Can you really return a child?

Melissa and Tony Wescott are afraid of their son. They're so afraid of the boy they adopted that they're trying to have Oklahoma law changed so that they can return him to the state's care.
"He tried to burn our home down. The note said, 'I'm sorry you had to die,'" Melissa Wescott told "Good Morning America."
She said she and her husband have found butcher knives under his mattress and lighters hidden in his bedroom.
The Wescotts' 11-year-old son has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital in Tulsa, Okla., for nearly a year. But now doctors say he's not a danger to himself or anyone else, and the boy is scheduled to be released from the hospital next month

This story absolutely breaks my heart. I cried both times I watched the clip above. I was actually planning on doing a post on adoption before I read about this, but my mind still hasn't worked itself out to the point where I can coherently express myself.

The reason this story affected me so much is because as an adoptee, I know what it feels like to be told that your getting sent back. From age 12 until I was a legal adult (18 years old) my adoptive mother constantly threatened to call CAS (the Canadian equivalent to CPS) and have me removed from her care.

But here's the thing, I never threatened to burn down the house, or threaten to kill her. Actually, the opposite is true. I was a normal kid who didn't always clean my room when I was supposed to. Somehow fights over me cleaning my room would lead to her kicking me out of the house, or threatening to call CAS. From age 12 on, I had to beg friends parents to let me stay over, or if that didn't work wander the streets until morning and see if I would be allowed back into the house.

One time things got really bad, and after fighting my amother told me to get into the car (I didn't dare disobey her). She was going to drop me off at CAS. On the way she got so angry that she threatened to crash the car into a concrete pole, because she felt it was better off if she were dead. I guess she felt that I had to die too. She swerved the car away from the pole at the last second...

The horrible part is I ended up bawling and begging her to take me back home. Now that I'm an adult, I realize that was probably one of the biggest mistakes I ever made. But I was 12! How is a 12 year old really supposed to know whats best for her? I had issues, but for the most part I was a good kid! Most of the issues I had as a kid were probably due to the stress caused by living in such a crazy environment. The worst I did was skip class, and smoke weed every now and again. While some of my friends ended up snorting coke, and eventually smoking crack, I never once tried any sort of hard drugs. I got through high school only because I was smart enough that I didn't really need to study and I was lucky enough to have incredibly understanding teachers that understood that I had issues at home and didn't make a huge issue about my attendance.

I'm spending Christmas with friends instead of "family". There's not much "family" anyway - my grandfather passed when my amother was 3, and my grandmother passed away a few years ago (she is the only person in my afamily that I considered actual family). My amother never married. She has a sister she doesn't talk to because she's "crazy", and my aunt and uncle live on the other side of the country. I'm not really close to any of my cousins, even though one lives not too far from me.

I'm not really family to them any more than they are family to me. A few years back, my grandmothers family put out a family tree book. Every family member had a little section in the book with a few paragraphs dedicated to them...that is everyone except for me. I was mentioned as my amothers "chosen" daughter.

After getting into an argument with my amother about an incredibly rude and hurtful comment she made which she refused to apologize for making (I shouldn't say that, she did but it was more to the tune of "I'm sorry if you were offended by what I did, but I don't think I was being offensive...") I asked her why she bother adopting me in the first place. She responded by telling me she was tired of me bullying her about adopting me, and that I needed to get over it...

She's probably right. I probably should just get over it, and I'm probably making a big deal out of nothing. But there's a part of me that thinks that's probably all bullshit.

I know the situation with this little boy is different. My birth mother never abused me, I was 17 days old when I was adopted. She didn't drink or smoke during her pregnacy, in fact for the 17 days that I was hers she even breastfed me. I know she must have loved me if she was willing to bond that way with her child knowing she may never see her again. She gave me up because she wanted me to have a better chance at life in the North.

Still, I think its even more troubling that these parents want to give this child back knowing all that he has been through. Does this child not still deserve to be loved? Will no one fight for him? Will nobody give him a chance? All he's probably known is trauma and horror, I can't imagine what being kicked out his new family will do to him.

I've cried enough for tonight, I'll write more later.

