Will NPR ever get Adoption Reporting right? @NPRWeekend #adoptees

READ THIS FIRST:

By Margie Perscheid on Paradigm Shift: Oh, media and adoptive parents, will we ever get adoption reporting right?...: I had to change that title, because really the problem isn't just with the media, it's with Adoptive Parents (APs), too. And that includes me....

Commentary by Trace:

I changed the title too!

Margie's blog is speaking about NPR’s Sunday interview with transracial adoptive parent Rachel Garlinghouse who adopts three Black kids then writes a book about them, and what she plans to do (since they are still very young).

Hmmm, doesn't that sound familiar? It is.

There are thousands of news stories and books by people who adopt kids transracially. (Think of the constant news about Cherokee child Veronica Brown transracially-adopted by the privileged non-Indian Capobiancos adoptive parents who had the media eating out of their hands!)

Amazon is literally flooded with books exactly like that -- FOR and BY people like Rachel.

(Google: how to adopt a baby - you'll be shocked by the amount of books...)

It's the hidden agenda and devious nature of Adoption Propaganda. Their message is:  you just keep on "adopting" and keep on promoting those adoptions. Those billions of dollars will keep generating for our adoption industry.

I heard the NPR interview and thought, "Keep on telling people what a good person you are, Rachel!  Not how you are actually promoting yourself on the backs of your children's race -  how that somehow makes YOU special, worth an interview on NPR."

What happens though is Rachel's book is about HER - what makes her and others so special and good to adopt a child who is not "white." (I wrote about this earlier - how some people get "high" on adopting - it makes them feel "drugged" good.)

I will repeat this as I have said this before on this blog! Actually writing these books is a total invasion of the adopted child's privacy.  A small child could never give permission to allow an adoptive parent to write about them as a child!!

How this will play out - once her children have grown? Rachel is not thinking that far - she's too interested in getting press for her book and selling copies. (There are plenty of blogs by adoptive parents who violate their child's privacy yet no one ever shuts them down.) Did her publisher discuss how this would affect her child's PRIVACY!?

Had Rachel considered how this could impact her adopted children once they get to school?

To NPR - how dare you! You had conducted an interview with an adoptee who had been adopted transracially and axed it - for reasons unknown??


Well, honestly, that's the norm for mass media, and typical propaganda.

(There are thousands of adoptees who would tell you how they really feel about being adopted.)

You know what's changed?

An instant immediate response! Check out Laura Dennis's blog: NPR GATE and all the bloggers who responded including Margie's post above. (And of course my commentary on this blog will be tweeted today)

I have a long list of adoptees (who contributed to the anthology TWO WORLDS) who'd love to tell their stories on NPR!

To conclude my RANT for the day:

Margie writes, "All we can do is our best, for our children and for their community. And sometimes we do our best when we do no more than listen."

Adoptees, share this please on social media and tweet your thoughts to @NPRWeekend

My friend Julie tweeted this: 

@NPRWeekend contacts AP and PAP focused infertility/adoption org to find #adoptees? Try again. We’re right here. #SundayConvo #nprgate
— Julie Stromberg (@LifeAdopted) January 16, 2014