What Makes a Family?

I was researching something I was writing today when I came across a compelling article by Pearl S. Buck  “The Children Waiting: The Shocking Scandal of Adoption,” published in the September 1955 issue of Woman’s Home Companion.  1955 was after World War II and the Korean War.  During both those conflicts there had been many American troops stationed in Asia who, as the euphemism put it, “had needs.”  The needs of the Asian women who satisfied them mattered less, and many were left behind with child.

At that time adoptions were handled largely by sectarian religious institutions and the children were placed into families that “matched” them in terms of race, religion, and other characteristics.  This meant a lot of children, especially those of mixed race parents, were simply not adoptable.  They spent their lives in institutions until they could fend for themselves.

Buck saw the injustice of this.  Moreover, having adopted several children herself, she new that not all potential parents shopped for children as if they were furniture or shoes.

Two babies came [to me] from adoption agencies, where they were considered unadoptable because it was difficult to find adoptive parents to “match” them. I was sure that there must be good families, matching or not, who could love these babies and indeed there were. . . .

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Post-Racial and Post-Partisan?

President Obama in the Oval Office

President Obama in the Oval Office

Joe Conason writes in Salon that former CNN anchor Lou Dobbbs sound like he is running for office and that if he does it will be the GOP’s nightmare.  “Lou Dobbs for president!” is the headline on the op-ed.

It send a chill up my spine, but I’ll leave Lou and his whole schtick alone for now.  Rather I want to focus on one thing Canuson reports that Dobbs said in his first radio broadcast after leaving CNN that just completely baffles me.  Nor is Dobbs is not the only one who has made the allegation, many on the right have.

He said that President Obama “focuses on the partisan and racial” in a “21st century post-partisan, post-racial society.”  I don’t know what planet Dobbs is living on, but we do not live in a post racial society.  I do think that since the Civil Rights Movement, we have slow progress toward this becoming a nation in which race doesn’t matter, but we’ve still got a long way to go.
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