The Canadian Holocaust

I was just over at Alienated Conclusions and read that Kevin Annett has passed away. For those who don't know who Annett is, he was a former United Church minister who dedicated his life to exposing the truth about the genocide of the First Nations people in this country. He was truly a great Canadian hero.

Pointless talents/weird habits=Friday Find(s)!!!

I have a lot of pointless talents and weird habits. I'm that person who is a source of useless information and facts. I constantly get asked why I know things, and what is the point of knowing such things, etc.

One of my (not so) odd (anymore) habits involves Google. I Google everything, and have been for some time. I never thought there was anything out of the ordinary about this habit until a friend stated to me one day, that before I had prompted her, she never used Google. I guess at some point I got irritated by her asking me for info all the time and started referring her to Google. Even before Google, as a kid I spent countless hours researching random things on Encarta just for the fun of it.

Another one of my pointless talents is finding interesting info on the youtubes. I once had a friend tell me I could teach a course with all the interesting links I found on Youtube.

So because I'm one of the world's worst bloggers (my posts tend to be sporadic, and few and far between...although lately I've been more inspired I'll admit) I think I'll start posting my weekly youtube finds...I'll call it my Friday Finds!

So my first Friday finds center around environmental issues that affect everyday, middle class, minority world (aka 1st world, Developed nations, the North...people with a fair amount of privilege) citizens. Why did I choose to focus on environmental issues??? Because I fancy myself a bit of a treehugger, and feel that everyone should watch these videos at least once (if not many times) because they challenge what most of us take for granted...so enjoy!

The journey so far...

It seems like another lifetime ago when I felt the need to look like I did in that photo. I was weave-a-licious (and yes, those are blue contacts I'm sportin). I don't think I ever really questioned whether or not altering my appearance so significantly was the thing to do; I just did it. I knew deep down I wasn't being true to myself, but I didn't care. I made excuses to myself as to why I couldn't just be happy with my unaltered natural hair: it was too thick, too kinky, too nappy, it shrunk up when washed, it never could be pressed completely straight, it was just too difficult...the list of excuses I had as to why I felt my hair wasn't good enough could fill a book.

I never had an addiction to the creamy crack. My hair is far too fine to put up with chemicals (or heat for that matter) for very long. I did however love extensions and weaves! When I read that piece by Joy Bryant in which she proclaims that her weave made her feel more human, I remember thinking about how at one time I could completely relate to those sentiments.

But things changed.

Ever since I cut my hair, and have made a commitment to wearing it sans weave or extensions, I've been able to truly realize the beauty of my kinks and coils. I wouldn't trade them for anything! Not only that, but caring for my hair is actually a whole lot of fun.

I've begun to realize that wearing hair that once grew out of the head of someone else is a rather questionable practice. I had watched some clips from a documentary awhile back about a British pop stars search to the question: Whose hair is it anyway? The hair extensions the stars wear comes from the heads of women and girls who are probably getting paid nothing or very little for their sacrifice. The cheap stuff most normal people buy however...literally comes from the garbage.

That's just depressing.

I am not willing to wear trash on my head. There is something very lowly and pathetic about wearing garbage.

So my journey continues on, and I'm enjoying every step on the way...

Check out my new blog about natural haircare and all things green!

WTF!!! Black kids pick cotton while white kids watch

This is just too sad. This man owes those children an apology, whether he feels his actions were justified or not. He may have been attempting to be historically correct, but does that really justify singling out 10 and 11 year old children in order to do so? And really, what did he think he was accomplishing? These were children he was dealing with! I don't have children of my own, but even I know that there are some things children are just not able to grasp on a deeper level. Hell, there are some things even adults just can't grasp!

The fact is, the message he may have inadvertently sent to those kids was that Blacks are inferior to whites; enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas to serve whites, and some of those white kids were probably wondering why things aren't still that way. Some of them might have been thinking it would be cool to have one of their Black classmates as a servant, but not because these children are inherently racist, but because most children don't really understand what chattel slavery entails.

