The Federalist: In December, McKenzie Adams, a fourth grader from U.S. Jones Elementary School in Demopolis, Alabama, despondent after relentless taunting by other black children for her relationship with a white child, hanged herself in her family’s home. Although suicides resulting from school bullying have sadly risen steadily over the years, McKenzie’s death spoke to me on a very personal level.
In the summer of 2005, while visiting my grandparents in the northeast, my husband and I met up with my cousin, an international teacher, and his new wife, whom he’d met while teaching in Zambia, Africa. In recounting her history, Justina told us of the very recent death of her sister and how her 21-year-old nephew was struggling to feed and care for five siblings as young as 2.
After much soul-searching and discussion, my husband and I approached Brian and offered to adopt his two youngest sisters, who were 2 and 6 at the time. He gratefully agreed, and in May of 2007, after a two-year adoption process that would have stymied any but the most ardent adoptive parents, I flew to Zambia, Africa to bring home our daughters, Barbara and Betty (yes, Betty White).
We knew that adopting two little girls (4 and 9) from the other side of the world into a family of two boys (4 and 2) wouldn’t be easy in terms of bonding and re-assimilating the family birth order structure, but it was the stuff like what little McKenzie Adams experienced that we didn’t see coming, and it quickly blindsided me.
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. MORE
First problem I saw in this is “the pastor, a woman”.
Everything will go downhill from there.
The author is absolutely right. I can count on one hand the times a white person said something fucked up about me (rarely to my face) because I’m black (and white). But I would have to open up a hardcover book to read you about the shit black people have said to me or about me. Mainly because my mother is white. It ranges from, “You talk white” to “black men who marry white women are sellouts” all the way to “mixed kids should be killed”. How are blacks who think like this any better than the klan? Hint: They aren’t. They’re both the same evil, vile, murderous pieces of shit ever born.
Just so ya know, most of the racist shit I heard was in California and Washington state, for some reason. lol.
When we adopted from China we were bombarded by the same BS. “She needs to be exposed to her culture!”
“What culture would that be?”, I asked. “She’s officially an American since near birth. We don’t live in China!”
I knew what they were trying to say, and it is important for our child to know (and think positively) about the country of her birth and its rich history. Kids, especially adopted kids, should never be told what a lousy situation they were in. They’ll figure that out for themselves as young adults. But our kid is 100% American and Chinese “culture” is as foreign to her as it is to us, her Norwegian-American parents.
But what this writer is talking about is a whole ‘nother thing having first to do with joining the perpetually aggrieved black separatists who are openly racist and make no bones about it.
I hope their racism soon catches up with them and people begin to recognize just how far and wide it has grown and become a terrible plague on our house.
Great piece – and great comment MJA! Thanks for posting both!
forcibly deranged
Stupid people are stupid on the inside. Color, size and shape have nothing to do with it.
What’s really sad is stupid people often get power, or are lead by powerful, evil people (democraps and communists and mooselimbs).
IDK, Jethro. For many blacks, it’s all about color. That’s all they know. How else does one explain the black-on-black murder rate in Chicago, for example, and not one black family raises a fist of protest about it.
‘Hint: They aren’t. They’re both the same evil, vile, murderous pieces of shit ever born.’
So true, and still proliferated by the media and politicians.
Black. Peers.
I’m sure there are “black peers;” but not enough to say so. Rule of the bell curve.
When yer all wrapped up in race, racism is a natural byproduct. Obsession doesn’t leave much room for rational thought.
If, on the other hand, you focus on bettering yourself, race takes a backseat (not the back of the bus) to your priorities.
@Abigail,
I think my second comment responds to yours. They are indoctrinated to be that way, over many generations.
I’ve known black, white and yellow skinned racists. Their racism is fundamentally due to their stupidity.
I also know black, white and yellow skinned people who don’t have a racist bone in their body. They are also kind-hearted, intelligent people.
MJA — And I would bet real money — being a native Washingtonian — that any racist crap you heard in our state came from former Californians. No lie. Natives only hate on the Chinese and indians. (Just kidding!!)
It’s not as if Abigail and the author and others with biracial kids, like my parents, are going to stop the children from seeking out relatives or whatever culture they like. As long as they aren’t joining a cult, big deal!
The pastorette was just a pushy, smug, racist jerk. I’m sure blacks like her don’t like being stereotyped, but for some reason, they really can’t resist being the stereotype.
AbigailAdams- LOL!
Jethro- It’s a weird fixation on skin color and the (name a color here) dem politicians know and use it like a switch on blacks and hispanics.
Politicians are only now learning to use it on dumb white people.
Regarding the other stuff, of course, your own mileage may vary. I’m just speaking for myself (and my sister and some other biracial friends I have had) and I’m telling you, there’s something weird about the black liberals I’ve met and have heard about. It’s almost like they have shackles on their minds instead of shackles on their wrists and ankles.
After our divorce my then ex-wife moved with our kids back to her home state of Connecticut. Indeed, the worse treatment they received was from other black kids and for the same reasons – their speech (actual English), their “accent” (Midwestern), and their civility. Fast forward twenty years – the three that have married thus far married white spouses. The fourth has dated but only white guys. The mainstream black society is toxic and nihilistic.
Thanks, liberals and statists – well done! You did what slavery and Jim Crow couldn’t!
Jethro — agreed. But because the writer was talking about how the only real racism her daughter has experienced is from blacks, I was pointing out how racist blacks do and say what they do without impunity — because it’s based on being black. Stupid, without doubt, but specific to their skin color.
You know, I really saw and felt a difference in my black friends and acquaintances when obama came to power. All of a sudden it really seemed like they let that chip on their shoulder take over. I’m no longer friends with a guy who I’ve known for over 20 years — an Air Force buddy — who just let fly with all this pent-up rage over race and his trying to drag me into his angst. It was really very sad to me to think that he held certain opinions about me all those years just because I was white. And he married a white woman, too! It was thoroughly disgusting. I think now he regrets being such an ass, but too proud to admit it and make amends. Very sad situation. I loved him like a brother and we spent a lot of time having good laughs, encouraging and supporting each other in great and awful times, too. I miss him.
Then I also remember a black woman — the mother of one of my kid’s classmates — who, at a get-to-know-you picnic at our kids’ school (a few months before obama was elected), was a complete ass and an enormous boor, acting like a queen bee and rubbing everyone’s faces in “the first black president” and how much he was going to do for the “black race!” You would have thought she was a close relative to Mooch, herself. These are the things I’m talking about.
‘Politicians are only now learning to use it on dumb white people.’
Nah, that would not explain 8 years of Barry. Dems learned that back then and used it. Puppet boy Barry just didn’t give a ‘s’, never having a real job before.
Agree about the Dem ‘weird fixation on skin color’, yet they still have a ‘Russian’ fixation as well.
TommyBoy in IN- I’m reminded of my 100% black friend in high school who spoke exactly like I did and had to yell at black people from time to time because they kept telling her she sounded white. LOL. She would say, “No I don’t sound WHITE, I sound like a person with an education and a vocabulary.” 😀
No Blushes- yeah I was trying to say “now” as in modern ‘barack era’. But thanks for clearing it up. I agree.
Nods MJA, thanks, have always appreciated you posts and thoughts here as well, sincerely.
@ AA and MJA: And matters aren’t exactly going smoothly in many sub-Saharan African states either, are they?
Right back atcha, shug. 🙂
Holy schiznizzle….. did we date, MJA?
Lost two black girlfriends to black racism. The worst are black women. Black men only say something if your black girlfriend is hott.
forcibly deranged – no kidding! Maybe that’s part of the problem. Emulating the bad crap in the motherland (they have never been to, or know anyone in) lol. Not everyone in Africa are assholes, but the assholes get the attention, right? Kinda like hollywood…
“did we date, MJA?”
If we did, you would remember it. ROFL
Did anyone go over to read the McKenzie Adams story? I don’t have the stomach to right now. I can’t imagine a 4th grader hanging herself.
MJA — No, I haven’t read it for the same reason. I can only take so much sadness in a given week. 🙁 And I have to ask myself, where were her parents when this was all going down? I know parents walk that balancing act between being too observant and totally hands-off, but….
