The First Time It Happened, I Was Floored
One day late that first summer, while out shopping, we ran into one of our associate pastors. Our church had provided simply amazing support during our adoption struggles and it was a joy to have the opportunity to visit with any fellow parishioner and clergy about the adoption, the girls, and our new forever family, so I gratefully stopped to visit with her.
As we chatted before we left the store, the pastor, a black woman, suddenly lowered her voice, became somber, and inquired as to how I was “immersing the girls in their culture.” I truly wasn’t sure what she meant, so I asked.
She then began to sermonize about how important it was for me to get the girls subscriptions to “black” magazines and to make sure and watch “black” movies and TV shows so they could see and relate to people of their color. She veritably assured me that, as a white woman, I couldn’t be expected to understand the “black experience” in America. I needed to be sure and make appropriate and relevant material accessible so they could better assimilate with black culture.
As a staunch believer in the dream of Martin Luther King Jr., this pastor’s admonitions didn’t sit well with me. In fact, I knew for certain her guidance for rearing my children was at best perpendicular to his vision. MLK advocated against bitterness and hatred in the black community because his ultimate goal was that “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
I will never forget the heat rising in my face. I must have stared at her as though she’d grown two heads right in front of me. It actually angered me that, instead of focusing on the girls’ adaption to a completely new country and their new lives as Americans, this woman chose to hone in on racial politics, especially as a pastor.
When I finally composed myself, I offered my thanks, but explained that our family didn’t really “see” color, so we had no intention of raising any of the kids in our family to be anything other than “Americans,” hence we probably wouldn’t be comfortable taking that kind of suggestion.
Source: The Federalist