This incident reminds me of two incidents that happened to me in high school. The first took place during a rehearsal for a play we were going to do for Black history month. It was the first meeting, and the teacher in charge was assigning us roles. I was assigned the part of Harriet Tubman. By no accident, the role of the slaves was given to all the white students. The white students were instructed to crawl on the floor towards me, and look to me desperately as if I was their savior. I remember I found this to be incredibly funny because of the irony. Still though, it made me uncomfortable and in the subsequent weeks I decided to not participate in the assembly.

The teacher involved was known for being a tad racially prejudice. A friend of mine had her as a teacher for a class and was invited by her to join a dance project she was involved with. She told my friend to invite others to join, but made it clear that anyone not Black was unwelcome.

Needless to say, when the play was presented the part with the white slaves crawling on the floor to Harriett Tubman mysteriously wasn't included. What was included was a rather long speech about how wonderful Black people were, and how essentially useless everyone else was. I think it was great that she felt the need to highlight all the achievements Black people accomplished, but I don't think anyone else needed to be put down to do so! It was no surprise that the next year at the beginning of the assembly she had to make an apology for the assembly from the previous year.

The second incident I didn't find so funny. I had a law teacher who can only be described as a jackass. Indeed many students and teachers alike would have described him as such. One day in class, he decided to bring up Philippe Rushton as an example of how freedom of speech functioned. Now, I was already aware of who Philippe Rushton was, him being a professor at the University of Western Ontario (which is in the city I grew up in), and we had already covered him in another class. The difference between the way my law teacher covered the subject and the other teacher handled it though, was that he taught Rushton's theories as if they were fact.

I graduated in 2003, which was around the time the human genome project was completed. The biological hypothesis of race being a biological construct had pretty much been disqualified, which essentially made Ruston's research invalid. To be teaching Ruston's theories (which essentially state that Blacks have the lowest IQ's of all the races based on the fact that our skulls supposedly have the smallest circumferences, also that Blacks males have larger penises and have the lowest sexual restraint) as if they were true was a very bold move.

Even if he didn't know biological race was non existent, critics of Rushton had long ignored his findings because a) his sample sizes were too small to be representative of everyone b) it was unknown who he was sampling (was everyone he was asking well educated, slightly educated, not educated at all, illiterate? How much variance in education levels existed between racial groups, etc) and c) he was funded by openly racist organizations, so although he claimed to not be racist, it was no surprise that his findings would prove what his financiers wanted him to prove.

It was a bold move I didn't like, and countered with an even bolder move of walking out of his class. Later when he attempted to discuss the incident with me, I ended up losing my temper and screaming at him for a good 20 minutes. Bold, I admit for a 17 or 18 year old kid to be doing, but he just didn't understand why he was dead wrong for doing what he did. I guess he didn't notice that some of the white kids in class were nodding in agreement while he taught Ruston's theories.

Unfortunately the incident didn't end there. On the final exam for that class there was a question about how I was planning to kill him, and how somebody had overheard me telling someone else, and was I guilty of committing a crime by making such a statement. I didn't answer the question (which was a short answer question) but instead wrote a rather long essay about how inappropriate his behaviour was. I went into that exam with an 85%. My final grade was a 63%. The exam was only worth 15% of my final grade. It doesn't take a math major to realize something wasn't quite right with my final mark.

Well obviously, being the outspoken person I am I complained and my mark was fixed and the law teacher was instructed to apologize. He never did apologize. I still would smile at him in the hall though; it sure did make him nervous as hell when I did that. I later found out he made a habit of harassing his Black students. One girl I worked with had her mark tampered with too. Unfortunately he made it a lot lower than my 63%, but she never spoke up. When I told her about my experience, she was sorry she hadn't. I'm sure though after the incident with me he thought twice about harassing other Black students. We may have been inferior in his eyes, but some of us had the audacity to stand up for ourselves.

My biggest issue with this incident is the fact that unlike my situations that happened in high school, these were elementary school children. Most of these kids are too young to know that it would have been okay to refuse to participate in such an atrocious display. The tour guide needs a reality check IMO. This is the present. Although it may have been historically accurate and okay to degrade Black people in the past, today in the present its not. The fact that he is Black makes this situation all the more shameful. It just proves that some Black people still don't realize that we are not inferior to whites.

When I look in the mirror...

(I came across this video via Naturally Leslie. I wish I could say that I found the video shocking, but unfortunately I can't. Its no secret Black people, and many other POC struggle to accept themselves with the features that they were born with. Warning: the video is extremely graphic in nature. If you have a weak stomach or squirm at the sight of blood, you may want to close your eyes like I did at certain parts.)

I had a very interesting conversation with my roommate the other night. It would seem she is not entirely secure with her Japanese features. I've noticed other quirks about her, which I chalked up to differing cultural aesthetics: the whitening face scrub sitting in the shower being one of those said quirks (looking at it every time I shower makes me somehow very uncomfortable, despite the fact its none of my business). However, pale skin was not what we discussed, rather it was her "too small" eyes. She felt Asian eyes were not as attractive because they weren't big enough. She even went on to discuss how some people (other than herself) even sometimes have eyes which are monolid (stating this fact as if it were proof of the inferiority of the Asian eye).

To be honest, I had thought her eyes were monolid, but apparently they're not. Hell, my eyes are damn near close to being monolid, but I think my eyes are fantastic! Her statement reminded me of this dude I dated awhile back. I must have accidentally called him dark skinned, which he promptly corrected by informing me that he was actually brown skinned. He was pretty much the exact same colour as I am. I guess I can accept that my skin tone could be considered brown, but I'm sure as hell not going to be offended if someone refers to me as dark. Needless to say, the relationship went nowhere, probably because obvious displays of insecurity are a complete turn off (that and I found out he was lying to his friends about getting in my panties - something he was only ever able to dream about).

To be fair, I actually love my roommate, and think that she is a fairly down-to-earth and grounded individual, plus I definitely have my own insecurities. I have nose issues. I go through periods of time when I despise it. I obsess about it, if it looks to big or broad in a picture. I have even considered getting it done, but have come to the resolve that the idea of having a nose I wasn't born with is just obscene and incredibly arrogant, so plastic surgery could never be a thought I could seriously entertain for very long before coming to my senses. I'm also very critical of other peoples noses, which is stupid, and incredibly shallow and insecure on my part but sometimes I just can't help it.

It probably started when I was 13, at least I don't remember having issues with my nose before than. A group of older white boys felt compelled to harass me one day after school. I had recently shaved my head (I was a rebellious kid, what can I say) and I can only guess that my rejection of a stereotypical female appearance encouraged them to beat on me, and berate me with epithets, including pointing out how big my nose was.

As painful as this memory should be, surprisingly it isn't. In fact, I only remembered it having watched the video. All the people profiled had a history of being teased, or harassed in their (sometimes not so) distant past. It was obvious this was what contributed to their overly damaged self-esteem. So why did it seemingly destroy them, but not me, or for that matter my roommate?

Its sad, because at one point during the film, Jet (she actually goes by the full name Jet Black...google her. The woman has far more issues than whats mentioned in the video) actually comes to her senses for a brief moment after her surgery. She expresses regret for having gotten her nose done. Of course the next day she seems to be over it, but I wonder if that regret ever really went away.

I think loving yourself is one of the greatest gifts one can give to themselves. It isn't always easy, but in the end it is worth it. Wearing my hair naturally has contributed immensely to my well being. I've never felt so beautiful just being myself. I have days when I don't like the reflection staring back at me in the mirror, but I have more days when I do.

People go through all sorts of bullshit in life. Changing the superficial is such a band-aid fix. I can't help but think had the individuals in the documentary stopped and really considered their dilemmas for a moment longer, they would have seen that plastic surgery was not what was going to make them happy. The beauty ideal is so narrow, is there really anything wrong with being a different brand of beautiful?

The Aussie Philosophy: It isn't racist if it's done in the name of comedy?

