighty-five offices in fifteen countries.

...instances of coercion in adoption stretch back nearly seventy years.

...CPCs (Crisis Pregnancy Centers) might persuade reluctant women by casting adoption as redemption for unwed mothers' "past failures" and a triumph over "selfishness, an 'evil' within themselves."

...CPCs were wary of looking like "baby sellers"...

Care Net runs 1,160 CPCs nationwide and partners with Heartbeat International to host a national CPC hot line.

... National Council for Adoption (NCFA), the most prominent adoption lobby group in the country, in the company of other benefactors like Bethany; Texas maternity home giant Gladney; the Good Shepherd Sisters, a Catholic order serving "young women of dissolute habits"; and the Mormon adoption agency LDS Family Services.

The federally funded NCFA has a large role in spreading teachings like these through its Infant Adoption Awareness Training Program, a Department of Health and Human Services initiative it helped pass in 2000 that has promoted adoption to nearly 18,000 CPC, school, state, health and correctional workers since 2002.

(Blog Week: http://landofgazillionadoptees.com/2012/02/22/secret-message-for-other-bloggers-about-the-week-of-february-26th-aka-why-the-adoption-establishment-annoys-the-heck-out-of-us-blog-week/#comment-1867)

I added the bold in the excerpt so you can notice the main players in the industry. Stay tuned to this blog - more of my rants coming this week...Trace

Sunday, February 26, 2012

BLOG WEEK: MY TOP 5

Kevin Ost-Vollmers and Shelise Gieseke at Land of Gazillion Adoptees Blog said Feb. 26th begins BLOG WEEK to answer this question: “Why does the adoption establishment annoy the heck out of us (adoptees)?” http://landofgazillionadoptees.com/2012/02/22/secret-message-for-other-bloggers-about-the-week-of-february-26th-aka-why-the-adoption-establishment-annoys-the-heck-out-of-us-blog-week/

MY MISSION today is to answer that question!  Ok, so why does the adoption establishment bug the heck out of me?

Here is my Top 5.

1- (Lack of) Disclosure- Old archaic laws are on the books in many states and it seems every state is having some kind of major meltdown or fiscal crisis. Adoptees who are fighting to gain access to our birth records can’t seem to grab their attention or warrant the lawmaker’s time or serious consideration - unless maybe the lawmaker is an adoptee.  

Yup, we know adoptees are low on the totem pole and status meter and that annoys me.

What are “they” thinking? Oh, it’s obvious - the status quo - let’s not rock the boat, just leave the law as is and let's not disclose information every adoptee needs and deserves, and definitely let’s not disturb the Adoption Industry who lobbies Wash. DC with fancy dinners and big campaign contributions. (Lack of medical history is a huge problem for many adoptees, including me)

I can hear the lobbyist pounding on their tables, “adoptees should be grateful they were adopted.” The adoption industry is a billion dollar business and they don’t want to lose a single dollar in profits. It’s about money. Even now, the adoption industry does not appreciate adoptees or ask how we feel or acknowledge what we endured. We are not invited to sit at their table or join in discussions. That really bugs me!

2- Secrecy - Over and over and over “they” claim our natural mothers demanded secrecy yet many mothers who lost children after closed adoptions are saying, “damn the secrecy, damn the laws, where are my children?”

Uniting all these mothers with all the adoptees on the same stage, fighting the discrimination, shame, secrecy and old laws would be powerful!

Sadly it seems both are on their own warpath to be heard.  Uniting our voices on this issue - especially natural mothers and adoptees who have been silenced for too long - is what is urgently needed. Big crowds marching on Washington DC would get "their" attention.  

Blogs (my favorites are listed in the right column) are enlightening the world to our plight. Using our voices, activism and blogging for change is good.

3- Identity - Adoptees are denied our basic human rights to the truth of our ancestry, our tribe(s), our birth name, our family names, our background (which is our identity), our medical history, our original birth certificate (OBC) and information about both our natural parents.

