I don’t know why I’m reading the NY Times blog on adoption, because it’s mostly just pissing me off. Tama Janowitz’s entry is no exception:
A girlfriend who is now on the waiting list for a child from Ethiopia says that the talk of her adoption group is a recently published book in which many Midwestern Asian adoptees now entering their 30s and 40s complain bitterly about being treated as if they did not come from a different cultural background. They feel that this treatment was an attempt to blot out their differences, and because of this, they resent their adoptive parents.
So in a way it is kind of nice to know as a parent of a child, biological or otherwise – whatever you do is going to be wrong. Like I say to Willow: “Well, you know, if you were still in China you would be working in a factory for 14 hours a day with only limited bathroom breaks!”
I have never liked Janowitz’s writing. It’s sh*t disguised as hipsterism. But this sideways slam on the book Outsiders Within is just plain wrong. “Complain bitterly”–where have we heard this before?
Did Janowitz even read the book? If she didn’t, then this is just an ignorant remark. But if she did, it means that she was able to reduce the complexity of the writing down to a single sound byte–those complaining adoptees! Shut up already!
What do domestic adoptive parents in China say to their kids? Maybe they say, “If you were adopted in America you would be dead or brain damaged by now.”
Emma Alvey. Mia Depaillat. Jessica McClure. Meghan Hawkins-Rusch. Esther Scudder. What do you think?
Resist racism 
For the record, at least four adult adoptees have tried to comment on Ms. Janowitz’s piece. We’ve all been censored.
The NYT does not like adult adoptees who critique. They just want us to roll over and play nice.
Send them over here.
We’ll see if they choose to censor my comment as well.
I am not familiar with Ms. Janowitz’s writing and most certainly do not get her “humorous” appeal whatsoever.
There were so many offensive things in her piece; I personally feel it accomplished nothing more than successfully re-igniting many of the old, damaging and tired biased notions that many hold about IA adoption.
UGH.
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I have to say, I thought her post was stupid,
and so not funny. In fact, I was taken back
by the very first line, about her daughter
looking like a Mongolian. WTF? Then, the line
about the father being Chinese, or maybe some
“black dude” was fn ridiculous. If I was her
daughter, I’d hate her too.
I’m still wondering if the NYT is going to address *domestic* adoption, transracial or same-race. Why is ‘adoption’ synonymous here with ‘international [mostly Asian] adoption’? Are they going to talk about transracial White American/Black American adoption (or is that too controversial)?
Where are the adoptions out of U.S. foster care, U.S. infant adoptions, open adoptions?
I mean, not to be too much of a pain in the a**, but are they going to get around to any semi-enlightened APs?
All I can bear to read is the quote you’ve posted and all I’ve got to say to that is, WHAT A LAME-ASS COP OUT. And now I am going to go bang my head against something hard. Ow.
I tried to read her books a long time ago and felt that they were parodies of themselves. Trying to be edgy but coming out shallow. So this should not surprise me. What does surprise me is that she got paid to say what anyone can read, any day, on almost any online adoption forum.
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I put up my 2 cents.