I have a message for anyone that feels that Harry Connick Jr and the rest of us are being oversensitive about the disgusting display broadcasted on Hey Hey Its Saturday Night: we're not being oversensitive. When an individual or a group finds something you believe to be amusing incredibly insulting and offensive just because you claim that it was a joke, doesn't mean it is or that we should all be laughing. In fact, instead of continuing to portray yourselves as backward and ignorant, perhaps taking the time to do a little research and educating yourselves is in order. I'm not claiming that there isn't ignorance and racism in the rest of the world, but claiming ignorance because your country historically has been racist towards other groups (I don't think anyone can deny that Australia has a colonial past just like many other nations) is no excuse to continue laughing once you've been told the joke you're telling is wrong.

The fact of the matter is, The Jackson Five are African Americans. The Jackson Jive did a disservice to these Black music icons by portraying them in such an offensive light. Blackface has a history of specifically targeting African Americans, and using imagery with such a legacy of hate against this specific group which the Jackson Five identifies as is appalling. The fact that the group performing questioned whether or not to do the act in the first place displays that they were not completely ignorant to the potential controversy the act would bring.

I commend Harry Connick Jr for taking a stand and calling out the act for what it was. It was inappropriate. In the era of a technologically connected planet, it should be no surprise that the world would be alerted to this ignorance and would cry fowl (and justly so in my opinion).

By no means do I believe that this ignorance is a complete or accurate portrayal of all Australians. But defending stupidity when u just let your asses be shown to the world is not improving your image on the world stage. The network did the right thing for immediately apologizing when realizing that what they had done was going to be an issue. The rest of the Australian public that feels this act is still funny would do well to stop talking about things they very obviously do not understand.

Those who continue to believe and vocalize that because the performance was meant as a joke and therefore cannot be racist realize this: not all racism is overt (although taken out of the context of Australian entertainment Blackface performed like this is overtly racist). A spade will be called a spade regardless if it wears the mask of comedy. Be prepared for the rest of the world to see you as backwards racists.

Tall Enough

Saw this over on The CW Experience. It is an absolutely beautiful film. Please, if you enjoy it as much as I did, click here to vote for it.

Pet monkey...on being adopted.

I came across a website last night that really got me thinking. The site is called Harlow's Monkey. The site takes a look at the adoptee's perspective of being raise by parents other than those that gave birth to them, something that I find uncommon. Being an adoptee, most of my life nobody bothered to listen to my perspective, which I have no doubt added to the list of teenage angst's I felt growing up. It was nice to see for the first time that my experience is one that is shared. That its one that is finding a voice, and that there are people out there willing to vocalize their feelings about their experience, and make no apologies for it.

My entire life, I always felt that I was the one who was some how the burden, while the woman who adopted me was praise as being some sort of pseudo saviour. It infuriated me, because I never felt that my mother had ever done anything spectacular in adopting me, nor even that she was the model parent, doing everything right. There were plenty of things that I felt she could have handled better, but didn't. And yet, she was seen as the saviour, my so-called "white hope".

The name of the site struck me too. I've witnessed people referring to Madonna's adopted children as her pets, and have had even more disturbing reference made about me in relation to my situation. Not too long ago I received an email from a girl who had been an acquaintance of mine for years. She had been roommates with another girl I'd known and from time to time she would send me something interesting. This message however was incredible racist, and derogatory towards Black people, so I politely let her know to not send this sort of bullshit my way. Her response was basically to get over it, that niggers are worthless trash, and I should be happy that my white mother saved my monkey ass.

This coming from the same girl that I had invited into my home, and cooked an entire Thanksgiving feast for one holiday, because she had no place to go.

The thing is, as upset as I was having to be subjected to that sort of abuse, I was angrier still at my mother who still came off as the "great white hope".

It makes one question oneself as an adoptee as to what the hell sort of space we are to occupy. As alarming as it seems, it sometimes feels that becoming an adoptee equals a loss of ones own status as a dignified being of colour only to go occupy the place of being massa's pet.

To Black people, I'm not and will never be one of them. Despite the fact that we share the same struggles, to them I could never really understand the way the world works like they do. Newsflash: I don't go around wearing a sign proclaiming that I have a white mother. People see my dark skin and my nappy hair and treat me the same devalued ways all Black women who have dark skin, or nappy hair get treated. There is no difference.

To the white folks that do happen to know that I was raised by a white parent do, I will admit treat me differently than other Black folks. This is when I get to play my least favourite role...the token.

I loath the token. Even while I understand the benefits of playing her up, she is only used as a last resort. Some people take pride in being the token, I'd prefer to bury her deep.

So much of my issue with my mother growing up was that she raised me Canadian, a fact that she was proud of, and would boast to me from time to time. What she didn't realize was that raising a child "Canadian" was in fact synonymous with raising them as if they were "white".

I am not white. By looking at me, it is very clear that I am not white. So one can only imagine when reality kicked in how very confusing the world became. I will give myself credit, I began to understand the way race worked at age 8. Until that point with one or two exceptions I would venture to say that I was ignorantly unaware of how it worked, and would affect me later on in years to come.

I have gotten to the point in my relationship with my mother that I make it very clear that I am a Black woman, and she is a white one. I make sure that she realizes that the worlds that we live in are very, very different. She is learning to see the things her people do to those of different races, and she is making an effort to reevaluate her white privilege and see how messed up this world really is.

I made it to the Caribbana parade for the first time this year. We snuck in through a hole in the fence, and managed to end up right in the middle of the parade. I was so overcome with emotion I actually had to take a minute and sit down. Here was the culture that I was missing, presented to me in the most beautiful array of colours, glitter, sights, smells, rhythms, and sounds. I felt like for the first time I was allowed a glimpse of home. This is what should have been a part of me. It will never authentically be me though, despite the fact that it's in my blood and I've always secretly wished it to be so.

I highly suggest that anyone interested in the real reason behind Harlow's Monkey being named as such should go to the site and take a look around. Its really a great site!

you.need.to.comb.your.hair.

There's a girl at my work that feels the need to tell me almost every time she sees me that I need to comb my hair. To be entirely honest...and incredibly blunt, it fuckin' pisses me right off. At times, a friend of hers that works with us as well will feel the need to chime-in in agreement, which makes me feel even more murderous. I've explained to them both that combing my hair the way they think it needs to be combed is essentially like giving myself a haircut, and that it's not going to cause my hair to behave as they would like. The one tried to argue that if I combed it every day, it would get better, but I firmly silenced this nonsense by briefly explaining the science of black hair. Not that I feel I had to, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that my lively kinky-coils are different from their dead-weighted silken locks, but some people are just ignorant.

While the one was silenced by explanation, the other was not. What get's me about this girl is she was one of the few who supported my decision to cut off all my hair in the first place! I guess it grew in too kinky for her liking. The funny thing is, this bitch ain't even white, so how dare she subject me to beauty standards that she herself will never measure up to! Finally, a few days ago I lost my damn cool, and embarrassed her in front of enough people that hopefully a long lasting impact will have been made:

"Leave my fucking hair alone! Its not your fucking hair, its my fucking hair, and you may not like it, but I fucking love it, so SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!"

Silence. Laughter from my other co-workers happy I finally told this girl to shut up (she was being generally obnoxious that day) and amused by the obscene number of times I had used the word "fuck". Than someone asking, "Are you being serious?"

"Yes. I am being serious."

Maybe it was harsh, but why the hell am I having to defend the way I wear my hair to anybody? Especially to someone I work with, it just seems rather ridiculous does it not? Ridiculous, but not surprising.

I knew by cutting my hair and wearing it natural that I was doing something very radical from the start. A black woman's hair can never just be her own, everyone feels that they have some say in how it should look. I've known from a young age to expect unwanted criticism of my hair, and have it dictated to me by people who had no business doing so on how I should style it.

But enough is enough. My hair is mine, my hair is beautiful, and I will wear it how I want to, with pride, and simply not give a damn what anyone thinks any more.

Today I was riding the bus, and this black girl kept sneaking peeks at me when she thought I couldn't see her. I saw her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her. She may have been thinking "how dare that bitch wear her hair like that and act like she's somebody" or maybe she was thinking "huh...natural hair can look good." Judging by the expression she wore, I'm betting it was a bit of both. No matter which it was, my hair got her thinking. Did you know, natural hair is contagious?

Hair inspiration found at my new fav spot to stalk: lecoil

Right now I'm listening to: