Fostering and Racism

Yep, I am going to talk about it.  It is out there and nothing puts you smack dab in the middle of it like a racially diverse family.  I am talking about racism.  I live in a rural area where there is a lot of racism. 

There are the people that openly say racist things, like the elderly lady at JCPenney one time when I was shopping.  Months ago I had Little Lady in my Moby Wrap and was shopping for some clothes.  I heard an elderly woman tell her husband, “Look at that little baby.”  I was waiting for the next thing to be something about how cute she is or how tiny she is (because she is very small).  I was floored to hear her say, “It’s mixed…what a shame.”

Um…WHAT?! 

This is the part where you can picture a crazy redhead with a baby strapped her going on a rant to an old woman in the middle of a retail store.  But it didn’t happen.  I was too shocked.  I was immobilized.  I couldn’t move, talk, or even breathe. 

I finally snapped out of it.  Did that really happen?  It was the Twilight Zone (if you have to google the Twilight Zone, feel free to smack yourself right now for being so stinking young).

Don’t think I don’t say stuff back, though.  There was a black woman at the grocery store that overheard the cashier ask me if we had heard anything about getting to adopt Little Lady.  I had the kids with me, so she saw that Little Lady is multiracial (Hispanic, black, and white).  She started talking {very loudly} about how awful it is that “they give black kids to white families to save them.  Black kids should be with black families.  White people have no business trying to save black people.”  It went on and on for what seemed like forever.  She said all of this yelling talking loudly and looking straight at me. 

This is where I grabbed a piece of my receipt, wrote down my foster agency’s phone number, and handed it to her.  I told her if she was so concerned about the welfare of black children, she could become a foster parent.  Because they could always use more foster parents and by being a foster parent herself she could keep some kids from coming to us “do-gooder” Whities. 

I didn’t yell.  I wasn’t rude.  I was assertive.  I was concise and deliberate with every word and every movement of my body.  I didn’t want it to come across as confrontational, but I wanted to make very clear that I did not appreciate her comments.

I think that woman must have been about as shocked as I was about the elderly woman’s comment.  She just stood there, mumbled something, and stuffed the paper in her pocket.  I have no idea what she thought I was going to say, but from the look on her face it wasn’t what I actually did say.

 

So you never know what is going to be said and by whom.  Just be aware it is out there.  By opening your home to different races and ethnicities you become a target for a narrow-minded person’s hate.