I noticed writing my memoir how adoptees will say they are looking for their mothers -- but we do have a dad somewhere and possibly siblings - and we do need to know who they are and where they are! Adoptees need to add “dad and siblings” to their list of needs when facing adoption industry discrimination and current adoption laws.

The bias in the adoption industry is to protect the adoptive parents and seal our identity so no one will ever find out the truth. That deeply annoys me.

If you are Native American, you cannot be enrolled without documentation and proof. If you are a Split Feather/adoptee, you not only lose your identity but your treaty rights and all that goes along with being an enrolled tribal member. Just remember your identity is Native American with or without tribal enrollment.  We must unite and form a national organization to teach about the government’s use of closed adoption to hurt and destroy American Indian families and cripple future generations.

4- New Identification Cards? Yup, as of 2005 more states will implement this new country-wide identification card. And guess what? Adoptees who cannot produce a real birth certificate (OBC) may (let me stress “MAY”) not be able to renew a driver’s license, vote, or apply for or renew a passport. That scares me and bugs me equally! Those ignorant lawmakers who wrote the Real ID Act of 2005 (and passed it) didn’t consider adoptees or how this would affect us? We pay them big salaries because they represent us. What were they thinking? They were not thinking of adoptees, perhaps 10 million of us in the USA.

5 - Gratitude- Over and over I hear adoptees say - almost by script - how grateful they were to be adopted by their parents. I call this our gratitude attitude. We get stuck there mentally and it’s hard to move on to empowering ourselves to regain our birth rights and identity. I know my gratitude silenced me. Gratitude meant I could not talk to my adoptive parents about anything - how I felt, what I planned to do, or even ask them questions about my adoption file. Laws prevented me from knowing anything about myself and my first family.

AND I found out my new parents were not really informed when they adopted me in 1957. They had basic information like I was illegitimate, how my mom was unmarried.

AND my adoption file didn’t include medical history. Really. Apparently the adoption industry didn’t think about the child at all when compiling information for the adoption hearing. It was about convenience and expedience for adoptive parents. Really.
Looking back the adoption industry should be so embarrassed and horrified they didn’t get our medical history when they “sold” us to our new parents.

So, what about the Adoption Establishment annoys you? Please leave a comment.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Indian Child Welfare, three interviews

Click here: http://stephaniewoodard.blogspot.com/

Indian Child Welfare Act, three interviews; part one

By Stephanie Woodard
Excerpt:
Native parents face extraordinary hurdles in keeping their children—including cultural misunderstandings and legal barriers that are unimaginable to many non-Native people. In this second decade of the 21st century, American Indian children in states across the country are still taken from their families and placed in foster care or adoptive homes at a much higher rate than other kids—just as they were before the passage of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal statute intended to help keep Native families intact.
In Alaska, Native children make up 20 percent of the child population but 51 percent of those a state agency has placed in foster care; Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, North Dakota and Washington also have highly skewed numbers. In Minnesota, the percentage of Native children in foster care isn’t just high, it’s gotten worse in recent years. “Disproportionalities exist nationwide at every stage in the process, starting right from the initial reports of possible abuse or neglect of a Native child,” says Kristy Alberty, Cherokee, spokeswoman for the National Indian Child Welfare Association.
As those who read this blog are aware, the removal of Indian Children was supposed to end with the ICWA of 1978 and sadly, it's still a crisis and unacceptable. Poverty is a powerful weapon and is still being used against Indian people.  Trace

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Catholic Bishops Thwart Civil Rights for Adoptees

Catholic Bishops Thwart Civil Rights for Adoptees Politicker NJ       
February 19, 2012