(did they not like that her friend was white, too?)
Did your boyfriend transfer from USC to USF, MJA?
I ask because I may or may not have had an enormous crush on Lisa Bonnet and might have acted out my desires with whichever mixed race skirt was handy.
This is quite a thread, a lot of stuff I didn’t know….. …..many didn’t know.
I don’t know how to get out of this pot of identity politics and racism…. Might we start evaluating folk by height or eye color, instead of race? I am soooooooooo sick of sexism and how many STEM graduates are women, and…..
I’m sorry for your story, MJA. …smile….
Yep, I read about McKenzie Adams suicide. I cried. My God, what does it take for a nine year old child to hang herself, just before Christmas? Her grandmother found her.
The officials are saying “there are no official reports” of bullying. She changed fucking schools, once! Not only do I disbelieve official doublespeak, I suspect that it is likely, now, to be swept up and over. How do you punish other 9 year old bullies for causing the death of a classmate — and one most likely one hundred times better, with more potential than yours? Well, you don’t. You ignore it.
I have no answers, but this thread has touched me. ……Lady in Red
Abigail…..I don’t think there was any (or much?) inter-racial blood in the family, but it seemed close — and very supportive of McKenzie. They were “educated” and, yep, liked the white family who helped by driving McKenzie to school and McKenzie, obviously, liked them, all, a lot.
My sense is that McKenzie was very private, tried not to worry, bother anyone. ….cause more trouble, complain. ….sigh.
I don’t know. I don’t think it was the family’s fault, although they will pay the biggest price….. …..if only….. ….Lady in Red
Lady, the only valid way to evaluate people is by astrological birth sign.
Gol dang dirt signs, ruining my planet… they all look alike.
Bastards…
LIR — Very glad to hear that. I hadn’t drawn a conclusion (based on having not read anything about it), but I wondered.
It’s disgusting that today *some* blacks twist themselves into knots looking for ways to feel discriminated against and at the same time spew their racist hatred without conscience. They’ve bought the message about so-called “Institutional Racism” hook, line and sinker.
Great idea, Mr. Burr! I like it. Let’s slice kids and adults by astrological birth sign! Forget race and sex…. Are we evenly divided on the Board of Directors twelve ways?
How are the Aries doing against the Cancers in 8th grade math competition? ….smile….
Damn, it would be refreshing, although, I have to tell you: I have The Best Birth Sign and most likely My Sign will end up ruling the world. ….smile…
……Lady in Red
yes, yes, Aquarius uber allies and all that.
Now help me work up a “final solution” for the dirt signs.
Go ahead, try the birth sign thing….you can’t get both of us….
I SMELL DIRT!!!!!
Such a deep touching thread this has been.
Clearly has demonstrated the incredibly failure of the education system and regard to human respect of each other.
Just wishing good resolve to all at IOTW for a deceit 01/15/2019.
I was just a voluntary after birth abortion LIR. Why are you not cheering for the “woman doing what she wants with her own body” cheer you always brag about here
Your are truly repulsive btw
7 years ago my wife and I adopted our Grandson (14) and Granddaughter (8).
Last year, my grandson was the only one singled out in his 8th grade class as African-American by his white teacher during Black History Month. He came home agitated. He shared with me that he corrected his teacher, “he wasn’t african, he was born in the United States and is an American just like everyone else in the class”. He gets it !
He’s a very good student, civic minded and, as a Brown Belt, is working to earn his Black Belt in Karate. I’m pretty darn proud of him.
And my granddaughter is a sweet-heart. Both are loved, well adjusted to family life and God knows we are doing our best to provide for them and guide them toward adulthood. But isn’t that what families are for?
By the way, we’re all children of God and we don’t need to be divided by astrological signs, color or other criteria (with the exception of good and evil).
“Read a book, look up the words you don’t know in a dictionary, write the definitions in a notebook, use the new words in conversation with other people.” —me to low-functioning Crab Bucket People
Congratulations, you are a higher functioning Homo sapien.
Now be ready to fight for your property, limb and life at the drop of a hat 24/7, anywhere. Grow eyes in the back of your head. Live in solitude to maximize your survival time.