Thanks for having posted the link to the research study.  While we all may have had the same reaction (“Well, duh”) that you had, there may be more food for thought here, than is/was immediately apparent.  We might want to ask ourselves whether we RECOGNIZE racism in all its many forms—some blatant, but others quite subtle—that fly under our radar, but do NOT necessarily fly under our kids’ radar.  Anger and a sense of helplessness and powerlessness are major components of depression, and often, adopted kids DO struggle with depression because what they experience and how they feel about that goes unnoticed and thus, unacknowledged.  They do not get an invitation to express how they feel or if they do, what they say is dismissed.

      The following are some of the things transracially adopted kids notice, but do not know how to put words to, or don’t believe that it is permissible TO say to their parents.  They question their own observations, or think that they are invalid because their parents either don’t notice or do not give any weight to what they see/hear. 

      Many white adults say one thing, but do another.  Many youngsters describe having had adults comment positively to their parents about their conspicuous adoptions, but then give them disapproving looks, or pull far away as though any touch would contaminate them, or give looks of disgust as though they are dirty—when their parents are no longer looking or listening.  The kids “catch” the looks, but are confused by them because there is a discrepancy between what was said, and the behavior they observe. 

      Sometimes this happens in school.  School personnel claim that there is an anti-bullying program that has been adopted by the school district.  However, when a child is victimized, he/she is told that he/she misinterpreted what another child said or did, or asked what he/she did to cause the other child to say/do whatever it was, or is not believed.  It adds up to blaming the victim—the adopted child.  He or she feels confused, angry, unprotected, and powerless.  He or she stops reporting incidents because his/her experience has been ruled invalid so often.  The child becomes cynical—“What’s the point of reporting What’s the point of having an anti-bullying program?  Only the problems of the White kids are counted as important and worth doing anything about.” 

    A child or youth cannot prove that he/she was repeatedly passed over by a White adult, and left to feel invisible.  This is especially confusing when that self-same adult claims to value everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, or any other difference.  And as the conclusions of another important study on race were just announced and discussed on NPR a week or so ago, people are so wanting to be PC these days, that they are not conscious of their own biases.  They claim one thing, but do another.  Whom they associate with, whom they befriend, whom they vote for, whom they choose to promote if they are in a position of authority, etc… does not match their professed set of ideals. NO ONE wants to be viewed as a racist because that is SO frowned upon, but many people behave in ways that give away their true beliefs.  Children are very confused by that, especially if they do not live with and learn from adults of color who KNOW this, and thus, can validate their experiences.

    Many of our youngsters have the experience of having their teacher or another adult mistake them for the OTHER Asian kid in the class.  Or they are given photos—supposedly of them—only to look and see that they are of ANOTHER boy with dark skin. If and when they speak up about this, others think it is funny and laugh, not “catching” their feelings of hurt, resentment, and anger. 

      As our kids get older, they and their peers become more aware of stereotypes and may assimilate some of these into their own belief system.  Their experience usually is that peers do not stereotype them or people with whom they share race or ethnicity, but DO make comments that give away their stereotyped thinking about OTHER groups.  i.e. A child of Latino heritage may frequently hear his peers make negative comments that reveal stereotype- thinking about people of African American, or Asian heritage, or even about another ethnic group that is other than his.  While he may not say anything, his sense of self worth gets undercut because he is left wondering what his peers REALLY think of him and HIS racial-ethnic group, and what they say when he ISN’T around.  He may feel driven to do whatever he can to fit in, and not call attention to his own racial-ethnic heritage lest he and his racial-ethnic group be disparaged, and then feel guilty about that.  He may strive to not be associated with, or seen anywhere near people who look like him, lest he be viewed as exotic, foreign, and “different.”

    That same child may also be subjected to comments from the White kids that he is “almost like one of us,” while accused by Latino peers of “acting White.”  Since none of this involves bullying as parents sometimes define it, the child experiences this alone, and no one validates his experience of being victimized by racism.  He may not even name this as such, and therefore, the feelings he is left with go unexpressed, but have a lasting and toxic effect on his sense of self worth.

    Or a child sees what the parent does not, and is affected by that, in ways the parents do not catch.  For example, some of the youngsters I’ve worked with describe seeing only White people living in their rather affluent neighborhoods, and only see adults of color when they are flipping burgers, cleaning the houses of their neighbors, or pushing strollers because they are the nannies.  At school, the teachers, administrators, counselors, and nurses are White, and the adults of color are the janitors and cafeteria staff.  People of color mostly live in a different part of town, a part that is associated with crime and low income.  While their White parents react very strongly to any racialized bullying they experience at school, they do not seem to notice or talk about these other things that are happening around their child and family.

  Their parents claim to value everyone, but the kids ask:  “Then why doesn’t “EVERYONE” cross the threshold of our front door?”  Why are all of my parents’ friends White? Why is it that the only people who look like me are kids adopted like me, whose parents are the same race as mine?” Why do I only see adults like me when we go to a cultural event sponsored by an adoption group, at which the adults with shared race and ethnicity were hand-picked by the White parents to teach or perform.  The children note the segregation, but would not think to put words to what they observe until they are much older—often not until they are adolescents or young adults—and have been exposed to a different environment than the one they grew up in, so that they HAVE a basis of comparison.  They realize that they could have grown up in a racially diverse community instead of a racially isolated one, and wonder why their parents made the decision to adopt them if they were really only comfortable living amongst other White people. —those are the things I hear teen and adult adoptees saying, these days.They didn’t get to talk about that—that form of racism—when they were living it because they didn’t know to do so.  They only get to talk about it after the fact, when they are exposed to something different.  Most had parents who had no idea that the environment they were growing up in was HAVING such a negative effect on them, or made excuses for why they couldn’t or didn’t choose something else. 

    WE, as parents, have to become more aware of our kids’ experience of racism.  We have to see what is hidden in plain sight.  We have to “get it,” for example, when we stand at a store counter a bit behind our teen or adult son or daughter, and “see” that the clerk acknowledges and speaks to us rather than to them.  We have to “see” it when a White person shoplifts, but the teen of color is the one who is pushed up against the wall and accused after the store door alarm goes off because a hidden assumption is operating.  That he or she never gets an apology. —that our kids NEED TO TALK about THESE forms of racism—not just whether or not they get teased in the school yard. 

      If we are going to be able to help our children talk about the racism that they observe or experience or may undermine their ability to have equal opportunity in their adult lives, then we must first be able to recognize all of what racism encompasses.  We had been take some anti-racism training so that we DO “see” racism.  Many to most of us really do not, and thus, will not be prepared to validate the very different experience our kids have in the world from what our experience is, so that we CAN talk about it.

Jane A. Brown, MSW