By Susan Perry
With the Catholic bishops much in the news lately – as they protest what they see as politics intruding into their religious life – I’d like to offer another perspective.
For the past 10 years, as I have testified in Trenton for the Adoptee Birthright Bill, I have watched as religious interests have violated my civil rights in a very personal way. Every year, the NJ Catholic Conference of Bishops lobbies to defeat an adoption reform bill that would allow adoptees, as adults, to secure their original birth certificates (OBCs). This opposition is based on unfounded fears and misinformation.
The bishops do have money, however, and they are significant players in New Jersey’s political arena.
First, a little background. Currently, an adopted adult in New Jersey has no right, by law, to his or her OBC. When a child is adopted, a new “amended” certificate is issued that lists the adoptive parents as the child’s mother and father. It doesn’t matter why an adoptee might need or desire to know her own roots – her only recourse at present is to initiate a search that often requires a lot of time and money.One would think from the Bishops’ unyielding stance on this issue that the idea of adult adoptee access is new and untested. Yet England opened its records to adult adoptees in 1975. The states of Kansas and Alaska never sealed adoptees’ birth certificates. Alabama reinstated access in 2000, having only sealed records from adoptees in 1991. Oregon approved an access law in 1998, which took effect in June of 2000. New Hampshire’s access law took effect in 2005, and Maine’s in 2009. Rhode Island’s governor signed an access bill into law last summer.
Here’s what we know from the collected data. By 2011 in Oregon, 10,410 adoptees had applied for and received their OBCs. Eighty-five birth parents requested no contact during that time period, and not one complaint was issued about an adoptee approaching a birth parent against his or her will. In New Hampshire, 1,315 adoptees received their OBCs from 2005 through 2011, while just 12 birth parents requested no contact. In the two years after Maine enacted its bill, 848 adoptees received their OBCs, and eight birth parents requested no contact.In view of these statistics, the Bishops’ claim that adult adoptee access violates the privacy of birth mothers is absurd.
Even opponents of access admit that there was never any legal provision assuring a birth mother that her identity would remain a “forever” secret to her offspring. And data from NJ DYFS shows that 95 percent of birth mothers are open to contact from their relinquished children. In place of adult adoptee access bills, which have been upheld upon appeal by the Supreme Courts of Tennessee and Oregon, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals (6th District), the Bishops suggest mutual consent registries or confidential intermediaries. Yet registries have been found repeatedly not to work – New York State has had one since 1984, and 95 percent of registrants are still waiting for a match.
The intermediary system is degrading and fundamentally unfair – a fact that perhaps only those who have experienced it can appreciate.I used one and had to pay $400 for the service – to try to retrieve a birth record that technically belongs to me. Obviously, I never signed any contract approving the practice of sealed and amended records, and we have plenty of information to show that the system does not serve an adoptee well. I resented the fact that I was not permitted to conduct my personal affairs on my own. I am not a child, yet the process placed me in a child-like position. My agency was lukewarm about adoptee access and was therefore not very accommodating. Eventually, I abandoned the intermediary process and found my birth mother with the help of a private investigator. For the record, she is that woman the opposition says it wishes to protect. She had never told anyone about me except for her own mother, and she did not wish to have continuing contact. She was, however, willing to share medical and personal information that would be helpful to me, and the data tells us the vast majority of women would be willing to do the same. Lack of genetic information can be life threatening, and there is no rational reason to force adoptees to live in the Dark Ages going forward.
The facts show adoptions increase, and abortions decrease, with more openness. Kansas, which never sealed its records, has always had a lower abortion rate and a higher per capita adoption rate than the four states surrounding it.
The Bishops’ position is unreasonable and insulting to every member of the adoption triad. It is insulting to me, to my dear mother and father who raised me to become a sensitive and responsible adult, and to my birth mother, who the Bishops depict as a helpless child in need of protective custody. Perhaps most telling is that many Catholic women who have worked in the adoption field do not agree with the Bishops’ stance. In 1992, the executive directors of Catholic Charities in all five dioceses of NJ recommended to the NJ Catholic Conference of Bishops that adult adoptees be allowed access to their OBCs with no strings attached.
The Bishops rejected the recommendation then, and this past June, they urged Governor Christie to reject the access bill that had passed in both the Senate and Assembly by substantial margins. The governor’s “conditional” veto gutted the bill, as the Bishops and other opponents had requested, and replaced it with an expensive and unworkable confidential intermediary system. So when the Catholic Bishops complain about their religious convictions being violated, my response to them is this: Will you continue to trample on my civil rights and the rights of other adult adoptees to secure their own birth records this legislative cycle? Will you continue to support an outdated system of secrecy and lies that serves less than one percent of those who actually live adoption? Or will you show compassion, study the literature, and advocate for the civil rights of those who do not possess the political power that you do?
Susan Perry is a member of NJCARE, an adoptee's rights advocacy organization

Let me add this quote from a student protest at Brown University in Rhode Island many years ago: "Keep your rosaries off our ovaries."   Trace

Sunday, February 19, 2012

NONFICTION: Rez Life #NDN

NONFICTION: "Rez Life," by David Treuer StarTribune.com
At the book's heart is the reservation, "the paradoxically least and most American place in the 21st century," the land and communities that endure as places of Indian control and identity. "Most often rez life is associated with tragedy," he writes, yet "what one finds on reservations is more than scars, tears, blood, and noble sentiment. There is beauty in Indian life. ... We love our reservations."
Treuer embeds these ideas within stories about modern Indians. Among those he portrays: Dan and Dennis Jones -- forced to go to a Canadian boarding school where they were raped by an Indian man hired as a "role model" -- now strong, healed men who are helping others rise above trauma. Helen Bryan Johnson, whose refusal to pay $147 in taxes on her reservation trailer home led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed casinos to flourish. Brooke Mosay Amman, an Ojibwe educator cut out of tribal membership by "blood quantum" rules that Treuer sees as the worst way to define an Indian. And, most personally and painfully, his 83-year-old grandfather, Eugene Seelye, a D-day veteran who killed himself in 2007.
"Rez Life" is not just about Indians, but about America. "You can tell a lot about America, about its sins and ideals, by looking at ... a kind of American who was supposed to have died out a long time ago," Treuer writes.In the end, he concludes: "We might just make it." This impassioned, important book may well help make it so.
Pamela Miller is a Star Tribune night metro editor.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Cherokee Nation maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery


Read here: CN maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery



Video



By TESINA JACKSON, Reporter

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Across from Sequoyah High School along Highway 62 in the Southgate Business Park is a small, bordered area where the Cherokee Nation has placed 32 stones to represent a cemetery that went forgotten for decades.

The cemetery, commonly called the Sequoyah orphan cemetery, began for children who attended Sequoyah during its days as an orphanage.

After the Civil War, Cherokee children were orphaned because of fighting between Cherokees. In 1871, the Cherokee National Council authorized the orphanage’s construction about four miles southwest of Tahlequah.

“All of the stones that are over at the cemetery are actually stones that were salvaged from the third floor of the Cherokee Nation jail facility,” CN Natural Resources Group Leader Pat Gwin said. The jail no longer stands, and its material is stored at the Cherokee Heritage Center. “We used that to make the rock walkways and the rock headstones.”

The orphanage also housed as an institution for the handicapped, and Sequoyah teacher Don Franklin believes that patients who died at the institution are buried in the cemetery.



tesina-jackson@cherokee.org

 

Cherokee Nation maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery

Read here: CN maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery

Video

By TESINA JACKSON, Reporter
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Across from Sequoyah High School along Highway 62 in the Southgate Business Park is a small, bordered area where the Cherokee Nation has placed 32 stones to represent a cemetery that went forgotten for decades.
The cemetery, commonly called the Sequoyah orphan cemetery, began for children who attended Sequoyah during its days as an orphanage.
After the Civil War, Cherokee children were orphaned because of fighting between Cherokees. In 1871, the Cherokee National Council authorized the orphanage’s construction about four miles southwest of Tahlequah.
“All of the stones that are over at the cemetery are actually stones that were salvaged from the third floor of the Cherokee Nation jail facility,” CN Natural Resources Group Leader Pat Gwin said. The jail no longer stands, and its material is stored at the Cherokee Heritage Center. “We used that to make the rock walkways and the rock headstones.”
The orphanage also housed as an institution for the handicapped, and Sequoyah teacher Don Franklin believes that patients who died at the institution are buried in the cemetery.

tesina-jackson@cherokee.org
 

Cherokee Nation maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery

Read here: CN maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery

Video

By TESINA JACKSON, Reporter
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Across from Sequoyah High School along Highway 62 in the Southgate Business Park is a small, bordered area where the Cherokee Nation has placed 32 stones to represent a cemetery that went forgotten for decades.
The cemetery, commonly called the Sequoyah orphan cemetery, began for children who attended Sequoyah during its days as an orphanage.
After the Civil War, Cherokee children were orphaned because of fighting between Cherokees. In 1871, the Cherokee National Council authorized the orphanage’s construction about four miles southwest of Tahlequah.
“All of the stones that are over at the cemetery are actually stones that were salvaged from the third floor of the Cherokee Nation jail facility,” CN Natural Resources Group Leader Pat Gwin said. The jail no longer stands, and its material is stored at the Cherokee Heritage Center. “We used that to make the rock walkways and the rock headstones.”
The orphanage also housed as an institution for the handicapped, and Sequoyah teacher Don Franklin believes that patients who died at the institution are buried in the cemetery.

tesina-jackson@cherokee.org
 

Cherokee Nation maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery

Read here: CN maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery

Video

By TESINA JACKSON, Reporter
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Across from Sequoyah High School along Highway 62 in the Southgate Business Park is a small, bordered area where the Cherokee Nation has placed 32 stones to represent a cemetery that went forgotten for decades.
The cemetery, commonly called the Sequoyah orphan cemetery, began for children who attended Sequoyah during its days as an orphanage.
After the Civil War, Cherokee children were orphaned because of fighting between Cherokees. In 1871, the Cherokee National Council authorized the orphanage’s construction about four miles southwest of Tahlequah.
“All of the stones that are over at the cemetery are actually stones that were salvaged from the third floor of the Cherokee Nation jail facility,” CN Natural Resources Group Leader Pat Gwin said. The jail no longer stands, and its material is stored at the Cherokee Heritage Center. “We used that to make the rock walkways and the rock headstones.”
The orphanage also housed as an institution for the handicapped, and Sequoyah teacher Don Franklin believes that patients who died at the institution are buried in the cemetery.

tesina-jackson@cherokee.org
 

Cherokee Nation maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery

Read here: CN maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery

Video

By TESINA JACKSON, Reporter
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Across from Sequoyah High School along Highway 62 in the Southgate Business Park is a small, bordered area where the Cherokee Nation has placed 32 stones to represent a cemetery that went forgotten for decades.
The cemetery, commonly called the Sequoyah orphan cemetery, began for children who attended Sequoyah during its days as an orphanage.
After the Civil War, Cherokee children were orphaned because of fighting between Cherokees. In 1871, the Cherokee National Council authorized the orphanage’s construction about four miles southwest of Tahlequah.
“All of the stones that are over at the cemetery are actually stones that were salvaged from the third floor of the Cherokee Nation jail facility,” CN Natural Resources Group Leader Pat Gwin said. The jail no longer stands, and its material is stored at the Cherokee Heritage Center. “We used that to make the rock walkways and the rock headstones.”
The orphanage also housed as an institution for the handicapped, and Sequoyah teacher Don Franklin believes that patients who died at the institution are buried in the cemetery.

tesina-jackson@cherokee.org
 

Cherokee Nation maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery

Read here: CN maintaining Sequoyah orphan cemetery

Video

By TESINA JACKSON, Reporter
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Across from Sequoyah High School along Highway 62 in the Southgate Business Park is a small, bordered area where the Cherokee Nation has placed 32 stones to represent a cemetery that went forgotten for decades.
The cemetery, commonly called the Sequoyah orphan cemetery, began for children who attended Sequoyah during its days as an orphanage.
After the Civil War, Cherokee children were orphaned because of fighting between Cherokees. In 1871, the Cherokee National Council authorized the orphanage’s construction about four miles southwest of Tahlequah.
“All of the stones that are over at the cemetery are actually stones that were salvaged from the third floor of the Cherokee Nation jail facility,” CN Natural Resources Group Leader Pat Gwin said. The jail no longer stands, and its material is stored at the Cherokee Heritage Center. “We used that to make the rock walkways and the rock headstones.”
The orphanage also housed as an institution for the handicapped, and Sequoyah teacher Don Franklin believes that patients who died at the institution are buried in the cemetery.

tesina-jackson@cherokee.org
 

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Case argues systematic discrimination against First Nations children

Case argues systematic discrimination against First Nations children
 
OTTAWA — (Feb 13, 2012) Sweet-smelling smoke from a smudging ceremony filled an Ottawa courtroom Monday as a controversial case began that could open the door for First Nations residents to argue they are being discriminated against en masse by the federal government.  An elder named Flying Eagle Woman lit a sprig of sweetgrass at the Federal Court hearing. She urged the court to stand with the creator when it makes its decision and prayed that everyone present would "come together with one mind and one body.
"With the ceremony aside, the legal wrangling began. Facts that could prove the federal government is discriminating against aboriginal children by underfunding child-welfare services on reserves need to be heard in court, said lawyers for the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
The commission is one of several groups appealing a 2011 ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal — which the commission oversees. In that ruling, the tribunal dismissed a discrimination case brought by the Assembly of First Nations and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. The complaint argued the consistent underfunding of child-welfare services on reserves leads to poverty, poor housing, substance abuse and a vast over-representation of aboriginal children in state care. 
However, the federal government is arguing that because it merely sends funds to band managers — who themselves administer the services — the government cannot be held responsible for the services delivered. The government also says the question itself is invalid because it funds services on reserves, while provincial governments are responsible for services to the rest of Canadians, and that comparing two governments is both "unreasonable" and nonsensical. 
The "comparator" argument was used in the Human Rights Tribunal's initial decision to dismiss the case in 2011 before any of the main evidence had been heard.But First Nations Child and Family Caring Society lawyer Nicholas McHaffie told the court that comparing services to another group is only one "evidentiary tool."
"It is not the only way to show discrimination," he said. "There may be different pieces of the evidentiary puzzle needed to prove discrimination — they all need to be heard."
Human Rights Commission lawyer Philippe Dufresne told the hearing Monday that "the court must look at the facts, examine the services and determine if there is suffering."Currently, five per cent of aboriginal children living on reserve reside in care, away from their families. That's eight times more than other Canadian children, according to testimony by former auditor general Sheila Fraser at a parliamentary committee hearing in 2010.
In 1990, the federal government adopted a policy requiring child welfare services provided to First Nations children on reserves to meet provincial standards, be reasonably comparable with services for children off reserves and be culturally appropriate. But Fraser's audits consistently found the federal government "had not sufficiently taken into account provincial standards and other policy requirements when it established levels of funding for First Nations agencies to operate child welfare services on reserve."
"You must keep in mind the individual families who are affected by the dismissal of this complaint," McHaffie said.
Jonathan Thompson, the director of health and social development at the Assembly of First Nations, said he wasn't surprised when the government "decided to argue this on a technicality.""We've done report after report — both with the government and on our own — and they have all come out with overwhelming evidence of inequity, and yet nothing gets done," he said during an intermission in proceedings. Thompson said the government is trying to prevent the facts from being placed on the record because it knows the evidence against it will show that discrimination exists.
Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, who has been a driving force behind this case, has said if the government is allowed to use the comparator argument, "that would basically immunize the government from any discrimination or human rights claim relating to its funding policies and procedures on reserve." Blackstock has been gathering support for this cause since 2007. More than 9,000 people worldwide are participating in the I am a Witness campaign, pledging to watch the proceedings — in person if they can, or on the Aboriginal People's Television Network, which will be televising the review.
One of over 100 witnesses who attended the hearing Monday is Madeleine Keshen, a 12-year-old student at Featherston Drive Public School in Ottawa. She's part of a grades 5 to 6 class that came to the court to "stand up against injustices."
"It's not fair that they get less than we do," said the blond, blue-eyed little girl. "It's just because of who they are, and it's not right."
"People are watching," said Blackstock. "We've never been this organized before."
The case will continue Tuesday and Wednesday when the court will hear from lawyers for the Assembly of First Nations, the Chiefs of Ontario and the Attorney General, on behalf of the federal government.
tesmith(at)postmedia.com
Twitter.com/teresasmithpn
Read more: http://www.canada.com/life/Case+argues+systematic+discrimination+against+First+Nations+children/6145359/story.html#ixzz1mTXCAeJd

First Nations' Child Welfare broken

First nations' child welfare broken

Excerpt: According to former auditor-general Sheila Fraser, first nations children are being placed in care at six to eight times the rate of other Canadian children. Most of us are probably familiar with that uncomfortable feeling of staying in a stranger's home, perhaps being billeted for a sports event or while on vacation. We don't know the rules, the expectations, or the way things work there.
Now imagine how that feeling must be magnified for children who have just been ripped away from their family. Worse still for first nations children placed in non-aboriginal homes, adding culture shock to the mix.
"We know that children in care are more likely [than those who stay with their families] to have substance misuse issues, more likely to have involvement with the criminal justice system, more likely to have mental and physical health concerns and are less likely to succeed at school," said Blackstock, who worked for 13 years on the front lines of child welfare and is now executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada.
There are situations where removing a child from their home is absolutely necessary, such as cases of sexual abuse where the child cannot be protected by a non-offending adult. Blackstock argues in many more cases, however, children are taken because of neglect resulting from poor housing and nutrition, substance abuse or the inability of impoverished families to meet the needs of a child with special needs.
Many of these problems could be solved in the home, allowing children to stay with their families, if the resources were made available. But for first nations families on reserves, the resources aren't there.
According to a study cited by first nations groups, children on reserves receive 22 per cent less funding per child for child welfare than other Canadian children, particularly for services that would help them stay with their families.
Blackstock says social workers dealing with first nations children are under-trained on the factors driving them into foster care, under-resourced, over-worked and overwhelmed.
Children on reserves are caught between governments.

Monday, February 13, 2012

The Thick Dark Fog



"The Thick Dark Fog" Official Trailer from randy vasquez on Vimeo.




Read more here: http://www.thickdarkfog.com/?page_id=120



Thick Dark Fog" Official Trailer

http://vimeo.com/user9741689/trailer



Award winning documentary - The Thick Dark Fog.



Walter Littlemoon attended a federal Indian boarding school in South Dakota sixty years ago. The mission of many of these schools in 1950, was still to “kill the Indian and save the man.” The children were not allowed to be Indians – to speak their language or express their culture or native identity in any way at the risk of being severely beaten, humiliated or abused. What effects did these actions cause?



Many Indians, like Walter, lived with this unresolved trauma into adulthood, acting it out through alcoholism and domestic violence. At age 58, Walter decided to write and publish his memoirs as a way to explain his past abusive behaviors to his estranged children. But dealing with the memories of his boarding school days nearly put an end to it.



“The Thick Dark Fog” tells the story of how Walter confronted the “thick dark fog” of his past so that he could renew himself and his community.



For more information visit: thickdarkfog.com

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To Veronica Brown

Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.

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BOOK 5: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects