This cartoon is drawn by my most frequent collaborator, Becky Hawkins. Becky writes:
Coming up with 8 different character designs is one of the treats and challenges of drawing a cartoon like this. It’s either a fun exercise, or it feels overwhelming and you open and close the file several times over multiple days without making progress because you’re not sure what anyone should look like and facial expressions are hard and all your sketches look bad. (It’s been a tiring month. I may not have been in a great headspace.) Fortunately, deadlines can be very inspirational, and I’m really happy with how the finished cartoon looks!
I try to vary the hairstyles, body shapes, and clothing of each character. When I feel stuck, I scroll Facebook to look for looks that pique my interest. All resemblance between these cartoon characters and persons in my Facebook feed are entirely coincidental and based on me not remembering what contemporary humans look like.
For the chalkboard in panel 2, I looked up stock photos of “complicated math equation” and stitched together the parts that looked the coolest. I also added a big R for “racist.”
I was originally planning to save time by limiting the color palette to two colors, like in another cartoon I drew, “Things To Stop Saying To Autistic People.” But I didn’t think the panel with blackface would read clearly without a more realistic coloring style. So I used another trick for a slightly less limited palette: color in a few things, then look for where to reuse those colors. I started with the orange jumpsuit, banana, and makeup. Those colors could show up in other people’s hair, the professor’s elbow patches, and the halo. I’d imagined the jewelry in panel 1 as turquoise, so I used that color for the jewelry and some of the backgrounds. When I used the exact same blue, orange, and yellow in every panel, it looked a little flat. So I desaturated the color on the backgrounds and added a different blue to the palette. If you’ve read this far, thanks for getting into the weeds with me!
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Of course, it’s totally possible to deny that a statement is racist in a meaningful way. For example, “when I said I don’t trust people like them, I was referring to bowlers. That some of them are Latinx isn’t relevant.”
But it’s all too common to refute criticisms of what someone did or said with defenses based on who the person is. “What I said can’t be racist, because [I have a Black friend.] The part in brackets is irrelevant to whether or not what was said was racist.
People with Black friends can say racist things. Even Black people can say racist things. In general, the way to figure out if a statement is racist is to examine the statement, not to examine the speaker.
Not every panel in this cartoon is an example of this sort of logical fallacy, but most of them are. And all of them are examples of people switching the subject from what was said, to talking about themselves. And although the cartoon exaggerates, this sort of thing is really really common in real life. (And even more common on Twitter).
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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has eight panels, each of which shows a single white person speaking directly to the reader. An additional ninth panel – the center panel of the grid – has nothing in it but a large caption, written in a distorted font. The caption says:
WHAT I SAID CAN’T BE RACIST BECAUSE
PANEL 1
A fashionable looking woman, with an undercut hairstyle, cats eye glasses and a septum piercing, waves a hand dismissively.
WOMAN: Liberals can’t be racist. Everyone knows that.
PANEL 2
A man dressed like an academic, including a bow tie and a jacket with elbow patches, is standing in front of a blackboard, pointing to the blackboard with a, er, pointer. The blackboard is covered with complicated looking math equations, and at the bottom there’s a simple drawing of the academic’s face, and a drawing of a devil face, with a not equal sign (“≠”) between the two faces.
MAN: Because racists are bad bad people, and I’m a good person. Q.E.D.!
PANEL 3
A red-haired man, wearing a collared shirt with a nametag, points to himself. He has a pleased and proud expression. There’s a footnote at the bottom of the panel.
MAN: I’ve got a Black friend!*
FOOTNOTE: *work acquaintance
PANEL 4
A good-looking man in his twenties, wearing an open plaid shirt over a white t shirt, is speaking to us.
MAN: I’m not white! Family legend says that great great great Grandma was an Indian!
PANEL 5
This is the central panel. It has nothing in it but the words “WHAT I SAID CAN’T BE RACIST BECAUSE” in large distressed letters.
PANEL 6
A man talks to us, wearing blackface makeup and holding a banana. He’s shrugging.
MAN: I was only joking! That makes it okay!
PANEL 7
A blonde woman holding a drink makes the “come here” gesture towards people who are out of panel.
WOMAN: I adopted three children of color! THREE!
WOMAN: Prop, Shield and Excuse, come here so I can show these folks.
PANEL 8
A woman speaks to us. She looks as if she’s about to cry, and is holding a handkerchief in one hand.
WOMAN: If you say something I said is racist I might start crying and no one wants that.
PANEL 9
A person (could be either female or male) closes their eyes and holds their hands in front of them, as if praying. They are wearing blue robes. There is a halo shining out from behind their head, drawn as if in stained glass.
PERSON: My intentions were pure.
I agree with all of those except that I have a reservation about the lower left panel. Absent the amount of wealth that permits one to hire help for most childrearing tasks it takes a hell of a comittment to adopt 3 kids and raise them.
Panel 1 speaks to me because I’ve spent almost all my life living near two Democrat-dominated cities (Boston and Chicago) and I must say some of the most racist people I’ve ever met would normally be considered “liberals” and voted Democrat their whole lives.
One can both be committed to nonwhite people – as children, friends, spouses, etc – and say a racist thing, be racist in some ways, etc.
That wouldn’t be possible if people were all bad or all good, always right or always wrong. But most people are a mix of many things.
I’m afraid that, like RonF, I disapprove strongly of the bottom left panel. It’s absolutely fair to point out that some people who adopt children of other races also hold some racist opinions, but that panel doesn’t just do that, it goes a lot further by implying that those people don’t love those children and are just using them (possibly unintentionally, but it definitely does imply that).
But some people really do cite their non-white children or spouses to argue that nothing they said could be racist. Is that not something we should make fun of?
Two responses, I think:
1) No. It’s something that should be criticised, usually gently except in the most egregious cases, but adopting children who need it is a sufficiently admirable and praiseworthy behaviour that making fun of people for anything connected to it is something that should be avoided. Choosing to save a child from a life in foster care is a really, really big deal both in terms of the effort it takes and the amount of good it does.
and
2) And my particular objection here wasn’t/isn’t to criticism, or even mockery, of people who adopt children of other races and use that as a defence against justified accusations of racism, per se, it’s specifically to implying that their children are just tools to them rather that proper family members.
*** adjusts to style of argument and proceeds accordingly ***
Yes, we should only harshly criticize Joel Steinberg. Anything less than his treatment of his adopted daughter is nothing but admirable and praiseworthy because, lord knows, no adoptive parents – especially those who adopt minority children – are abusive.
I remember growing up reading A Series of Unfortunate Events and being offended that the author called Count Olaf a villain and even made fun of him. Sure, harshly criticize him, but he adopted three kids, and that’s “sufficiently admirable and praiseworthy” that he can’t possibly be evil.
Do I have to say this is sarcasm?
Barry @ 5
I don’t think so, actually. I think it takes a lot of dedication to the bit to actually go so far as to marry someone who isn’t white as a shield against accusations of racism.
Remember that most people don’t define racism the same way you do, and that the people most likely to say this are probably the least likely to use it the same way you do.
When the average person imagines racism, they envision the overt, almost caricatured hatefulness of a grand wizard. My impression of the progressive usage is a very wide spectrum spanning flavors of apathy and disparate impact. Even then… It’s kind of hard to argue that you’re apathetic to the experience of black people if you marry or adopt one, but it’s a materially different context.
What I think is happening in a situation like what is being described is that the person who married the black person probably married the person that they love, adopted the kids that they love, and/or have friends that they genuinely appreciate (although I grant you that using vague work contacts is a reach).
And then when faced with accusations of racism, which again… most people view as an accusation of overt, meaningful bigotry… There’s a near panic response, a need to prove that they aren’t racist, both because there’s a lot of social baggage around being labelled a racist right now, and because most people not only want to believe that they are good people, but also care what other people think.
So they default to what they perceive as one of the most obvious fallbacks: “How could I hate black people? I love these ones.” And it’s obvious to them because it happens to be true.
I actually think that there’s something reasonable to that. And I think that you not only not seeing that, but thinking that it’s mockable is a blind spot.
As they say, read the whole etc.
Jaqueline @10
The easy thing to say is that the position I think you’re trying to make relies on stereotypes of adoptive parents by making the point that adoptive parents stereotype their children.
The slightly more in depth thing to say is that your position doesn’t make much sense in almost any dimension of reality.
Frankly, Children don’t end up adopted because Krampus steals them away and delivers them to affluent white families. The parents are dead, the parents have given them up for adoption, or the children were taken by the state. There aren’t many other options.
My sister is a social worker, she told me about a child she had to separate from their family. About a home that was filthy, a fridge that was empty, and a mother who thought that the crack and needles on top of her fridge was OK because they were outside the kid’s reach.
These kids generally aren’t being removed from loving, healthy homes.
And the adopting parents are part of a very long line of people who for various reasons are willing to take a child into their home. While it’s obviously possible that it happened, I think “entered into a legal conservatorship to bring a talented football player to their preferred college and then brag about saving their life” has got to be on the rarer side of the spectrum.
I can’t think of a way to measure or study intention in any meaningful way (although I’d love to see that study if it exists), but you can see this in results: The disparity in results between children who grow up in poverty, children who grow up in the foster system, and children who are adopted is stark. Even if every adoptive parent in the system was anthropomorphized white saviorism, I think that those kids might still actually be better off for the experience.
But I don’t believe that. I suppose my experience as a Canadian will be different from the experience of the average American, but this seems the kind of human issue that probably transcends. Anecdotally, I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard a variation of “We were so blessed that (name) came into our life”, I have never heard a variation of “(name) was so blessed that we adopted them”. And again…. This makes sense with an understanding of how the system works. Parents sit on waiting lists for years, sometimes decades, and aren’t able to adopt. Children up for adoption tend to be adopted quickly. There is an understanding in these circles that if it wasn’t you adopting that kid, someone else would have and been just as grateful.
Corso:
Your statement implies the existence of some rare dimension of reality where her statement does make sense. Could you describe that dimension of reality?
Grace
Someone thinks I got a guest essay in FTFNYT! That is just fucking priceless.
Grace @ 12
A dimension where we care more about narratives than the effect our professed policies might have on actual, living people. Painting the parents who adopt children outside their race as doing so for clout hits me as having energy similar to the arguments around miscegenation. Adoption saves lives. Both figuratively in the context of future outcomes and literally in the context of physical well being. Ignoring the truth of that to hyper focus in on fringe atrocities is gross.
Because eventually rubber has to hit the road. If the idea of adoptive parents being able to love their children is laughable, if all that comes out of interracial adoption is white clout and child abuse, why would we let it continue?
Neither Barry, nor Jaqueline, nor Elizabeth Spiers (who was quoted) spent a single word considering the possibility that the reason parents adopt children is because they want children and love them.
Barry has pointed out that sometimes parents do say that the proof they aren’t racist is that they adopted their black children.
To him, I’m arguing that that isn’t as shallow and laughable an argument as he seems to think it is.
Jaqueline came out of the gates with the specter of Joel Steinberg, who was convicted on charges relating to the rape and murder a six year old girl that he and his wife illegally adopted, and then followed that up with a quote from an article about Michael Oher, which referenced white saviorism in a case that is, to put it mildly, unrepresentative.
To her, I’m suggesting that a couple of shitty outliers is not representative of the adoption system (particularly since neither was adopted).
Jaqueline @13
Trust me. That wasn’t it. You quoted her… Why would you do that if you weren’t trying to forward the ideas as stated?
@Corso
There is definitely a saviour complex strain in some adoptive parents – there are Christian groups that encourage adoption as a way to save children (and especially their souls), particularly via international adoption. You can see it in some Christian adoptive family blogs. I don’t think that this is the ONLY motive these parents have, but it is a thing, and they do talk about it, especially when encouraging other Christian families to adopt.
Mostly true for adoption within the US, less true for international adoption, where there has been a lot of evidence from a lot of places for child stealing from poor or politically disadvantaged families. International adoption is where you see a lot of those Christian saviour blogs.
Adopted friends have told me that people have said to them as kids “you must be so grateful to have been adopted by your parents” or something similar, so its not like that sentiment isn’t out there too. And rapid adoption is definitely true for healthy babies/toddlers with no disabilities. Less true for sick kids, kids with disabilities, and older kids, especially older black kids.
Parents adopt because they want kids, yes, but they certainly can have more than one motivation. They can also adopt for love AND still use their adopted family members as cover for racist comments, attitudes, or actions.
That’s an excellent comment, JaneDoh
It’s ridiculous and unfair to suggest that that one panel of this cartoon is about “parents who adopt outside their race,” rather than about only certain parents who adopt outside their race. Also, as others have pointed out, people aren’t as simplistic as you’re painting them; people, including adoptive parents, can have good days as well as bad, contrary impulses, issues where they’re enlightened and issues where they’re behind, etc.. If a parent feels defensive and says something like “I can’t be racist, because I adopted nonwhite kids,” that doesn’t mean that they don’t love their children, nor that they adopted them “for clout.” And I don’t believe for a moment that you’re incapable of understanding that.
Because it’s so incredibly obvious that it goes without saying.
Barry @ 18
I think you’re partially avoiding what I’m saying, and not understanding the rest. Take this for instance:
I don’t think it’s ridiculous or unfair. Which “certain” parents, specifically?
Because just like you feel it’s obvious that you have considered the possibility that parents might adopt children and love them, I feel that it’s obvious that you’re talking about a subsection of parents larger than the ones who renamed their children “Prop”, “Shield”, or “Excuse”.
And frankly, I don’t take that people understand that parents love their kids for granted. Your mileage may vary, but it seems to me that there is a moral imperative in a subsection of activist classes that think that children need protection from their parents. Wholesale, not just a recognition that abuse is most likely to come from homes, but an expectation that if a child is at home long enough, abuse is inevitable. Jaqueline didn’t say “you’re wrong, I’m only talking about certain parents”, she came out swinging with reasons why it would be right to view parents with suspicion. Child murderers, White saviors. None of which actually used their adoptions as an excuse for racism. None of which actually adopted. You tell me what the point being made there was, because I’ve obviously missed it.
Regardless… None of this actually interacts with my point. Which I feel I need to remind people is that:
I don’t think [people citing their non-white children or spouses to argue that nothing they said could be racist is something we should make fun of], actually.
Instead of interacting with that, the conversation immediately careened into this alternate universe where I said that bad adoptive parents don’t exist. It’s almost like what I actually said was self-evident and uncomfortable.
The point I’ve made three times now (@9, @14 and here), which you’ve ignored completely, is that saying: “I’m not sure you’ve thought that out, you know who I married, right?” Is not as frivolous as you pretend it is, because it often has the benefit of being true.
And because you took issue with it, this is where “clout” comes in. Either you at least acknowledge the possibility that “I love the people I live with” is a legitimate statement of values, or you think they’re lying and they married and adopted for clout. What’s the third option?
If you don’t believe that they’re in it for clout, if you believe (or at least accept the possibility) that they actually love the people they live with, then we are talking about “racism” at a microscopic level, a kind of microagressive, well-intentioned-but-wrong bias.
In which case, someone could have just admitted that point and moved on.
@Corso
I’m curious: is it possible for me to be bigoted against people with idiopathic epilepsy? You see, I adopted a cat with idiopathic epilepsy, and I love her and will do almost anything to make her happy and keep her safe. I’m extraordinarily fortunate to have Goosy in my life.
Could I possibly exhibit anti-epilepsy bigotry? Keep in mind that I am a Woke Leftist, so if you, as a conservative, say that I am not bigoted in some way, you will sound quite silly. But how could I be bigoted against people with epilepsy given that I love my cat?
@bcb
I’m going to ignore the whole comparing people to animals thing here… Because I get where you’re coming from, but the relationship between people and animals is different and the comparison seems fraught for a number of reasons. Instead, let’s consider a hypothetical where you have an epileptic son.
Is it possible for you to be bigoted against epileptic people despite loving your son? Sure.
I’d argue a couple of things though;
1) This hypothetical still isn’t great because of the element of choice. You choose to marry, you choose to adopt, you choose your close friends. You don’t know what your children will be like. Most overt bigots won’t choose to hang out with people they hate. In this manner, the cat hypothetical might actually be better, but even then… People look for different things in their pets than they do in their close relations.
2) I’d argue that it’s significantly less likely that a person who genuinely loves their epileptic son is bigoted against epileptic people. If for no other reason than familiarity with something dispels a lot of the unknowns bigotry stems from.
3) And therefore, I would view an accusation of anti-epileptic bigotry towards a parent standing beside the epileptic son they obviously care for with a grain of salt, and if they chose to make that point, I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.
@Corso
Why not? People who love their nonwhite children can’t be racist? This isn’t a ridiculous excuse to not take responsibility for saying something racist? People who adopt nonwhite children get a free pass when they say something racist?
“I’ve got a black friend” has been a joke for years. “I’ve got a nonwhite kid” is the same sort of lame non-apology/refusal to take responsibility for doing or saying something racist. Just because someone means well doesn’t make their actions or words not hurtful.
If you are saying that someone who loves a nonwhite family member can’t possibly be racist, that is ridiculous. Sexist men love their mothers. Many also love their wives, sisters, or daughters. Doesn’t make them not sexist.
People who are not frothing at the mouth bigots might still have cultural and/or familial baggage that might need unpacking if it leads to racist actions or speech. People who are not generally racist can still say racist things. Everyone has blind spots. Covering for a blind spot with the justification that you love your non-white family member (as opposed to apologizing and trying to do better next time) seems like an ok target for mocking to me.
Jane @ 22
I’ve tried to respond to this a couple of times, but I find it really hard because it’s dripping in bad faith. I think my response to your general comment is probably the same as I have to this specific question:
Because you should take time to understand what someone is saying before you dismiss it, project your assumptions onto it, and work yourself up over it.
I haven’t said any of the things you’ve attributed to me. Not a single one. I didn’t infer, imply, or intend any of them.
These are absolutely bizarre characterizations on the heels of me saying in my previous comment:
The reason that “I’ve got a black friend” has been a joke for years (in your milieu) isn’t because the statement if true, isn’t meaningful… It’s because, like Barry pointed out, most of the time it isn’t true and that the person is referring to a work acquaintance that may or may not even know the claimant exists. To use my phrase: They’re saying they have a friend for clout.
Because this has been a joke for years, I think you’ve trained yourself to ignore the context of a person lying about a friendship as a shield and just applied your scorn to anyone who makes any similar statement.
(Edited to add)
Meanwhile… And this is important: The people outside of your milieu are not in on the joke. They haven’t trained themselves to think that pointing out associations is taboo. And they would have no reason to.
Considering some of the stories told by adult transracial adoptees …. there are a lot of people with non-white children who love them and have the best of intentions (at least in their minds) and still say and do a fuck ton of racist stuff.
Also, the argument of ” I can’t be racist, I have a black friend” is not only ridiculous because that friend often doesn’t really exist. It’s a non-argument because
1. You can love someone belonging to a minority and still have a shit ton of prejudices against that group – simply by thinking that the ones you love are “the good ones” or “not like that”
2. You can love someone and and hurt that person by saying or doing racist (or sexist, homophobic… insert bigotry of choice here) stuff.If you really love them, you will hopefully listen to them and learn to do better. That doesn’t mean that loving them magically erases all the stuff that growing up in this society taught you.
Really, I think the base issue here is that people who think that loving one (or several) member(s) of a minority means they can not be racist/ sexist/ bigotted against that group think that the only way to be such a bigot is to be actively hatefull towards these people and despise everybody who is part of that minority group. Think KKK regarding racism etc. They think that there is a binary, that racist is somethin you either are or are not.
Thus being called out when doing something racist is an attack on their entire character. But actually, when people say “that thing you did is racist”, they are not usually saying “and therefore you are practically the same as a neo nazi, everything you think is tainted by that racism and you will never be a good person”. What they are saying is “this specific thing you did enforces racist prejudices/ power dynamics/ societal structures etc…so stop doing that”. But if you think in that binary, where being racist is an intrinsic characteristic of a person that means hating all people of color, and you know there are people of color that you love, then of course you are going to refute that chriticism.
Which is why so many social justice advocates are focused on pointing out societal structures and power differentials that are based on racist prejudices. Calling out people when they do something racist means pointing out the prejudices – often unconcious – that inform the things that people say or do, and the way that their actions contribute to those societal structures of oppression.
(Now, obviously this is not always put into words. And, if we approch people with the assumption that they would accept critizism if it is explained to them (not my experience, but still…), we could argue that that critizism should always include those explanationts. But that leads to a whole different conversation on who should carry the burden of education on these issues.)
Basically, the people making these excuses think that “racist” is something you as a person either intrisicly are or are not, whereas the people refusing the excuses usually consider “racist” a characteristic of a specific action or statement – which then should be critized, because it causes damage – whether motivated by genuine hatred, ignorance of the problem, a misunderstanding or genuine good intentions. Effect is more important than intent, unintentionally caused damage is still damage.
(obviously, when people do racist shit all the time, they will eventually be considered racist independent of specific actions. But that’s yet another different issue.)
Don’t make personal attacks like this.
Don’t – I’ll say in advance – argue against this moderation by arguing “other people do it too.” Moderation-lawyering is unwelcome here.
Lauren @ 24
I think this is still a misunderstanding of my point, but I appreciate the effort. I’m not saying that having a black child is proof that a parent cannot be racist or do a racist thing. I’m saying that they might not be racist or the thing they’re doing might not be racist, and if they defend themselves and point out that their family is black, perhaps it bears considering.
Really… That’s my whole point. If you’ve read this far and don’t disagree with anything, frabjous day.
Further points, because I’m trying to say new things.
I think part of the reason this had my back up is that alongside a lot of personal experience, and baggage, it takes a lot of effort to adopt a child, and almost none to mock someone. I think that people who put in lifelong effort towards something as objectively good as adoption deserve better than progressive mockery for what is probably a linguistic difference.
And I really do view it is a linguistic difference… I view this metaphorically as someone who speaks Spanglish having a discussion with someone speaking Quebecois, and the Spanish person laughing uproariously when their opponents says they like to eat pie. (“Pie” is “foot” in Spanish)
Great victory.
I think most of us accept that conservative and progressive people view racism differently and use the term differently. The question I have is: Why do you think your usage is better?
I’ll make an argument as to why I think it’s worse: The way progressives use the term “racism” to describe a spectrum from overt, hostile bigotry to cultural appropriation to microaggressions, to things that have disparate impact or racial connotations makes saying “That’s racist” meaningless without context. Individual points on the spectrum of racism probably deserve their own term, and I feel like I might even have some sympathy for the idea of “racism” as a very broad classification if progressives uniformly acted as though it were, and maybe used those more discreet terms, but progressives either don’t have them or have opted to recognize terms so obscure, long or otherwise burdensome that even they don’t like using them in practice, so the default has just become “racism”.
More, I think that people would benefit from taking a giant step back and asking themselves “What if I’m wrong?”. It often feels like progressives have elected themselves experts on racism, which makes the inevitable reconciliations when individual progressives disagree on whether something is racist amusing. Although, to be fair, those have gotten evermore infrequent as the answer has become “It’s all racism”. But What if what that person said to illicit the charge of racism wasn’t actually racist? And who gets to judge that? And how do you prove it? How does someone respond when you’re wrong? Or do you think it’s impossible to be wrong about an accusation of racism?
Then how about explaining why the comment wasn’t racist beyond I love non-white people so therefore it can’t be? People can definitely wrongly accuse someone of racism (see various controversies about the word niggardly, for example). Things people say can definitely be misunderstood. But “I have non-white loved ones” is not an explanation, it is an attempt at a get out of jail free card.
If I call someone out, and they explain what they meant and I am wrong about what they said, I apologize to them for misunderstanding. When someone tells me something I said was offensive, I apologize. I don’t want to unknowingly cause other people pain. If I think they misunderstood me (and I care), I try to explain my meaning. I don’t say that what I said can’t be racist because I have mixed race nephews and I love them.
Most of the time these things happen in private conversation. There is no judge or jury, just the people involved at the time. If someone persists in making racist comments after I ask them not to, I try not to engage with them. If it is a family member, and I don’t think the fight is worth the trouble, I’ll give them a pass, but if they say racist crap often, I’ll try to avoid them. When it was my elderly grandmother who lost her filter as she got older, I changed the subject, since I knew by that point she wouldn’t stop.
There is no real punishment for saying racist things, unless you are a public figure (in which case YMMV). People who chose to be public figures are even more mockable for saying anything in this cartoon, since they are all about appearance and should know better.
This is the problem I have with the way this has been framed. The people we’re talking about don’t think like you. Why do they have an obligation to approach their own defense in the way that you’d prefer? Why don’t you have an obligation to meet them within their framework? This is an empathy problem… You aren’t demonstrating any.
I honestly don’t understand how you can believe this. Not only have people been having conversations for the better part of a decade on this, several of them have happened here. Students who got social media famous at a low point of their life, retail employees who get fired for not dealing with a shitty customer the best way possible. That everyone that could get cancelled doesn’t, or that some people recover from their cancellations, is very cold comfort to the people who get cancelled and don’t recover. It just means the mechanism for cancellation has all the consistency of a shorting bugzapper. We hear about it when it’s someone famous. When they aren’t famous, they just fall through the cracks.
Empathy with whom? Someone who offended me? Because of who I am, I get sexist crap thrown my way rather than racist crap, but after all these years I am out of *** to give. Maybe you are a better person than I am, but it is the death of a thousand cuts, and I just can’t care much that someone is offended because I think they said something sexist/racist. People don’t need to defend themselves to me. People can and do ignore what I say. In fact, I think saying nothing is better than saying “What I said can’t be racist because I adopted nonwhite children”.
Let’s go the other way – what do you do when someone makes a racist (or other bigoted) remark to you? If it is a random stranger, I just let it go (not worth engaging). If the consequences to me are not worth the trouble (personal safety or I fear retaliation at work), I also let it go. If it is someone I will likely interact with on a regular basis, I would rather let them know that I thought their comment was inappropriate and go from there. I don’t approach random people and interrupt their conversations to tell them I think they said something racist.
Personally, I think my MIL would be better off knowing that she regularly offends my SIL, and that is why SIL never visits (though she does send her husband and kids). Instead, MIL is sad and her kids don’t want to offend her by calling her out on her racist comments (that are not intended to hurt). She definitely uses the “I love my mixed race grandkids so I can’t be racist” defence. Its not my mother, so I butt out.
Because in real life, I have never seen a person experience any penalty at all for saying something racist. Not at work, not in school, not in my kids’ school and not in my personal life (unless you count being deprived of my company as a penalty – I don’t enjoy hanging out with people who make bigoted jokes all the time). I have witnessed lots of racist remarks, though. Yes, people sometimes go viral and rarely get cancelled, but it is a vanishingly tiny fraction of the people who say and do racist things. The usual response is for people to say or do nothing. Sometimes the room will go quiet. Sometimes someone will call out the person. Usually nothing happens.
hello! just chiming in here to say adoption is absolutely not “objectively good”
I wanted to link to Fugitivus’s excellent post on the matter (“Adoption Sometimes Gets All Fucked Up, 101”), but alas, it is a 13 year old blog, and I couldn’t find an archived copy anywhere
but just as some examples of bad things that might lead to adoption that make impossible for it to be objectively good:
• a child’s parents both dying. this is bad
• a child’s parent(s) not being given the material and social support by society that would allow them to be a good parent. this is also bad.
• a child being abused by their parent. this is bad.
• a child being removed from a functioning family because they are Indigenous (see the Sixties Scoop in Canada, and similar things elsewhere); because they are refugees (at the US border in the past decade; or due to other racial, ethnic, national, or religious prejudices. this is bad.
adoption may sometimes be the least bad outcome of a bad situation, but it is almost never the outcome of a good situation
also, lots of sexist men are married to women, and lots of racist white people are married to racialized people. you can love someone and choose them to be your family and still have absorbed lots of the sexism and racism that is the background radiation of our society
Here you go!
I think you may be wrong about who is “the people we’re talking about.”
You seem to be using the “people don’t think like you” in the “progressives vs non-progressives” sense.
(In another sense, no one thinks like me because no two people are alike, but obviously that’s not the sense you intend here).
What about this cartoon makes you think that’s how I intended it? Panel one clearly rejects a “lefties can’t be racist” framing. There is nothing about the panel you’re focusing on that suggests the woman isn’t politically progressive; going from the art (expensive looking hair, jewelry, cocktail) I’d say this character is wealthy and lives in a “sophisticated” milieu, which could be either left or right, but is stereotypically left.
They don’t. Criticism is not obligation.
You’re disagreeing with me and others, here, but it would be weird to say that by criticizing me you’re saying I’m obligated to do as you prefer, or to think like you. The same applies in reverse.
I don’t like it when ordinary people get “cancelled” in national media, and I’ve said so here multiple times. In nearly all circumstances, I think firing someone should be the last resort, not a go-to. But to leap from this to what your arguments imply – that it’s wrong to criticize a statement or act for being racist, apart from criticizing the most unambiguous KKK-style racism – is too extreme in the other direction.
I also very much agree with what Jane said – you’re talking about “a vanishingly tiny fraction of the people who say and do racist things” – but as Jane already said it so well I’m not going to hit on those points.
Which means you agree with the point that panel makes.
This needs to be it’s own point:
Yes! But you made a further point @5
To which my point, which you still haven’t interacted with was: No, that’s kind of shitty of you, these people probably don’t understand the point you’re making, and you don’t know what you don’t know about their situation.
Because progressives speak the language and are less likely to violate their own taboos. This isn’t determinative, obviously… One of my very first points was “Remember that most people don’t define racism the same way you do, and that the people most likely to say this are probably the least likely to use it the same way you do.” But I assume the people most likely to offend a progressive are the ones that either don’t care the progressive is going to be offended, or don’t understand the nature of the offense.
“Criticism” does some heavy lifting in this context. Is mockery criticism? Not “Is mockery a form of criticism”, but “Is mockery the same as criticism”? Because if the former… I’m not sure what your point is, but I doubt you mean the latter.
This is the same thing you did here, but attributed it to me:
I never said that it’s wrong to criticize a statement. I said it was wrong to mock people in this very specific situation. Do you actually use these words interchangeably? Is mockery criticism? Is criticism mockery? Is this a linguistic problem on my part? Or does your response to my argument fall apart when you actually interact with what I say?
Dragon_Snap
We obviously don’t disagree… There’s been an amount of tragedy in the lives effected, it’s not great when adoption becomes the best option.
But you aren’t interacting with what I said in context: My point, which I absolutely stand by, is that the act of adopting is as close to an objective good as you can find.
And even if you weren’t willing to take that into account, this almost perfectly encapsulates an issue I have with the way progressives tend to approach social issues: You often let real and concrete good things be the enemy of a utopian fiction. In the case where a parent is dead… What’s the better outcome? In the case where a parent is unfit… What’s the better outcome? What do the better situations even look like, in your mind? Because my impression is that your point amounts to “It would be better if the things that happened hadn’t happened…” To which, sure… But they did.
Is mockery criticism and criticism mockery in all cases? Of course not.
Can mockery be a form of criticism in the context of, say, a stand-up act or a political cartoon? Of course it can.
(Which, before you ask, isn’t the same as saying that mockery is invariably and without exception criticism in those contexts.)
(Also, mockery, like criticism, is also not the same as obligation.)
I was taking your comment (I believe) in context, but didn’t really express that very clearly. I don’t think that people who adopt are uniquely above a certain level of reproach, due to the “objective good” of adoption. both because I don’t believe in that being an “objective good”, and also because I don’t really think there’s anything that a person can do to exempt themselves from (a certain threshold of) criticism.
I do think that there are some matters which could be described as “cheap shots” or “low hanging fruit” or whathaveyou. but I don’t have an interest in making any kind of “shots”, cheaply or otherwise
there are racist dynamics at play in a lot of interracial adoptions (just as there are in other sorts of interracial families), and I think it’s worthwhile to acknowledge that and encourage people to think a bit more deeply on the subject of race, and how having racialized family members is not an automatic prophylactic against expressing racist (biased/prejudiced/stereotyping/etc) statements
No. It is one that is almost always portrayed as such, and it can be in many cases, but it is not a universal good (It’s also not the only way a person can end up with children not of their own race, but that’s a different issue).
The Fugitivus post has been linked (I didn’t even remember the name, just how much I loved her writing and insights, so thank you dragon_snap for mentioning it), and I think she had a couple of other posts that brought up the (yes, very often shaped by racist powerd dynamics) issues with transracial adoption. As have a lot of transracial and transnational adoptees.
Especially in cases of international adoption
– is it really the best option for a child that has already suffered trauma to be seperated from their culture and everybody they know?
– considering the cost of international adoption, how many more children could be helped if all that money was given to organizations dedicated to helping those children in their home country?
– how many adoptive parents are dedicated to making sure that their adopted child still has as much contact as possible with people of their culture/ family/ region/ nationality etc. as possible? How many of them learn about the religion that child was born into and ensure the child is raised either according to those believes or at least with enough knowledge of and respect for it to be able to make a truly informed decision about what faith to follow later in life?
– how many of those children are seperated from family mmbers who actually love them and would love to raise them?(there have been repeated stories of parents or other relatives giving children into government care when financially or otherwise not able to care for them at that moment with the expectaion of coming back for them when they can… and some of those children being gone at that point)
– how many view adoption as some form of “missionary” duty or mission?
– most crucial for this discussion: how many prospective adoptive parents of children of a different race than theirs actually take the time to learn what that actually means?
How many white adoptive parents specifically are told to examine their own privileges and blind spots to avoid harming that child? To take a close look at their friends and families to make sure that they can protect that child, even if that means cutting of contact with some of them if neccessary? To accept the fact that, no matter how good their intentions, living in the world we live in as white people, there will always be times we screw up, not because we are evil monsters, but because our society is drenched in systems of suppression, which are a lot harder to be aware of when you are the person profiting from it, even if you are doing so unknowingly?
Everything I have read about transracial and transnational adoption tells me that far, far too few adoptive parents put in that work ahead of adopting. And far too few agencies dealing with those kinds of adoptions require it. That doesn’t mean they have bad intentionts or that they don’t want what is best for their children (though simply the act of adoption also doesn’t automatically mean that they do). But it leaves far to many members of adoptive families struggling with realities that they were never prepared for. (And in that case, the parents realizing their lack of preparedness and struggling to rectify it is a much better outcome than the child being left to do so on their own).
Now, you might say that only “lefties” would think that kind of work is neccessary. That a childs culture and religion etc. is and should be based on how they are raised, not on their origin. But no matter how much white parents of non-white children might genuinely wish it was different, having white parents will not protect their children from other people being racist. And simply saying “I love you, the color of your skin doesn’t matter to me”, no matter how true and heartfelt, will not be enough to heal the wounds those children suffer.
Understanding racism – the history, the ways it has shaped our past, is currently shaping our present and will continue to shape our future for a long time as a societal power structure is crucial to being able to fight it. And no, white parents who have actually put in that work would not say “having a black/brown/asian child means I can not be racist”.
You say people who get (snarkily, mockingly) annoyed at those who try that excuse lack empathy. What do you think it feels like to be the black son who is pointed at whenever your father makes a racist joke about “those kinds” of black people, and when confronted, rather than asking himself if he is actually harming people – including the son he genuinely loves – he uses that son as a get-out-of-jail-free card? What is it like to be the asian granddaughter that people point at to prove that nonna isn’t really racist, because she loves her, and so you should stop when she is “just making jokes”, when those jokes are the same ones that other children a school make behind your back (or to your face?).
Has it occured to you that not letting people get away with that excuse, pointing out that loving a specific member of a minority does not automatically preempt you from having prejudices against that minority, is itself an act of empathy? That letting these people know that they are doing or saying things which are harmfull to members of that minority, including very possibly their own loved one, is actually the compassionate thing to do?
A second comment, because this is a completely different issue (also possibly getting to far of topic?): This idea that adoption is inherently good and unselfish can itself cause real harm. I am not going to quote the entirety of the article already linked, which does an amazing job of pointing out how that idea can be used against the birth parents, the adopted child, and the adoptive parents, depending on who people want to dismiss and discredit. But I will talk about my own experience.
I am “semi-adopted”. Objectively, I am the best-case scenario.
Since my biological father had never been in the picture, there was no issue of losing a loved one in one way or another. I never felt like my dad was trying to replace anyone. I kept my bio-parent and her family and simply gained a new one (plus a third set of grandparents and extra family since my dad’s first wife’s death didn’t mean him not being part of their family anymore). My dad adopted me after they got married; he insisted on making sure the adoption went through before my brother was born, so I would be their first child. There were no legal issues.
I love my dad. My brother and sister are my siblings; no “half” nonsense there.
And still, despite everything being as best-case scenario as you can get? Those social narratives about the universal good of adoption—the idea of adoptive parents doing something selfless and noble? They fucked me up. Not because anybody in my family ever expressed them, but because I grew up in a society that holds these views. Mix in the fact that that same society holds some really horrific views of single mothers and their children, how hard they have to look for a “good man” who will be willing to “accept” their children? The way that so many stories about good stepfathers or partners of women with children are held up as “extraordinary”? How often people talk about single mothers being “so lucky” if they can find a man who will love their children?
I was so freaking messed up. Completely convinced – through absolutely no fault of my parents or our family – that my dad was making some kind of noble sacrifice by marrying my mom and even – gasp – agreeing to be a father to her daughter. It has taken me actual years of therapy to disentangle the mess of “I can never criticize my father, he was so great to take me”, “”I have to be perfect, otherwise he might decide it’s not worth it anymore”, “I cannot allow any criticism of my mom to be true, because me existing already makes her a “bad catch”, anything more could destroy our family” but also “I am hyper aware of all of my mother’s faults, because they could destroy our family if I don’t make up for them somehow”.
Now, I am at a point where I can look at that mess, consider the fact that “bio dad never wanted anything to do with me” is actually an issue, even if not comparable to the loss of a parent; I am aware of the familial history of mental health issues; and I know enough about child development to be aware of the differences between “attachment” and “close, positive relationship” to work on all that and fight my way out of the spiral of “impossible-to-achive-perfectionism -> lack-of self-worth -> depression -> not-perfect-enough” that still sometimes crops up to pull me under.
I am actually at a point where I could tell my dad about it. You know what he said?
“I fell in love with both of you. Not your mom, and then “you came with it”. I married your mom because I wanted to be her husband, and I wanted to be your dad. There was nothing noble about it. I got exactly what I wanted”.
That was so incredibly important to hear. And it’s one of the reasons why I might react extra strongly when people talk about how great it is when people adopt children, as though it is this purely selfless, noble act. It’s not. And that is a good thing. Knowing that the adoptive parent gets something out of it that they want, not for some noble reason but just because they want it for themselves? That is so important for adopted children to know, and to grow up having acknowledged by the people around them and society at large.
Note: I am not saying that you personally believe all adoptive parents are good and noble. I am also not saying that I think all adoptive parents are acting selfishly (some surely are, but doing something for yourself and being selfish are obviously two very different things). I am saying that phrases like “the act of adopting is as close to an objective good as you can find” can be harmful without any harmful intent at all.
Adoptions are incredibly complicated. Sometimes they work out great. Sometimes they end terribly. Most of the time, they end up somewhere in between. Adoptive parents are people who can have all the same wonderful and horrible attributes that all people can have. And they can be motivated by the best or the worst of those characteristics at any point in their lives, just like all other people can. Putting them on some kind of pedestal doesn’t serve them or their children. Acting as if they are somehow more worthy of respect or faith than others ignores the reality that they are all people. Their act of adopting a child may have been objectively good or not. It depends on the circumstances. We can not know purely because of the fact that they adopted.
Acting as if we do is a disservice to their children and to them. Accepting that is the empathic thing to do.
No, it’s totally fine. Thanks for your comments, they were really interesting.
Wow Lauren, thanks for your comments.
Lauren, thank you for your detailed and nuanced comments. I learned a lot.
I know a family who, because they were not able to have a child biologically, adopted two very young children from another country. The children are clearly of a different race from their adopting parents, and up until they were adopted, knew only Spanish. The adopting parents promised to keep them speaking Spanish, but after a few months of trying, stopped trying because it was just too hard. The adopting parents themselves did not speak Spanish.
Also, just at the same time, the adopting parents, against all expectation, managed to conceive a child. So now they have three children, two of whom are adopted and clearly of a different race from their parents, and one who is not adopted and clearly the same race. The parents are thoughtful and have excellent intentions.
I don’t know them well and no longer participate in the community where I met them. But from what I saw, the interactions around race, language, and gender were complex and likely to remain so, especially for the children of color.
Grace